DECEMBER 433 



vapour like smoke boinc; backwards by the wind. This mild and 

 open weather is very favourable to the cows and cattle, which can 

 run upon the pastures all day, saving the hayricks by filling 

 themselves with grass, and at the same time finding healthy 

 exercise. 



To-day another magistrate and I held a special sittings of the 

 Bench to try the case of a girl of sixteen years of age who was 

 accused of the crime of attempted suicide. She ran away from 

 the farmhouse where she was in service, and on being sent back 

 by her parents, as it is alleged, tried to drown herself in a pond. 

 The case was chiefly remarkable for the curious discretion shown 

 by this child. When cautioned by the police-constable on her 

 arrest, she made no statement whatsoever ; also when the option was 

 given her, under the provisions of the new Act, of giving evidence, 

 she declined to go into the box or to say anything ; with the result, 

 I am glad to say, that there was practically no legal evidence upon 

 which she could be committed for trial. In the end, with the 

 consent of her father, on the application of a representative of the 

 Police Court Mission, a society to whose admirable work, after some 

 years of experience, I wish humbly to testify, she was handed over 

 to its charge, to become an inmate of a training home. 



December 17. — Yesterday and to-day we have been shooting 

 cock pheasants in Hedenham and Tindale woods, in weather 

 more mild, I think, than any that I can remember at this time of 

 year. 



When standing in silence at the far end of a long beat it is 

 curious and strangely interesting to watch the behaviour of the 

 various beasts and birds which it contains. Every one of these 

 creatures hears the beaters the moment they set foot in this 

 section of the wood, and while they are still a quarter of a mile 

 or so away at once devote their minds — or instincts — to escape. 



W^hen the Gun at the far end of the fell takes up his stand there, 

 a complete stillness will probably reign about him, broken only 

 at intervals by the aggressive chatter of a golden-billed blackbird, 



F F 



