into a purely imaginative
theory, I am sure that you will come to the conclusion that Sir Horace
Fewbanks met his death at the hands of the prisoner."

The junior bar agreed that the case was one which might go either way. If
they had possessed any money the betting market would have shown scarcely
a shade of odds. Everything depended on the way the jury looked at the
case, on the particular bits of evidence to which they attached most
weight, on the view the most argumentative positive-minded members of the
jury adopted, for they would be able to carry the others with them. In
the opinion of the junior bar the summing up of Mr. Justice Hodson would
not help the jury very much in arriving at a verdict. There were some
judges who summed up for or against a prisoner according to the view they
had formed as to the prisoner's guilt or innocence. There were other
judges who summed up so impartially and gave such even-balanced weight to
the points against the prisoner and to the points in his favour, as to
make on the minds of the jurymen the impression that the only way to
arrive at a well-considered verdict was to toss a coin. Another type of
judge conveyed to the jury that the prosecution had established an
unanswerable case, but the defence had shown equal skill in shattering
it, and therefore he did not know on which side to make up his mind, and
fortunately English legal procedure did not render it necessary for him
to do so. The prisoner might be guilty and he might be innocent. Some of
the jury might think one thing and the rest of the jury might think
another. But it was the duty of the jury to come to an unanimous verdict.
It did not matter if they looked at some things in different ways, but
their final decision must be the same.

Mr. Justice Hodson belonged to the impartial, impersonal type of judge.
He had no personal feelings or conviction as to the guilt or innocence of
the prisoner. It was for the jury to settle that point and it was his
duty to assist them to the best of his ability. He went over his notes
carefully and dealt with the evidence of each of the witnesses. It was
for the jury to say what evidence they believed and what they
disbelieved. There was a pronounced conflict of evidence between Hill and
Fanning. They were the chief witnesses in the case, but the guilt or
innocence of the prisoner did not rest entirely upon the evidence of
either of these witnesses. Hill might be speaking the truth and t