to my jury to return
either verdict, and thus keep the reader in a state of mild suspense
during the progress of the trial. How far I succeeded may be gathered
from the following extracts:

_'A jury that required to deliberate at all in such a case
ought to have been hanged.'_--BRIEF.

_'The way in which the feeblest of cases is worked up to a
verdict of guilty is a trifle ridiculous, and a slander on
judge, bar, and even jury.'_--LEEDS MERCURY.

_'It is absurd to suppose that upon such evidence any judge
and jury could have convicted her of murder.'_--VANITY FAIR.

_'A tangle of circumstantial evidence which is supposed to be
conclusive, but on which we feel confident that no English
jury would convict.'_--NEW ZEALAND MAIL.

_'The prisoner is found guilty on what seems to us most
insufficient evidence.'_--DAILY CHRONICLE.

_'It is difficult to believe that the jury on the evidence
could have brought in a verdict of guilty.'_--DAILY NEWS.

_'The evidence being purely circumstantial, as well as
flimsy.'_--ACADEMY.

[N.B.--Several of the above reviewers were friendly to the book on
other points.]

_'In Scotland the verdict would certainly have been "Not
Proven."'_--GLASGOW HERALD.

_'Though the evidence is purely circumstantial, it seems at
first sight so strong that no magistrate could fail to
commit.'_--SATURDAY REVIEW.

_'The evidence of guilt is very strong.'_--MONMOUTHSHIRE
BEACON.

_'Certainly the evidence, purely circumstantial, is very
strong.'_--PUBLISHER'S CIRCULAR.

_'A case of circumstantial evidence which all seemed to point
one way, and to fix a horrible crime upon a young
girl.'_--WEEKLY SUN.

_'The evidence against her is damning, though purely
circumstantial.'_--LITERARY WORLD.

These extracts, taken together, seem to me to throw a most interesting
light upon the subject of trial by jury--the object of a sneer in one
of the above quotations. When it is possible for a number of educated
minds, engaged in highly intellectual pursuits, to take such opposite
views of the same set of facts, it may surely be urged that, if
miscarriages of justice occasionally take place, they are due, not so
much to any defects in our judicial system, as to those native
diversities of the human mind which no legislation can remove. A
change is fast coming over our legal procedure in the