tences: you
must all of you undergo a term of five years' penal servitude."

Whereupon Tom Chambers was furious. Up he jumped, and said,--

"Really, sir; really--"

"Yes," said Knox, "really."

"Well, then, sir, you can't do it," said the counsel; "you cannot
give penal servitude for petty larceny. Here is the Act" (reading):
"'Unless the prisoner has been guilty of any felony before.'"

"Very well," said the Recorder; "you, Brown, the actual thief, and
you, Jones, his accessory in the very act, not having been convicted
before, I am sorry to say, cannot be sentenced to more than two years'
imprisonment with hard labour, and I reduce the sentence in your cases
to that; but as to you, Robinson, yours is a very bad case. The jury
have found that you were _mixed up_ in this robbery, and I find that
you have been convicted of stealing apples. True, it's a good many
years ago, but it brings you within the purview of the statute, and
therefore your sentence of five years will stand."

CHAPTER XLVI.

THE NEW LAW ALLOWING THE ACCUSED TO GIVE EVIDENCE--THE CASE OF DR.
WALLACE, THE LAST I TRIED ON CIRCUIT.

I should like to make an observation on the recent Act for enabling
prisoners to go into the witness-box and subject themselves, after
giving their evidence, to cross-examination.

It must be apparent to every one, learned and unlearned in its
mysteries, that no evidence can be of its highest value, and often is
of no value, until sifted by cross-examination. I was always opposed
to this process as against an accused person, because I know how
difficult it is under the most favourable circumstances to avoid the
pitfalls which a clever and artistic cross-examiner may dig for the
unwary.

It did not occur to me in that early stage of the discussion on the
Bill that a really true story _cannot_ be shaken in cross-examination,
and that only the _false_ must give way beneath its searching effect.

I had to learn something in advocacy; indeed, I was always learning,
and the best of us may go on for ever learning, as long as this
wonderful and mysterious human nature exists.

However, I am not writing philosophical essays, but relating the facts
of my simple life, and I confess that the case that came before me on
this occasion totally upset my quiet repose in all the comfortable
traditions of the past. Human nature had something which I had not
seen: it arose in this way. A doctor was accused of a terrible
cr