ime against a female patient. I need not give its details; it
is sufficient to say that if the girl's statement was true penal
servitude for life was not too much, for he was a villain of the very
worst character. Taking the ordinary run of evidence, if I may use the
word, and the ordinary mode of cross-examination, which, in the
hands of unskilled practitioners, generally tends to corroborate the
evidence-in-chief, the case was overwhelmingly proved, and how sad and
painful it was to contemplate none can realize who do not understand
anything below the surface of human existence.

I had watched the case with the anxious care that I am conscious
should be exercised in all inquiries, and especially criminal
inquiries, that come before one. I watched, and, let me say,
_especially watched_, for any point in the evidence on which I could
put a question in the prisoner's favour.

Upon that subject I never wavered throughout the whole of my career,
and the testimony of the letters which I received from the most
distinguished members of the criminal Bar--not to say that they are
not equally distinguished in the civil--will, I am sure, bear out my
little self-praise upon a small matter of infinite importance.

Everything in this case seemed to be overwhelmingly against the
unhappy doctor. No one in court, except himself, _could_ believe on
the evidence but that he was guilty.

I, who through my whole life had been studying evidence and the mode
in which it was delivered, believed in the man's guilt, and felt that
no cross-examination, however subtle and skilfully conducted, could
shake it.

I felt for the man--a scholar, a scientist--as one must feel for the
victim of so great a temptation. But I felt also that he was entitled,
on account of all those things which aroused my sympathy, to the
severest sentence, which I had already considered it would be my duty
to award him.

Then, under the New Act, which I had spoken against and written
against, as one long associated with all the bearings of evidence
given in the witness-box, the poor doctor stepped into that terrible
trap for the untruthful.

Let me now observe that, even before he was sworn, his _manner_ made a
great impression on my mind. And on this subject I would like to say
that few Judges or advocates sufficiently consider it.

The greatest actor has a manner. The man who is not an actor has a
manner, and if you are only sufficiently read in the human charac