pen daylight during the hour of evening
service on a Sunday. Only a couple of maids would have been in the
house had I not been suffering from two black eyes contracted during
the Saturday's football game. Though I had accompanied the others out,
decidedly my appearance might have led to misinterpretations in
church, and I had returned unnoticed. The men escaped by some method
which they had discovered of scaling a high fence, but I was close
behind following them through the window by which they had entered.
Shortly afterward I happened to be giving evidence at the Old Bailey
on one of the many cases of assault and even murder where the victims
were brought into hospital as patients. London was ringing with the
tale of a barefaced murder at Murray Hill in North London, where an
exceedingly clever piece of detective work, an old lantern discovered
in a pawnbroker's shop in Whitechapel--miles away from the scene of
the crime--was the means of bringing to trial four of the most
rascally looking villains I ever saw. The trial preceded ours and we
had to witness it. One of the gang had turned "Queen's evidence" to
save his own neck. So great was the hatred of the others for him and
the desire for revenge that even in the court they were hand-cuffed
and in separate stands. Fresh from my own little fracas I learned what
a fool I had been, for in this case also the deed was done in open
daylight, and the lawn had tight wires stretched across it. The young
son, giving chase as I did, had been tripped up and shot through his
abdomen for his pains. He had, however, crawled back, made his will,
and was subsequently only saved by a big operation. He looked in
terrible shape when giving evidence at the trial.
The giving of expert evidence on such occasions was the only
opportunity which the young sawbones had of earning money. True we
only got a guinea a day and expenses, but there were no other movie
shows in those days, and we learned a lot about medical jurisprudence,
a subject which always greatly interested me. It was no uncommon sight
either at the "London" or the "Poplar," at both of which I did interne
work, to see a policeman always sitting behind the screen at the foot
of the patient's bed. One man, quite a nice fellow when not occupied
in crime, had when furiously drunk killed his wife and cut his own
throat. By the curious custom of society all the skill and money that
the hospital could offer to save a most valuable li
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