s tried before Baron Alderson, as shrewd a Judge, perhaps,
as ever adorned the Bench.

When I took my point, he at once saw the difficulty Napoleon was
in--a difficulty from which no Napoleon could escape even by a _coup
d'etat_.

It was, in fact, this--simple as A B C:--

When the bills of exchange were received by Pollard, although he
intended to defraud, they were _neither drawn nor accepted_, and so
were not bills of exchange at all; another process was necessary
before they could become so even in appearance, and that was forgery.

Moreover, there was included in this point another objection--namely,
that the _stamps_ signed by the Prince having been handed to him with
the intention that they _should be subsequently filled up_, they were
not _valuable securities_ (for stealing which the ill-used Pollard was
indicted) at the time they were appropriated, and could not therefore
be so treated.

In short, the legal truth was that Pollard neither stole nor obtained
either _bill of exchange_ (for such they were not at that time) or
valuable security.

Such was the law. I believe Napoleon said the devil must have made it,
or worked it into that "tam shape!"

There were many technicalities in the law of those days, and justice
was often defeated by legal quibbles. But the law was so severe in its
punishments that Justice herself often connived at its evasion. At
the present day there is a gradual tendency to make punishment more
lenient and more certain--to remove the entanglements of the pleader,
and render progress towards substantial instead of technical justice
more sure and speedy. Napoleon's defeat could not have occurred at the
present day--not, at all events, in that "tam shape."

In a case in which the member of St. Ives was petitioned against on
the ground of treating, before Lush, J., I was opposed by Russell
(afterwards Lord Chief Justice and Lord Russell of Killowen). A.L.
Smith was my junior, and I need not say he knew almost everything
there was to be known about election law. There was, however, no law
in the case. No specific act of treating was proved, but we felt that
general treating had taken place in such a wholesale manner that
our client was affected by it. So we consented to his losing
his seat--that is to say, that the election should be declared
_void_--merely void. As the other side did not seem to be aware that
this void could be filled by the member who was unseated, they did not
as