Page:Sylvester Sound the Somnambulist (1844).djvu/426

fearful to contemplate! Those men must be guilty of perjury; and perjury is one of the most dreadful crimes that a man can possibly lay upon his soul! I should much like to talk to those men—to explain to them the peril in which they have placed themselves, not only in this world, but in the world to come! If I do not mistake, a perjurer, even here, is liable to be punished with very great severity. Surely, they cannot be cognisant of this!—leaving entirely out of the question the awful fact of their rendering themselves amenable to a much greater punishment hereafter! They really ought to be seen and talked to, and lectured, and expostulated with! the crime of which they have been guilty, is in its nature dreadful!"

"I do not think," observed Mr. Delolme, "that we are justified in accusing them of having committed perjury."

"But, my dear sir; just look at the nature of the evidence! Did not Mr. Thomas swear positively that poor Sylvester was a somnambulist? And did not I swear as positively and as solemnly, that I had not the slightest doubt of the fact? Ought not that to have been sufficient? And were they not bound to return a verdict accordingly?"

"Certainly, they were bound to return a verdict according to the evidence, but not according to your evidence alone: they were bound to look at the evidence opposed to yours, and to weigh it with yours, and thus to decide."

"Then it follows that they treated my evidence and that of Mr. Thomas with contempt!"

"Not necessarily. They might have felt that you both swore to the best of your belief, and yet conceived that your evidence was insufficient to establish the fact of Sylvester being a somnambulist."

"I only wish that I had been one of the jury."

"If you had been, a very different verdict would doubtless have been returned; but we must remember that those gentlemen were perfect strangers to Sylvester. They knew nothing either of him, or of the circumstances, previously to their coming into court; and, while they manifestly conceived your evidence and that of Tom to be insufficient, they were strongly impressed by the counsel with the danger of allowing such a plea as that of somnambulism to obtain."

"I am aware of its being a plea which might easily be in all cases urged; and I hold the necessity for proving it to be absolute: all I contend for is, that in this particular case, it was sufficiently proved! And then, that man, the counsel—that barrister—that Mr. Charles Phillpots—what right had he to apply such abominable epithets to a person of whom he knew nothing. He ought to be talked to severely! He ought to be told that the character of Sylvester is the reverse of that which he represented it to be. I have really no patience with a man who will thus traduce the character of another without grounds. I only wish that I had been Sylvester's counsel: I should have told that person, without the slightest hesitation, that the course he was pursuing was most unwarrantable! I should have told him so publicly—before the whole court. And then the judge: we really might as well have had no judge at all! he did not conduct himself at all like a judge! he