

] 827.] Letter on djfairs in general. 191 



objectionable about it when the question is as to the price of a great coat, 

 or the quality of a cask of blubber, but would be something offensive to 

 decency ar,d good taste, where the matter at stake was a human creature's 

 life. 



This would only be unseemly; but whatever it is it is mere non- 

 sense to say that a judge would, or could, repress, or stop it. No judge 

 would be found to stop any defence made by a prisoner, or made by a 

 prisoner's counsel where the life of the culprit was at stake. It is true 

 the judge would have a new duty to perform ; and not of a very agreeable 

 nature : he would have to reply to the arguments of counsel, and to argue 

 with the jury against the prisoner which would be something unpleasant ? 

 It would sound oddly to hear the lord chief justice pleading as hard against 

 a dying wretch in a case of highway robbery, or burglary, as the Chief 

 Baron, for instance, pleaded against a defendant the other day, in a case of 

 libel. But another objection arises, far more important than that of un- 

 seemliness ; 1 think it more than likely that the ends of justice would 

 frequently be compromised by the alteration proposed. It is not the " ma- 

 kers of speeches" alone who would be employed as counsel in the defence 

 of prisoners. Their custom would be worth the having of better people 

 of men of real ingenuity, subtlety, and discretion. And if there be a case 

 or a subject upon which such a man might easily get up an argument 

 which should mislead and perplex twelve persons of weaker intellect than 

 himself, it is that very description of case or subject which is presented in 

 in three-fourths of the most important trials which arise in the criminal 

 judicature of the country. 



Of all descriptions of proof or evidence, that given in criminal cases, is 

 generally the most open to cavil, and the most easy to perplex. And the 

 higher we go in the scale of enormity, the more difficult it is generally, by 

 plain and direct evidence to bring guilt home to the culprit. Murder is a 

 crime, almost invariably proved and necessarily by the mere evidence 

 of circumstances. By evidence, which, when we come to canvass it, 

 seems frequently frightfully slight : and yet which is the very best that, 

 under the circumstances, can exist to be adduced. To take the case of 

 Thurtell for instance a case that will be in general recollection nobody 

 has ever doubted the justice of the verdict in that case; and yet I cannot 

 be persuaded that, to a lawyer of a certain description of talent to such a 

 man as the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas was who might have ad- 

 dressed the jury, something almost more than a chance for a verdict of ac- 

 quittal was presented. The poor wretch himself who was tried, was a 

 coxcomb as well as a villain. Some strangely judging person wrote a 

 speech for him, every word of which was out of the way which pointed 

 to his safety : he fancied that he spoke it like Kean the actor ; was de- 

 lighted and hanged. But how fragile was all the proof in that case, if 

 it had been handled by an advocate, who, instead of uttering tropes, 

 would have pointed out difficulties and discrepancies'? 



Two men by their own admission, accomplices after the murder 

 beyond much reasonable question, to all moral purpose, accomplices before 

 it the one having concealed the body of the murdered man in his house 

 the other, the man who first shewed that he knew the place in which it 

 had been eventually disposed of both these fellows, notorious villains, 

 long before the murder in question both having shared the plunder gained 

 by the murder both these had been absolutely pardoned (when it was 

 found that one would not do) a course almost unprecedented to get 



