t he too was recognised.

Mr Ottery, for this was our attorney's name, took the line he had
proposed. He called no other witnesses than the rector, Towneley and
myself, and threw himself on the mercy of the magistrate. When he had
concluded, the magistrate spoke as follows: "Ernest Pontifex, yours is
one of the most painful cases that I have ever had to deal with. You
have been singularly favoured in your parentage and education. You have
had before you the example of blameless parents, who doubtless instilled
into you from childhood the enormity of the offence which by your own
confession you have committed. You were sent to one of the best public
schools in England. It is not likely that in the healthy atmosphere of
such a school as Roughborough you can have come across contaminating
influences; you were probably, I may say certainly, impressed at school
with the heinousness of any attempt to depart from the strictest chastity
until such time as you had entered into a state of matrimony. At
Cambridge you were shielded from impurity by every obstacle which
virtuous and vigilant authorities could devise, and even had the
obstacles been fewer, your parents probably took care that your means
should not admit of your throwing money away upon abandoned characters.
At night proctors patrolled the street and dogged your steps if you tried
to go into any haunt where the presence of vice was suspected. By day
the females who were admitted within the college walls were selected
mainly on the score of age and ugliness. It is hard to see what more can
be done for any young man than this. For the last four or five months
you have been a clergyman, and if a single impure thought had still
remained within your mind, ordination should have removed it:
nevertheless, not only does it appear that your mind is as impure as
though none of the influences to which I have referred had been brought
to bear upon it, but it seems as though their only result had been
this--that you have not even the common sense to be able to distinguish
between a respectable girl and a prostitute.

"If I were to take a strict view of my duty I should commit you for
trial, but in consideration of this being your first offence, I shall
deal leniently with you and sentence you to imprisonment with hard labour
for six calendar months."

Towneley and I both thought there was a touch of irony in the
magistrate's speech, and that he could have given a light