ray that
you will be pleased to advise her Majesty to grant her most
gracious pardon to the said Thomas Maguire.

This was a startling event; it was a proceeding utterly without
precedent. Nothing but the most extraordinary circumstances could have
called it forth. The blunder of the jury must have been open, glaring,
painfully notorious, indeed, when such an astonishing course was
adopted by the whole staff of the English Press.

It was most embarrassing. For what had those newspaper reporters seen
or heard that the jurors had not seen and heard?--and yet the jurors
said Maguire was guilty. What had those reporters seen or heard that
the judges had not seen and heard?--and yet the judges said they
"fully concurred in the verdict of the jury." The reporters were not
sworn on the Evangelists of God to give a true deliverance--but the
jurors were. The reporters were not sworn to administer justice--were
not dressed in ermine--were not bound to be men of legal ability,
judicial calmness, wisdom, and impartiality--but the judges were. Yet
the unsworn reporters told the government Maguire was an innocent man;
while judge and jury told the government--_swore_ to it--that he was a
guilty murderer!

What was the government to do? Was it to act on the verdict of
newspaper reporters who had happened to be present at this trial,
and not on the verdict of the jury who had been solemnly sworn in the
case? Behind the reporters' verdict lay the huge sustaining power of
almost universal conviction, mysteriously felt and owned, though as
yet nowhere expressed. Everyone who had calmly and dispassionately
weighed the evidence, arrived at conclusions identical with those of
the Press jury, and utterly opposed to those of the sworn jury. The
ministers themselves--it was a terribly embarassing truth to own--felt
that the reporters were as surely right as the jurors were surely
wrong. But what were they to do? What a frightful imputation would
public admission of that fact cast upon the twelve sworn jurors--upon
the two judges? What a damning imputation on their judgment or their
impartiality! Was it to be admitted that newspaper reporters could
be right in a case so awful, where twelve sworn jurors and two judges
were wrong?

And then, look at the consequences. The five men were convicted
in the one verdict. There were not five separate verdicts, but
one indivisible verdict. If the (jurors') verdict were publicly
vitiated--if t