TRIAL OF THE BRAES CROFTERS. 8 1 



at the bar. In fact the public prosecutor never anticipated 

 having to prove a charge of assault, and had no evidence to 

 support it. The turn the case took when the Court held 

 his main charges irrelevantly stated had taken him by sur- 

 prise, and he ought then to have thrown up the whole case. 

 He had not done that He had led evidence which showed 

 that the prisoners had done certain things which might or 

 might not be criminal, but which certainly did not constitute 

 the crime with which they now stood charged, nor, for that 

 matter, any of the crimes with which the indictment, as it 

 originally stood, sought to charge them. The prosecutor 

 had not stated the grounds upon which he asked for a con- 

 viction on the charge of assault, there were none to state. 

 The only hope he could have was that the Court would 

 convict them of a crime of which they were not guilty, 

 because the evidence showed that they came near commit- 

 ting another and a totally different offence with which they 

 could not be charged. If this was the hope of the prose- 

 cutor, he hoped it would be disappointed, and that these 

 men would not be convicted of a crime of which they were 

 not guilty simply because some victims were required to 

 shield officials from the charge of playing a huge practical 

 joke at the expense of the public. I shall now, with your 

 Lordship's permission, go over the evidence shortly, and I 

 think I shall be able to show that there is no evidence no 

 reliable evidence that any one of the accused committed 

 an assault, while there is a considerable amount of reliable 

 evidence to show that not only was no assault committed, 

 but that Martin and the ground-officer were on the best of 

 terms with the prisoners while they were together terms so 

 friendly that the idea of an assault having been committed 

 during the interview is utterly precluded. As to Robertson, 

 he was clearly not a popular favourite, and he retreated 



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