your lordship."

"What is that, sir?"

"Why, my lord, I've been cramped up in this 'ere narrer box for
fourteen hours, and the seat's that hard and the back so straight up
that now I gets out on it I ain't got a leg to stand on."

"I'm sorry for the chair," I said.

He was a very thick-set man, and the whole of the jury burst into a
laugh. Then he went on, with tears in his eyes,--

"My lord, when I went home last night arter sittin' here so many hours
I couldn't sleep a wink."

I could not help saying,--

"Then it is no use going to bed; we may as well finish the business."

That was all very well for him, but another juryman arose, amidst
roars of laughter, and lifted up a hard, wooden-bottomed chair, and
beat it with his heavy walking-stick.

The chair was perfectly indifferent to the treatment it was receiving
after supporting the juryman for so many hours without the smallest
hope of any reward, and I then asked,--

"Is that to keep order, sir?"

The excitement continued for a long time, but at last it subsided, and
I suggested a compromise.

I said probably the gentlemen in the next case would not speak for
more than one hour each, and if they would agree to this I would
undertake to sum up in _five minutes_.

The husky lion sat down, and so did the musician. The jury acquitted
and went home.

These are some of the caprices of a jury which a Judge has sometimes
to put up with, and it has often been said that Judges are more tried
than prisoners. Perhaps that is so, especially when, if they do not
get the kind of rough music I have mentioned from the jury-box,
they sometimes receive a by no means complimentary address from the
prisoner. One occurs to my mind, with which I will close this chapter.

I had occasion to sentence to death a soldier for a cruel murder by
taking the life of his sergeant. It was at Winchester, and after I had
uttered the fatal words the culprit turned savagely towards me, and in
a loud, gruff voice cried, "Curse you!"

I made no remark, and the man was removed to the cells. Very humanely
the chaplain went to the prisoner and endeavoured to bring him to a
proper state of mind with regard to his impending fate.

On the day appointed for the execution I received by post a long
letter from the clergyman, enclosing another written on prison paper.

The letter was to tell me that for ten days he could make no
impression on the condemned man; but on the tenth or twelfth day