committed by one of the persons accused, he having been
seen to do it by several credible witnesses; 3, but that his identity is
so merged in his brother's that we have not been able to tell which was
him. We cannot convict both, for only one is guilty. We cannot acquit
both, for only one is innocent. Our verdict is that justice has been
defeated by the dispensation of God, and ask to be discharged from
further duty."

This was read aloud in court and brought out a burst of hearty applause.
The old ladies made a spring at the twins, to shake and congratulate, but
were gently disengaged by Mr. Wilson and softly crowded back into their
places.

The judge rose in his little tribune, laid aside his silver-bowed
spectacles, roached his gray hair up with his fingers, and said, with
dignity and solemnity, and even with a certain pathos:

"In all my experience on the bench, I have not seen justice bow her
head in shame in this court until this day. You little realize what
far-reaching harm has just been wrought here under the fickle forms of law.
Imitation is the bane of courts--I thank God that this one is free from
the contamination of that vice--and in no long time you will see the
fatal work of this hour seized upon by profligate so-called guardians of
justice in all the wide circumstance of this planet and perpetuated in
their pernicious decisions. I wash my hands of this iniquity. I would
have compelled these culprits to expose their guilt, but support failed
me where I had most right to expect aid and encouragement. And I was
confronted by a law made in the interest of crime, which protects the
criminal from testifying against himself. Yet I had precedents of my own
whereby I had set aside that law on two different occasions and thus
succeeded in convicting criminals to whose crimes there were no witnesses
but themselves. What have you accomplished this day? Do you realize it?
You have set adrift, unadmonished, in this community, two men endowed
with an awful and mysterious gift, a hidden and grisly power for evil
--a power by which each in his turn may commit crime after crime of the
most heinous character, and no man be able to tell which is the guilty or
which the innocent party in any case of them all. Look to your homes
look to your property look to your lives for you have need!

"Prisoners at the bar, stand up. Through suppression of evidence, a jury
of your--our--countrymen have been obliged to deli