of a scholar," I was chosen foreman of the
jury, and in this capacity assisted in sending
a man to the States prison for two months,
as a reward for his mechanical skill having been
diverted into the channel of making bogus
gold dust. We had considerable difficulty in
arriving at a unanimous verdict, as two of the
jury were personal friends of the prisoner. In
this stage a backwoods-man, producing a pack
of cards from his pocket, proposed that we
should play " seven up " for a decision; or, if
we objected to gambling, we could at least
"draw straws for it."

At a little backwoods saw-mill settlement
called Alberni, Vancouver Island, an Indian
had been stealing potatoes from a farm
belonging to Mr. Sproat, the local justice, and
in order to frighten this Indian, the man in
charge, who was a Western backwoods-man,
fired his gun vaguely in the potatoe-field direction.
To his astonishment he shot the native
dead. An inquest had to be held. The woodmen,
of course, looked upon a slain Indian
as a very light affair, and several came to
Mr. Sproat and said: " You are not going to
trouble Henry about this, are you, sir?"
Mr. Sproat, being not only master, but a
magistrate, had only to reply that however
much he felt for the man's misfortune, he must
let the law take its course. But where was
a surgeon to be found, to make a post mortem
examination? A careworn looking man
stepped off a pile of lumber where he was working,
and said he was a surgeon. This statement
being naturally received with some hesitation,
he produced from an old army chest, his
commission, his degree, and ample proof of not
only having been a medical man, but of once
having been a staff surgeon. He soon
produced a pea from the lung, and showed that
the Indian had died from gunshot wounds in
the chest. Evidence was produced in corroboration,
one of the witnesses testifying that the
prisoner had said, " Jack, I've shot an
Indian." The "judge" laid down their duty to
the jury, which was composed of twelve of the
most intelligent of the workmen, and they were
sent into another room for their finding. It
was nearly half-an-hour before they returned.
The foreman then said: " We find the siwash*
was worried by a dog." " A what?" the judge
exclaimed. " Worried by a dog, sir," said
another juryman, fearing that the foreman
had not spoken clearly. Assuming a proper
expression of magisterial gravity, his
worship pointed out to the jury the incompatibility
of their finding with the evidence, and
again went over the points of the case, calling
particular attention to the medical evidence,
and the production by the doctor of the pea
found in the body of the Indian; after which
he a second time dismissed the jury to their
room, and begged them to come back with
some verdict reasonably connected with the
facts of the case. They were away longer than
before. When they at length sidled back into
the room for the second time, the judge drew
a paper towards him to record their finding.
"Now, men, what do you say?" Their decisive
answer was, "We say he was killed by
falling over a cliff." The judge shuffled his
papers together, and told the jurymen they
might go to their work, and he would return
a verdict for them himself. For a full mile
every way, from where the dead body was
found, the country was as level as a table.

* Siwash, corrupted from the voyageurs' Sauvage,
a savage, universally applied to Indians on the
North Pacific Coast.

This jury was not so conscientious as another
composed of the friends of some people accused
of stealing pork: " We find the defendants Not
Guilty; but we believe they hooked the pork."

Early in December will be ready
THE COMPLETE SET
OF
TWENTY VOLUMES,
With GENERAL INDEX to the entire work from its
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THE NEW SERIAL TALE, HESTER'S HISTORY,
commenced in Number 488, will be continued
from week to week until completed in the present
volume.

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BY
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