consideration. Mrs. Strong says simply that the Lord Justice-Clerk, like
an old Roman, condemns his son to death; but I am assured on the best
legal authority of Scotland that no judge, however powerful either by
character or office, could have insisted on presiding at the trial of a
near kinsman of his own. The Lord Justice-Clerk was head of the criminal
justiciary of the country; he might have insisted on his right of being
present on the bench when his son was tried; but he would never have
been allowed to preside or to pass sentence. Now in a letter of
Stevenson's to Mr. Baxter, of October 1892, I find him asking for
materials in terms which seem to indicate that he knew this quite
well:--"I wish Pitcairn's 'Criminal Trials,' _quam primum_. Also an
absolutely correct text of the Scots judiciary oath. Also, in case
Pitcairn does not come down late enough, I wish as full a report as
possible of a Scots murder trial between 1790-1820. Understand, _the
fullest possible_. Is there any book which would guide me to the
following facts? The Justice-Clerk tries some people capitally on
circuit. Certain evidence cropping up, the charge is transferred to the
Justice-Clerk's own son. Of course in the next trial the Justice-Clerk
is excluded, and the case is called before the Lord Justice-General.
Where would this trial have to be? I fear in Edinburgh, which would not
suit my view. Could it be again at the circuit town?" The point was
referred to a quondam fellow-member with Stevenson of the Edinburgh
Speculative Society, Mr. Graham Murray, the present Lord Advocate for
Scotland, whose reply was to the effect that there would be no
difficulty in making the new trial take place at the circuit town; that
it would have to be held there in spring or autumn, before two Lords of
Justiciary; and that the Lord Justice-General would have nothing to do
with it, this title being at the date in question only a nominal one
held by a layman (which is no longer the case). On this Stevenson
writes, "Graham Murray's note _re_ the venue was highly satisfactory,
and did me all the good in the world." The terms of his inquiry imply
clearly that he intended other persons before Archie to have fallen
under suspicion of the murder (what other persons?); and also--doubtless
in order to make the rescue by the Black Brothers possible--that he
wanted Archie to be imprisoned not in Edinburgh but in the circuit town.
Can it have been that Lord Hermiston's p