n offence foul, strange, and unnatural, little short of
murder. The lawyer treats crime in the same way: his business is the
chase of it; but, that it may exist for the chase, he lays down rules
protecting it against surprises and capture by any methods but those of
the forensic field.

"One good turn deserves another, and as the lawyer owes his business to
crime, he naturally makes it his business to favour and spare it as much
as possible. To seize and destroy it wherever it can be got at, seems to
him as barbarous as shooting a bird sitting, or a hare in her form, does
to the sportsman. The phrase, to give _law_, for the allowance of a
start, or any chance of escape, expresses the methods of lawyers in the
pursuit of crime, and has doubtless been derived from their practice.

"Confession is the thing most hateful to law, for this stops its sport
at the outset. It is the surrender of the fox to the hounds. 'We don't
want your stinking body,' says the lawyer; 'we want the run after the
scent. Away with you, be off; retract your admission, take the benefit
of telling a lie, give us employment, and let us take our chance of
hunting out, in our roundabout ways, the truth, which we will not take
when it lies before us.'"

* * * * *

As I perceive that Mr. Sharp has not yet made much impression upon the
desponding prisoner, suffer me to recommend to your notice another
sensible leader: the abuse which it would combat calls loudly for
amendment. There is plenty of time to spare, for some preliminaries of
trial have yet to be arranged, and the judge has just stepped out to get
a sandwich, and every body stands at ease; moreover, gentle reader, the
paragraphs following are well worthy of your attention. Let us name
them,

"MORBID SYMPATHIES.

"We have often thought that the tenderness shown by our law to presumed
criminals is as injurious as it is inconsistent and excessive. A
miserable beggar, a petty rioter, the wretch who steals a loaf to
satisfy the gnawings of his hunger, is roughly seized, closely examined,
and severely punished; meanwhile, the plain common sense of our mobs, if
not of our magistracy, has pitied the offender, and perhaps acquitted
him. But let some apparent murderer be caught, almost in the flagrant
deed of his atrocity; let him, to the best of all human belief, have
killed, disembowelled, and dismembered; let him have united the coolness
of consummate craft to the