, this smudging, is very slight, but it exists; it is always
there. He will tell you that this envelope has been stamped as one and
alone,--by itself,--with peculiar care;--and I shall ask you to believe
that the impression has been procured by fraud in the Sydney
post-office. If that be so; if in such a case as this fraud be once
discovered, then I say that the whole case will fall to the ground, and
that I shall be justified in telling you that no word that you have
heard from these four witnesses is worthy of belief.

'Nothing worthy of belief has been adduced against my client unless that
envelope be so. That those four persons have conspired together for the
sake of getting money is clear enough. To their evidence I shall come
presently, and shall endeavour to show you why you should discredit
them. At present I am concerned simply with this envelope, on which I
think that the case hangs. As for the copy of the register, it is
nothing. It would be odd indeed if in any conspiracy so much as that
could not be brought up. Had such a register been found in the archives
of any church, however humble, and had an attested copy been produced,
that would have been much. But this is nothing. Nor is the alleged
letter from Mr. Allan anything. Were the letter genuine it would show
that such a marriage had been contemplated, not that it had been
solemnised. We have, however, no evidence to make us believe that the
letter is genuine. But this envelope,'--and he again stretched it out
towards the jury,--'is evidence. The impression of a post-office stamp
has often been accepted as evidence. But the evidence may be false
evidence, and it is for us to see whether it may not probably be so now.

'In the first place, such evidence requires peculiar sifting, which
unfortunately cannot be applied to it in the present case, because it
has been brought to us from a great distance. Had the envelope been in
our possession from the moment in which the accusation was first made,
we might have tested it, either by sending it to Sydney or by obtaining
from Sydney other letters or documents bearing the same stamp, affixed
undoubtedly on the date here represented. But that has not been within
our power. The gentlemen whom I shall bring before you will tell you
that these impressions or stamps have a knack of verifying themselves,
which makes it very dangerous indeed for fraudulent persons to tamper
with them. A stamp used in June will be hardly