labour, might be strong enough to stand a few hours in the pillory or to be branded. One hardly likes to pursue this train of thought farther, until opinion shall have ripened somewhat; but it really looks as if, modern penal inventions proving inapplicable, we were to be driven back upon some of the tender mercies of the middle ages. Levity apart, we shall have to devise speedily punishments which can with certainty be inflicted. Those which there is a fair chance of evading on the plea of failing health, genuine or pretended, will altogether lose their deterrent effect; for every knave will think himself clever enough to get the length of the doctor's foot, and so run the chance of anything which does not promise to be more severe than "quod."
The law's inflictions have altered very much within the period that I can recollect. I remember to have seen a man whipped in the market-place. I have seen a man in the stocks. I have seen and heard a man condemned to death for sheep-stealing, and remember one to have been hanged for robbery on the highway, and another for stealing a horse and committing sundry other thefts. Scarlett and Wilde in court are two figures whom I can recall with tolerable distinctness. The generation before mine remembered Erskine, and some of my friends of that generation had a good deal to say about him. I will repeat one anecdote. Erskine (I presume, after he had held, or while he was holding, office) was brought down to a country assize town to plead in some important case. Either there had been some uncertainty until the last about his being able to attend, or there had been some mismanagement, so that accommodation was not early secured for him. The place had but a limited quantity of disposable rooms; the earlier comers got possession of all these; and when the eminent counsel arrived, not a chamber could he procure at all – a chamber for hire, that is; but he did find where to lay his head, and more than that too. For a clergyman, who was head-master of the grammar-school, was quite shocked to hear of Erskine being so hardly put to it. So he invited him into his own house, and placed two or three of the best rooms at his disposal. The business lasted only a very few days, when Erskine, on departing, told his host that he hardly knew how adequately to thank him for his attention, and that he should be very happy if he ever found he had an opportunity of returning the favour. "You will have that, sir, before long, without doubt," answered the schoolmaster. "You are quite sure to become Lord Chancellor, and, by the time you are so I shall be very glad to give up teaching and to settle down in a living." Erskine was afraid there was no such glory in store for him as his entertainer anticipated, but he repeated his offer of service whatever station he might occupy. When he became Chancellor the clergyman got his living. Whether Erskine gave it without reminder, or whether the parson had to ask for it, I cannot remember, but certainly the Chancellor paid honestly and well for having been taken in and done for in his need.
Up to a little before my day there was always an assize ball; and the ceremonies observed in bringing the judges into town were, within my recollection, exceedingly quaint. I have an account of them somewhere, and may possibly give it to Maga's readers on another occasion.
