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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



"NOT PROVEN." 



There are certain set phrases it is alike difficult to 

 define and dangerous to rely upon. "The prisoner 

 was attired in the lieight of fashion" — that is, 

 in a satin waistcoat nil covered with rings and chains, 

 a sky-blue neckcloth, and " superfine" black continua- 

 tions. Or, " The dinner was in Mrs. Jones' usual style 

 of excellence ;" which being interpreted means in- 

 different fare, badly cooked, and worse served. Or, 

 " The worthy chairman returned thanks in an 

 eloquent address" — remarkable, of course, for pain- 

 ful pauses, miserable reiterations, and bad 

 grammar. In fact, as often as not, these con- 

 ventionalities of speech have almost a reverse 

 signification to that a first reading would give them. 

 The law especially delights to deal in such contra- 

 dictions. A six-foot fellow, as strong and as stout as a 

 Guardsman — as very likely he is — comes complacently 

 tobei'cgaidedas "an infant." Another, well-known tobe, 

 and quite ready to admit that he is guilty, is judicially 

 advise d to affirm that he is not ; while in Scotland, 

 when a charge is directly proved against a man, they 

 say it is " not proven." 



There is a nice distinction in this. It does 

 not go so far as to say a man is actually 

 guilty, or really innocent, of the offence urged 

 against him, but merely that there was not sufficient 

 evidence to prove it. So it has happened with Mr. 

 Paton, the celebrated exhibitor of Ayrshire cattle. He 

 certainly told Mr. M'Culloch about the false horns before 

 the other had time to discover them. " He took me 

 aside, and said the first-prize bull had a pair of false 

 horns on ;" and "I had a conversation with Paton about 

 the inflation of both bulls, aud it was after this he 

 made the deduction in the price." Then, says Lord 

 Neaves, in his address to the jury, they will have to 

 decide Jirst — whether the artificial horns were put 

 on and the bulls inflated, and whether Paton did 

 it, or knew of it. Considering that the purchaser 

 pulled the horns off, and the exhibitor confessed they 

 had been put on — that the punctured wounds were 

 sworn to, and one animal as decisively declared by the 

 judges to have been inflated when brought before 

 them — the intelligent jury could have had little to 

 bother them over this point. Secondly, continues his 

 lordship, whether Paton intended to deceive. At any 

 rate he took M'Culloch aside, instead of declaring 

 publicly the bull to have false horns. Surely the 

 acute jurymen could not have much to discuss 

 here. Thirdly — did he succeed in deceiving ? In 

 answer to this, one of the judges swears that 

 he should not have given the bull the prize 

 had he known the animal had false horns. Another, 

 had he discovered it, would have reported the case to 

 the committee. Again must the intelligent gentlemen 

 of the jury have had no great difficulty to determine. 

 Fourthly, was it in consequence of these deceptions 



the prizes were awarded to the animals? We have here 

 hut the same reply. One of those who awarded 

 these prizes would not have done so had he 

 known the bull had false horns ; and another, 

 had he seen the bull in its natural state, would 

 not have given it the first prize. By all this 

 evidence " it was the duty of the juiy to dis- 

 cover whether the prisoner was guilty of the 

 particular crime charged against him in the in- 

 dictment." And in twenty minutes — it took them 

 actually no longer — this model panel arrived at their 

 grand discovery ; and came back into court, conscien- 

 tious and unanimous, with that famous Scotch edict, 

 " Not proven." 



Mr. Paton told the purchaser the bull had false 

 horns on, but the jury could not say he knew it; 

 and so 7i,ot proven. Mr. Paton told no one of these 

 false horns but the buyer of tlie bull, and not then till 

 after the purchase was made, and so, of course, he 

 could not mean to deceive any one — decidedly, not 

 proven, again. Either intentionally or unintentionally 

 he could not have succeeded in deceiving any one, be- 

 cause the judges would not have awarded the prizes 

 had they known of these horns — clearly, not proven. 

 And any such deceptions could have had nothing what- 

 ever to do with obtaining the premiums, simply because 

 the judges say they had — most unquestionably and dis- 

 tinctly — most unanimously, " not proven.'" And the 

 prisoner leaves the bar " without the slightest stain on 

 his character." And we glory, as Britons should do, over 

 that great national right, trial by jury. And we ponder 

 well over those mystic words " not proven." And we 

 question no longer the Oracle of old, which gave forth 

 its edicts in phraseology so peculiar and so puzzling. 



However groundless the charge may have been 

 against Mr. Paton, we cannot altogether regret that the 

 Ayrshire Agricultural Association should have pro- 

 ceeded thus far with the inquiry. In the first place, 

 the verdict of this unanimous and intelligent jury 

 clears the reputation of a much-injured man j 

 and in the next, the summing up of the judge 

 warns us that such practices cannot be indulged in 

 with impunity. Lord Neaves himself unmistake- 

 ably regards them as indictable offences, while 

 ho adds it was " conduct no honourable or 

 honest man would be guilty of." Most probably we shall 

 now never know who was the offender in this case — 

 who it was that actually took the bull by the horns— 

 but that he will travel down to posterity with our other 

 great secrets — the JIan in the Iron Mask, the death of 

 Eliza Grimwood, and the author of Junius' letters. 

 It will be, though, a question heieafter, for the serious 

 consideration of our agricultural societies, whether an 

 exhibitor shall not be liable for the acts of his servants 

 — Qui facit per alium tacit per se. Somebody or 

 other must have blown out, and touclied up the head- 



