and gusts of public opinion, the authorities gave
way, and Penal Servitude for Life was the
happy middle term that reconciled the stern
interests of justice and the sympathies of an unoccupied
public.

Some years later came the turn of England,
when Doctor Smethurst was tried for poisoning
his patient. Here, again, all the presumptions
and windings of circumstantial evidence
furnished delight for many weeks, to crotchety
minds and speculative theorists. Again were
the newspaper columns stored to bursting with
the epistolary discussions of lawyers who had
no other cases on which to exert their acumen,
and of eager jurisconsults who had never been
called to the bar. Again was the infallible
verdict subjected to the degradation of an
unauthorised revision; and again were jurymen
outside the box empannelled to try the case once
more. Irritated by the canon which left no
appeal from the voice of the twelve intelligent
men, and proclaimed in distinct language,
"Roma locuta! causa finita est," the grand
appellate jurisdiction of the country comes in,
and her Majesty's Secretary of State again steps
on the stage, and saves the culprit from being
hanged.

The Maclachlan case is fresh in all memories—
a case notorious, besides, for shedding a lurid
glare over the barbaric monstrosities of an
exploded system. Besides the intellectual
entertainment they derived from this banquet of
circumstantial evidence, and the "forty-eight
columns of the Scotsman" newspaper, the
Scotch people will have obtained more
important blessings if by its agency reform be
brought about in their legal system. In England
the march of Law Reform is steady and wholesale;
the amount of Irish legal alteration is surprising,
and cheerfully carried out; the country
of Scott and Burns lies overrun with the brambles
and underwood of a detestable jargon and
mediaeval procedure. In this case, too, the
public has, by appeal, set aside the Scotch verdict,
and her Majesty's Secretary of State has, with
the traditional consistency which has now grown
into a precedent, allotted the penalty of Penal
Servitude for Life instead of death upon the
scaffold.

This exercise of the prerogative in three
such important cases, naturally challenges
inquiry. For, it is plain that the interference is
taking shape as a system, a controlling one;
and, as a system, should be guided by some fixed
principles. What is contended for here, is, that
it must be accepted either as a counterbalance
to that fatal infallibility of a jury's verdict, for
which there is now no remedy; and on which
basis it is a wholesome and salutary check if
logically exercised. Or else it must be taken
strictly to be an exercise of a gracious royal
prerogative whose special privilege it is to enjoy
the luxury of being compassionate in certain
cases. On only one of these two bases can such
an interference be tolerated. The first is clearly
temporary, and may be said to supply the function
of a court of appeal and revision for overhauling
crazy and leaky verdicts. But, it should be
logical and consistent, and in such a case be
guided by the principles which would guide such
a court of appeal. For it surely never was
contemplated as a Perfection of Human Wisdom
that a Secretary of State should have a
permanent commission for trying all prisoners a
second time, or of exercising that quality of
mercy which is not strained, in the gracious
fashion which only belongs to the fountain of
honour. It can scarcely be supposed that in
the absence of any such tribunal of revision, it
was intended that this gratification of a royal
humanity should take the place of an established
court of review, whose functions are delegated
to a high officer of state, untrained by any
legal education.

A distressing case which once occurred,
shows very plainly in what spirit it was
intended this royal discretion should be exercised,
and by what limitations it should be controlled.
Great George was then king:— not the grand
and corpulent George who was at the head of
all the gentlemen of Europe, but the benevolent
mulish monarch who long was the converging
point of boisterous loyalty. And during
his reign there reigned ecclesiastically, a fashionable
clergyman, by name William Dodd, D.D.,
a preacher of surpassing popularity whom
countesses crowded to hear, and who made
touching and successful appeals for Magdalen
asylums and other charitable foundations. He
was one of his Majesty's chaplains, enjoyed the
patronage of some of the nobility, and was
considered as marked out for high preferment. All
this while, however, the Reverend W. Dodd,
D.D., was no more than an animated living
sepulchre; and certain discreditable transactions,
slightly of a simoniacal flavour, were being
whispered about in connexion with his popular
name. The scandal, however, soon took tangible
shape; and the fashionable clergyman, resigning
his royal chaplaincy, retired abroad: whence
by-and-by travelled home rumours of yet more
unbecoming practices. Finally, the Reverend
W. Dodd, D.D., pressed by pecuniary difficulties,
sets the name of a former noble pupil of
his to a forged bond, is detected, brought to
justice, tried, convicted, and sentenced to be
hanged.

This clerical scandal, it may be conceived,
threw London into excitement. It was the
grand subject of discussion at clubs and
coffee-houses, and the fate of the wretched clergyman,
then lying under sentence of death, was the
talk of the hour. What interest Johnson took
in the miserable convict; how conscientiously he
laboured for him with all the sympathy of his
warm heart, and at the same time with the quiet
dignity which he felt was not to be compromised
by too much enthusiasm in such a cause, is
well known to those whose copies of Boswell
are well thumbed. Readers of Walpole and
Selwyn, and excavators in the mines of the
Annual Register, can follow all the stages of
the popular excitement. Immense exertions
were made to save the doctor's life. Petitions