prosecutor, with intent to kill him. The
prosecutor swore that the prisoner had demanded
his money, and that upon refusal, or delay, to
comply with his requisition, he fired a pistol,
by the flash of which his countenance became
perfectly visible; the shot did not take effect,
and the prisoner made off. Here the
recognition was momentary, and the prosecutor
could hardly have been in an undisturbed
state of mind, yet the confidence of his belief
made a strong impression on all who heard
the evidence, and probably would have sealed
the fate of the prisoner without the aid of an
additional fact of very slight importance, which
was, however, put in evidence by way of
corroboration, that the prisoner, who was a
stranger to the neighbourhood, had been seen
passing near the spot in which the attack
was made about noon of the same day. The
judge belonged to a class now, thank God!
obsolete, who always acted on the reverse of
the constitutional maxim, and considered
every man guilty until he was proved to be
innocent.

If the case had closed without witnesses on
behalf of the prisoner, his life would have been
gone: fortunately, he possessed the means of
employing an able and zealous attorney, and,
more fortunately, it so happened that several
hours before the attack the prisoner had
mounted upon a coach, and was many miles
from the scene of the crime at the hour of its
commission.

With great labour, and at considerable
expense, all the passengers were sought out, and
with the coachman and guard, were brought
into court, and testified to the presence among
them of the prisoner. An alibi is always a
suspected defence, and by no man was ever
more suspiciously watched than by this judge.
But when witness after witness appeared,
their names corresponding exactly with the
way-bill produced by the clerk of a respectable
coach-office, the most determined scepticism
gave way, and the prisoner was acquitted
by acclamation. He was not, however, saved
by his innocence, but by his good fortune.
How frequently does it happen to us all to be
many hours at a time without having
witnesses to prove our absence from one spot by
our presence at another! And how many of
us are too prone to avail ourselves of such
proof in the instances where it may exist!

A remarkable instance of mistake in identity,
which put the life of a prisoner in
extreme peril, I heard from the lips of his
counsel. It occurred at the Special Commission
held at Nottingham after the riots
consequent on the rejection of the Reform Bill
by the House of Lords, in 1831.

The prisoner was a young man of
prepossessing appearance, belonging to what may be
called the lower section of the middle rank
of life, being a framework knitter, in the
employment of his father, a master manufacturer
in a small way. He was tried on an indictment
charging him with the offence of arson.
A mob, of which he was alleged to be one, had
burnt Colwick Hall, near Nottingham, the
residence of Mr. Musters, the husband of
Mary Chaworth, whose name is so closely
linked with that of Byron. This ill-fated
lady was approaching the last stage of
consumption, when, on a cold and wet evening in
autumn, she was driven from her mansion,
and compelled to take refuge among the trees
of her shrubbery,—an outrage which probably
hastened her death.

The crime, with its attendant circumstances,
created, as was natural, a strong sympathy
against the criminals. Unhappily, this feeling,
so praiseworthy in itself, is liable to produce
a strong tendency in the public mind to
believe in the guilt of a party accused. People
sometimes seem to hunger and thirst after a
criminal, and are disappointed when it turns
out that they are mistaken in their man, and
are, consequently, slow to believe that such
an error has been made. Doubtless, the
impression is received into the mind
unconsciously; but although on that ground
pardonable, it is all the more dangerous. In this
case, the prisoner was identified by several
witnesses as having taken an active part in
setting fire to the house.

He had been under their notice for some
considerable space of time: they gave their
evidence against him without hesitation, and
probably the slightest doubt of its accuracy.
His defence was an alibi. The frame at which
he worked had its place near the entrance to
the warehouse, the room frequented by the
customers and all who had business to transact
at the manufactory. He acted, therefore,
as doorkeeper, and in that capacity had been
seen and spoken with by many persons, who
in their evidence more than covered the whole
time which elapsed between the arrival of the
mob at Colwick Hall and its departure. The
alibi was believed, and the prisoner, after a
trial which lasted a whole day, was acquitted.

The next morning he was to be tried again
on another indictment, charging him with
having set fire to the Castle at Nottingham.
The counsel for the prosecution, influenced by
motives of humanity, and fully impressed with
the prisoner's guilt on both charges, urged the
counsel for the prisoner to advise his client to
plead guilty, undertaking that his life should
be spared, but observing at the same time
that his social position, which was superior
to that of the other prisoners, would make it
impossible to extend the mercy of the Crown
to him unless he manifested a due sense of
his offences by foregoing the chance of escape.
"You know," said they, "how rarely an alibi
obtains credit with a Jury. You can have no
other defence to-day than that of yesterday.
The Castle is much nearer than Colwick Hall
to the manufactory, and a very short absence
from his work on the part of the prisoner
might reconcile the evidence of all the
witnesses, both for him and against him;