latter is ten times heavier already. He has lain in
prison under this charge for more than two months. Is he likely ever
to forget that? Imagine the anguish of his mind during that time.
He has had his punishment, gentlemen, you may depend. The rolling of
the chariot-wheels of Justice over this boy began when it was decided
to prosecute him. We are now already at the second stage. If you
permit it to go on to the third I would not give--that for him.

He holds up finger and thumb in the form of a circle, drops his
hand, and sits dozen.

The jury stir, and consult each other's faces; then they turn towards
the counsel for the Crown, who rises, and, fixing his eyes on a spot
that seems to give him satisfaction, slides them every now and then
towards the jury.

CLEAVER. May it please your lordship--[Rising on his toes] Gentlemen
of the Jury,--The facts in this case are not disputed, and the
defence, if my friend will allow me to say so, is so thin that I
don't propose to waste the time of the Court by taking you over the
evidence. The plea is one of temporary insanity. Well, gentlemen, I
daresay it is clearer to me than it is to you why this rather--what
shall we call it?--bizarre defence has been set up. The alternative
would have been to plead guilty. Now, gentlemen, if the prisoner had
pleaded guilty my friend would have had to rely on a simple appeal to
his lordship. Instead of that, he has gone into the byways and
hedges and found this--er--peculiar plea, which has enabled him to
show you the proverbial woman, to put her in the box--to give, in
fact, a romantic glow to this affair. I compliment my friend; I
think it highly ingenious of him. By these means, he has--to a
certain extent--got round the Law. He has brought the whole story of
motive and stress out in court, at first hand, in a way that he would
not otherwise have been able to do. But when you have once grasped
that fact, gentlemen, you have grasped everything. [With
good-humoured contempt] For look at this plea of insanity; we can't
put it lower than that. You have heard the woman. She has every
reason to favour the prisoner, but what did she say? She said that
the prisoner was not insane when she left him in the morning. If he
were going out of his mind through distress, that was obviously the
moment when insanity would have shown itself. You have heard the
managing clerk, another witness for the defence. With some
di