246 BITS OF BIOGRAPHY. 



After his trial, MARTIN, the York Minster Incendiary, became 

 an inmate of Bethlehem Hospital, St. George's Fields. On learning 

 this I gave him a call. It was an awful visit; not as regards my 

 friend himself, but as regards such as were under the same roof 

 with him. I went into a yard appropriated to those who had been 

 acquitted of various crimes on the ground of insanity. Some were 

 walking to and fro, singly and in groups; many were sitting about 

 in the sun, conversing on common topics ; one was practising a 

 pirouette ; another took off his hat every ten paces, threw it in the 

 air, then dropped rapidly on his knees, assumed the attitude of vehe- 

 ment supplication for the smallest possible division of time, arose be- 

 fore the hat fell, and attempted to catch it, not with his hands, but 

 his head. He frequently succeeded, for long practice had rendered 

 him skilful at this strange, mad, miserable game. A third, with his 

 hands fettered to an iron band belted about his loins, entreated me 

 to give him a few halfpence to buy tobacco. The keeper whispered 

 his crime in my ear, and I shrank from him with mortal disgust. A 

 pale attenuated creature, of gentlemanly manners, offered me snuff: 

 we talked for a few moments as to the relative merits of Bolongaro 

 and Hardham's Thirty-Seven, and an exchange of boxes was the 

 climax of our conversation. 



Many years before, I had been present at the trial of a man for an 

 attempt to kill his wife, after having lived with her in uninterrupted 

 concord for almost half a century. She was the principal witness : 

 the case was clearly proved, and the judge called on the prisoner for 

 his defence. It amounted to a simple denial of the imputed crime. 

 Aggravated at this, the poor wife rushed up to the bar, exclaiming 

 with a simplicity that even affected the clerk of the arraigns, " Oh ! 

 John, wilt thee make me out a liar too ? Hasn't thee done enough ? 

 He's mad, gentlefolks, he is truly !" 



And over those iron spikes which surrounded that terrific pew the 

 old pair thrust out their gaunt and shrivelled arms, and in a convulsive 

 hug forgot their mutual misery. They had had nine children, all of 

 whom were dead but one ; and he, the youngest, was supposed to be 

 far away, fighting as a corporal of Sepoys, in the torrid East. 



" Mad !" exclaimed the Judge, " what does the poor woman mean ? 

 How is this ?" " Oh ! my lord," said an old man, in a timid faltering 

 tone, " he has been mad, off and on, these two years. I'm sorry to 

 bear witness against a neighbour, but truth is truth." 



The Jury rose the barristers rose the whole court rose, and the 

 Judge energetically exclaimed, " Man, come forward ! Good God ! 

 we might have capitally convicted we might have legally murdered 

 him ! Had the wife dropped the least hint poor ignorant creature 

 that he was insane " 



" I be'ant insane," blubbered the aged prisoner, raising his head 

 from his wife's shoulder. " I be'ant mad," he vociferated, still 

 hugging the decrepid darling of his youthful days : " I be worse 

 I've had a fall I be wicked I knew what I was about. You may 

 deceive yourselves, but you can't deceive me." The human rock 

 had been touched by the mystic rod ; his tears had gushed out ; but 



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