MY AUNT'S GREAT POLICE CASE. 227 



at a Police-Court there was no jury. She had always thought 

 that all trials were by jury. After a silence, during which 

 she was considering this extraordinary defect in the British 

 Constitution, she startled me by exclaiming, suddenly, — 



"And no wigs ?" 



My shaking my head depressed her immensely : it brought 

 home to her the fact of " no wigs " in the liveliest manner. 

 She was getting more and more astonished at every revela- 

 tion concerning the administration of justice. 



" But," — she asked, in a tone of remonstrance, as much as 

 to say, " Come, this won't do, you know ; I can't really 

 believe you if you deny this " — " surely the Magistrate wears 

 a wig ? " 



I really wished he did, for her sake. She looked so utterly 

 aghast on my replying, " No, Aunt, he doesn't. No one 

 wears a wig." 



"A^^'one?" 



"No one.*' 



" It's very extraordinary," she observed, in a musing tone, 

 after a pause ; " I always till now thought they wore wigs, 

 I fancy I've seen pictures of them in wigs." 



Not finding me in a humour to question this effort of her 

 imagination, she looked at her watch, and reminding me that 

 I had to come and fetch \\qx: punctually at eleven ("so as to 

 be in time, for one may have to push through a tremendous 

 crush, and Doddridge is no sort of use in a crowd," she said), 

 she walked down the garden, with the step of an early martyr 

 going to the stake in the cause of Truth ; and shaking my 

 hand solemnly (still in the same sort of character as some 



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