116 THE MICEOSCOPE. 



The counsel for the prisoner was prepared to 

 dispute and to demolish all the previous evi- 

 dence that had been adduced, but all his efforts 

 failed to shake the testimony of the Microscope. 

 A verdict of guilty was returned by the jury, 

 and the prisoner paid the due penalty of his 

 atrocious crime on the gibbet. 



(3.) In another case which occurred a few 

 years ago, the question of guilt or innocence 

 hung upon still more doubtful evidence, until 

 the Microscope, bringing its powers to bear upon 

 a few hairs, and upon a few drops of blood, 

 determined a righteous issue. A girl, nine 

 years of age, was found lying dead, her throat 

 cut, in a plantation in Norfolk. Suspicion fell 

 upon the poor murdered girl's mother, who had 

 been seen by several persons to lead her child 

 to that plantation on the day on which the 

 murder was committed. But the accused coolly 

 and confidently maintained her innocence, ad- 

 mitted that she had been with the murdered 

 girl near the spot where she had perished, but 

 declared that the girl had wandered from her 

 side in quest of flowers ; and that after long in 

 vain searching for her, she (the mother) had 

 left her child in the wood where her dead body 



