ffence; and not only so, he is serving justice itself and not the
criminal only. Even the judges have no authority to punish, except
these provisions of law are complied with and the offence be proved.
Who has not heard of the indictment of the two Bournes in Vermont, and
of their having pleaded guilty to the crime of murder, for which they
were on the eve of being executed, when the supposed murdered man put
in his appearance? How much better would justice have appeared had
the defence been conducted by a tenacious, faithful, and conscientious
lawyer instead of being conducted in such a bungling manner that the
bones of a horse did duty for the bones of the supposed murdered man!
That case has done better duty as a bugbear for a century than any
other legal decision."

Mr. Burchard became quite warm, and made the assertion that he would
never take a retainer, and afterwards, no matter what knowledge he
should subsequently acquire, desert a client; and he doubted if a
conscientious lawyer had a moral right to refuse to defend a brother
mortal accused of crime. "For the refusal," said he, "proceeds upon
the ground taken by the doctor, which substantially is that no defence
ought to be made, but that sentence should be passed upon a real
criminal whether the crime can be proved or not. And I am at a loss to
discover how my friend the doctor can approve of the requirements of
the statutes which have been referred to, and yet assert that honest,
conscientious lawyers alone cannot comply with them."

Mr. Burchard, feeling that he had been somewhat more enthusiastic than
the occasion demanded, changed the subject in this wise:

"You all remember that a certain firm in Philadelphia made a special
deposit of eighteen thousand dollars in gold in the Trust Company, and
some expert thieves by means of a forged check obtained possession of
the money. The manner of accomplishing the feat was peculiar and was
most adroitly carried out. The thief drove so sharp a bargain for
funds current in New Orleans that the cashier's mind was diverted from
the genuineness of the check to the percentage of exchange to be
realized by the operation. Many propositions were made on both sides
which were not mutually satisfactory. At last the rogue told the
cashier that rather than submit to imposition he would take the gold,
and the eighteen thousand dollars were handed over to him in
twenty-dollar gold-pieces. The forgery was not discovered till
t