158 THE SUTHERLAND CLEARANCES. 



us by Mr. Sellar's Junior Counsel in his report of his 

 client's trial. There are, however, a few of these facts to 

 which we shall take the liberty of directing the attention of 

 the reader. 



First Sheriff Mackid's evidence was objected to by the 

 Counsel for the accused, strangely departed from by the 

 Prosecutor, and commented upon by the Judge, in a manner 

 which would now neither be thought of nor listened to in 

 any Court of Law in the kingdom. 



Second The letters produced and read as to character 

 would not, under the present law of evidence, be permitted 

 to be read, and no judge would allow the jury to know of 

 their existence. In this instance they were not only read, 

 but the judge dangled them before the jury as documents, 

 " which," he said, " although not evidence, must have some 

 weight with the jury," and that immediately after pointing out 

 to them that the evidence led was "contradictor}'," and that 

 " the tenants suffered damage " in consequence of the 

 destruction of their barns by the accused, though, he added, 

 " there could be no doubt of the practice in the country, of 

 retaining these barns till the crop should be threshed out ". 

 These things were, no doubt, considered by the Jury, and it 

 is right that we also should consider them before coming 

 to a final verdict in our own minds as to the merits of the 

 whole case. 



Third One of the pleas of the accused was, that " the 

 ejectments were done in order of law, and under the 

 warrants of the proper Judge, issued on regular process. He 

 had brought regular actions of removing, and it was not 

 until after he had obtained decrees in these actions charging 

 the whole of the tenants to remove, and taken out precepts of 

 ejection against them, that they were, in the month of June, 

 actually removed from their lawless and violent possession " ! 



