s, had very seldom a prisoner to
try. You may therefore imagine with what stupendous importance he was
invested when he found that the rural magistrates had committed a
little boy for trial for stealing a _ball of twine_. Think of the
grand jury filing in to be "charged" by this judicial dignitary.
Imagine his charge, his well-chosen sentences in anticipation of
the one to come at the end of the sitting. Think of his eloquent
disquisition on the law of larceny! It was all there!

After the usual proclamation against vice and immorality had been
read, and after the grand jury had duly found a true bill, the next
thing was to find the prisoner and bring him up for trial.

We may not be sentimental, or I might have cried, "God save the
child!" as the usher said, "God save the Queen!" But "Suffer little
children to come unto Me" would not have applied to our jails in
those miserable and inhuman times. Mercy and sympathy were out of the
question when you had law and order to maintain, as well as all the
functionaries who had to contribute to their preservation.

"Put up the prisoner!" said the Recorder in solemn and commanding
tones.

Down into the jaws of the cavern below the dock descended the jailer
of six feet two--the only big thing about the place. He was a
resolute-looking man in full uniform, and I can almost feel the
breathless silence that pervaded the court during his absence.

Time passed and no one appeared. When a sufficient interval had
elapsed for the stalwart jailer to have eaten his prisoner, had he
been so minded, the Recorder, looking up from behind the _Times_,
which he appeared to be reading, asked in a very stern voice why the
prisoner was not "put up."

They did not put up the boy, but the jailer, with a blood-forsaken
face, put himself up through the hole, like a policeman coming through
a trap-door in a pantomime.

"I beg your honour's pardon, my lord, but they have forgot to bring
him."

"Forgot to bring him! What do you mean? Where is he?"

"They've left him at Chelmsford, your honour."

It seemed there was no jail at Saffron Walden, because, to the honour
of the borough be it said, they had no one to put into it; and this
small child had been committed for safe custody to Chelmsford to wait
his trial at sessions, and had been there so long that he was actually
forgotten when the day of trial came. I never heard anything more of
him; but hope his small offence was forgotten as well as