he twofold duty attached to
it--namely, that of trying the issue whether the crime imputed to
the prisoner has been established by legal evidence, and if so,
what punishment ought to be imposed upon the prisoner, assuming the
presiding Judge to be the person to determine it--it is absolutely
essential that he should keep the whole of the circumstances in his
mind and carefully weigh every fact which either forms an element in
the constitution of the offence itself or has a substantial bearing as
affecting the aggravation or mitigation of the punishment; for it
is not only essential that these matters should be known to and
appreciated by the Judge who tried the case, but that they may be also
presented for the information of the Home Secretary, who ought to be
acquainted with them, so that he may form a satisfactory view of the
whole of the circumstances surrounding the case.

A strange story that will ever stand out in my memory as one of
the most dramatic of my life was that of a young lady who was a
professional nurse at the General Hospital at Liverpool. She was
young, clever, and, I believe, beautiful, as well as esteemed and
loved by all who knew her.

She had become engaged to an engineer, and it had been arranged that
she should pay a visit to her mother in Nottingham on a Friday, so as
to acquaint her with their engagement, the intended husband having
arranged to come on the following Monday.

The parents were poor, respectable people, and the girl herself
was poor, so that she had no change of attire, but went in her
professional nurse's dress. It was her intention, however, to buy an
ordinary dress at Nottingham.

There was a dressmaker in that city whom her mother knew, and
with whose children in their early days her daughter had played.
Accordingly in the evening the nurse with a younger sister went to the
cottage to make the necessary arrangements.

While she was there the son of the dressmaker came in, and was at once
attracted by the beauty and the manner of the girl. As they had known
one another in childhood, it was not surprising that they should talk
with more familiarity than would have been the case had they been
strangers.

When the nurse rose to go, the young man asked permission to accompany
her to her mother's. She declined, but he persisted in his request.

This man was a clever mechanic, and had invented a machine for making
chenille. Sad to say, this invention he used for the purpos