them!"

I liked him where there was a weak case on the other side; he was
particularly good on those occasions.

In the Assize Court at Chelmsford a barrister who had a great criminal
practice was retained to defend a man for stealing sheep, a very
serious offence in those days--one where anything less than
transportation would be considered excessive leniency.

The principal evidence against the man was that the bones of the
deceased animal were found in his garden, which was urged by the
prosecuting counsel as somewhat strong proof of guilt, but not
conclusive.

It must have struck everybody who has watched criminal proceedings
that the person a prisoner has most to fear when he is tried is
too often his own counsel, who may not be qualified by nature's
certificate of capacity to defend. However, be that as it may, in this
case there was no evidence against the prisoner, unless his counsel
made it so.

"Counsel for the defence" in those days was a wrong description--he
was called the _friend_ of the prisoner; and I should conclude, from
what I have seen of this relationship, that the adage "Save me from my
friends" originated in this connection.

The friend of this prisoner, instead of insisting that there was no
evidence, since no one could swear to the sheep bones when no man had
ever seen them, endeavoured to explain away the cause of death, and
thus, by a foolish concession, admitted their actual identity. It was
not Alderson's duty to defend the prisoner against his own admission,
although, but for that, he would have pointed out to the Crown how
absolutely illogical their proposition was in law. But the "friend" of
the prisoner suggested that sheep often put their heads through gaps
or breakages in the hurdles, and rubbed their necks against the
projecting points of the broken bars; and that being so, why should
the jury not come to a verdict in favour of the prisoner on that
ground? It was quite possible that the constant rubbing would
ultimately cut the sheep's throat. If it did not, the prisoner
submitted to the same operation at the hand of his "friend."

"Yes," said Baron Alderson, "that is a very plausible suggestion to
start with; but having commenced your line of defence on that ground,
you must continue it, and carry it to the finish; and to do this
you must show that not only did this sheep in a moment of temporary
insanity--as I suppose you would allege in order to screen it--commit
suicide