of this capital, said the prisoner--

_J. F_. I said nothing of the kind.

_J. N_. Yes you did, sir. Those were the very words you said: I have
got it down in my notes of his Grace's evidence. What is the use of your
denying it, when your own witness gives evidence of it? Hold your
tongue, sir.--And the workingmen, says the prisoner, must take the matter
into their own hands. Take it into _their own hands_, gentlemen, and
take _the matter_ into their hands. What matter are they to take into
their hands? Are we justified in thinking that the prisoner was speaking
metaphorically? Gentlemen, I must tell you that the maxim that in
weighing evidence you need not go beyond the most direct explanation
guides us here; forbids us to think that the prisoner was speaking
metaphorically, and compels us to suppose that the _matter_ which is to
be in the _hands_ of the workmen, their very _hands_, gentlemen, is--what?
Why, (_in an awe-struck whisper_) the bowels of the owners of the
capital, that is of this metropolis--London! Nor, gentlemen, are the
means whereby those respectable persons, the owners of house property in
London, to be disembowelled left doubtful: the raising of armed men by
the million, concealed weapons, and an organisation capable of
frustrating the search for them. Nay, an article in the paper which
impudently calls itself (_reading the_ "_Commonweal_") the official
journal of the Socialist League, written by one Bax, who ought to be
standing in the same dock with the prisoner--an article in which he
attacks the sacredness of civilisation--is murky with the word dynamic or
dynamite. And you must not forget, gentlemen, that the prisoner accepts
his responsibility for all these words and deeds. With the utmost
effrontery having pleaded "Not Guilty," he says, "I am a Socialist and a
Revolutionist"!--Thus much, gentlemen, my duty compels me to lay before
you as to the legal character of the evidence. But you must clearly
understand that it rests with you and not with me to decide as to whether
the evidence shows this man to be guilty. It is you, gentlemen of the
Jury, who are responsible for the verdict, whatever it may be; and I must
be permitted to add that letting this man loose upon society will be a
very heavy responsibility for you to accept.

[_The Jury consult: the noise outside increases_.

_J. F_. (_Aside_; Hilloa! what _is_ going on? I begin to think there's a
row up!)

_Foreman of the