could possibly state them, with
such explanation of the law applicable to each case as my ability
would allow, and then leave the jury to find according to their honest
belief. No duty more arduous has ever since been imposed upon me, and
I performed it in my honest conscience, without swerving from what I
believed, and believe still, to be my strict line of duty.

I have had many opportunities of reconsidering the whole
circumstances, but I have never changed or varied my opinion after all
these years, and am certain I never shall--namely, that I did my duty
according to the best of my judgment and ability.

A Judge may go wrong in many ways, and often does in one way or
other, especially if he does not know his own mind--the worst of all
weaknesses, because it usually leads to an attempt to strike a medium
line between innocence and guilt.

One great weakness, too, in a Judge is not having the faculty of
setting out the facts in language which is intelligible to the jury,
or in not setting them out at all, but repeating them so often and in
so many forms that they are at last left in an absolutely hopeless
muddle. A Judge once kept on so at the jury about "if you find
burglarious intent, and if you don't find burglarious intent," that at
last the jury found nothing except a verdict of not guilty, giving the
"benefit of the doubt as to what the Judge meant."

As an illustration of the necessity of giving the jury a clear idea
of the evidence in the simplest case, I will state what took place at
Exeter. Juries are unused to evidence, and have very often to be told
what is the bearing of it. In a case of fowl-stealing which I
was trying, there was a curious defence raised, which seemed too
ridiculous to notice. It was that the fowls had crept into the
nose-bag in which they had been found, and which was in the prisoner's
possession, in order to shelter themselves from the east wind.

Forgetting that possibly I had an unreasoning and ignorant jury to
deal with, I thought they would at once see through so absurd a
defence, and did not insult their common sense by summing up. I merely
said,--

"Gentlemen, do you believe in the defence?"

They put their heads together, and kept in that position for some
time, and at last, to my utter amazement, said,--

"We do, my lord; we find the prisoner _not guilty_."

It was a verdict for the prisoner and a lesson for me.

It was always my practice, founded on much calculat