e prayer of our petition was of course
disregarded: the law, it was said, must take its course. How much cruelty
has been exercised under shelter of that remorseless expression!

I would willingly pass over the succeeding events. Unable to save his
life, I endeavored to soothe the few remaining hours of the doomed
convict, and frequently visited him in the condemned cell. The more I saw
of him, the deeper grew my sympathy in his case, which was that of no
vulgar felon. "I have been a most unfortunate man," said he one day to
me. "A destiny towards ruin in fortune and in life has pursued me. I feel
as if deserted by God and man; yet I know, or at least would persuade
myself, that Heaven will one day vindicate my innocence of this foul
charge. To think of being hanged like a dog for a crime at which my soul
revolts! Great is the crime of those imbecile jurors and that false and
hard-hearted judge, who thus, by an irreversible decree, consign a
fellow-mortal to a death of violence and disgrace. Oh God, help me--help
me to sustain that bitter, bitter hour!" And then the poor man would
throw himself on his bed and weep.

But the parting with his wife and children. What pen can describe that
terrible interview! They knelt in prayer, their wobegone countenances
suffused in tears, and with hands clasped convulsively together. The
scene was too harrowing and sacred for the eye of a stranger. I rushed
from the cell, and buried myself in my lodgings, whence I did not remove
till all was over. Next day James Harvey, a victim of circumstantial
evidence, and of a barbarous criminal code, perished on the scaffold.

Three weeks afterwards, the court arrived at a populous city in the west
of England. It had in the interval visited another assize town, and there
Judge A ---- had left three for execution. At the trials of these men,
however, I had not attended. So shocked had been my feelings with the
mournful event which had taken place at ------, that I had gone into
Wales for the sake of change of scene. After roaming about for a
fortnight amidst the wild solitudes of Caernarvonshire, I took the stage
for the city which I knew the court was to visit, and arrived on the day
previous to the opening of the assizes.

"Well, are we to have a heavy calendar?" I inquired next morning of a
brother barrister on entering the court.

"Rather light for a March assize," replied the impatient counsel as
he bustled onward. "There's Cartwright's c