“Because, if you have two, Grace will have them ordered out of court, and cross-examine them separately. Their accounts—false ones, of course—will agree in the main incidents; but when Grace enters into particulars, and asks where you were standing when you bought it, what sort of money you paid for it, where they got it”
“Oh! they found it.”
“Exactly; that will not be the most probable part of your case. People constantly find watches in the street! In other minor particulars your witnesses will differ hopelessly, and break down.”
“I see I am to be convicted,” said Jack, mournfully. “Get it over.”
Charley then summed up the case to the suppositional jury, with great solemnity, in these words: “Gentlemen of the jury,—If you think that the prisoner really committed the crime charged against him, you will find him guilty; and if you think that he did not, you will acquit him;”—a direction which enabled them at once to dispose of the mass of evidence before them, and to find the prisoner “Guilty.”
“I now as judge,” said Charley, “order the Clerk of the Court to call upon the prisoner, which he does in these words: ‘John Wardleur, you have been convicted of highway robbery; what have you to say why the court should not proceed to pass sentence upon you according to law?’”
“I’ve said all I’ve to say. What’s the use of bothering?” replied the criminal.
“You are not now called upon to make any defence upon the facts of the case, but to answer whether you have to complain of any error upon the record. For example: suppose you are indicted for burglary, and the jury find you guilty of murder; that verdict would show a palpable error in the record. You can find no error in the record, oh, miserable Jack! The sentence of the court upon you is, that you proceed forthwith to your room, and select from your case four of the very best Manilla cigars that you possess, and that you present them to your prosecutor and myself in the hall, where you will find us putting on our coats. But remember this, Jack, that you have been guilty of felony; and should you repeat your offence, this conviction will be charged against you in your indictment.”
“To show how infamous a character you are, Jack,” added Grace.
“Not so,” replied Charley, “for no mention will be made of it until you have been again proved guilty, and then, being proved, it will go in aggravation of punishment.”
Here we wished them all good night, and went home to our lodgings, consoled by Jack’s cigars, which I am bound to acknowledge were capital.
IS THE YELLOW JACK AT SHORNCLIFFE?
The newspapers have lately contained some statements regarding the appearance of a species of fever at Shorncliffe, which, if they were thoroughly reliable, would afford us a novel cause for alarm. Thus it has been stated that a disease had broken out there, and that this disease, although not strictly speaking genuine yellow fever, was so near akin to that tropical malady, that the doctors were sorely puzzled to make a distinction. “The symptoms,” it was said, “are so similar to those of the terrible yellow jack of Jamaica, that the doctors are sorely puzzled to call it anything else.” This statement has been subsequently controverted in the “Times” by the Incumbent of Sandgate as having been based on reports in various particulars exaggerated. Now we are inclined to accept the Incumbent’s view, and questioning the appearance of any disease which is new to these islands, we think it may be useful to state the symptoms of those fevers which alone are acclimatised here.
The three forms of fever which always prevail to a greater or less extent in this country, and which at times produce great domestic desolation, are severally named typhus, typhoid, and relapsing. The terms, we admit, are unsuitable and unfortunate; but as they are in common use, we shall here accept them, and seek to state their respective significations. Putting aside mild and imperfectly marked cases, so as to give sharpness and brevity to our descriptions, we offer the following as a simple and yet rigidly accurate account of the characters of these three fevers.
1. Typhus Fever, or, as it is also called, “filth fever,” and “low nervous fever,” has certain very distinctive characters. An ordinary uncomplicated case has generally the following symptoms and course: The attack is ushered in by shivering fits, prostration of strength, and pain in the back; the tongue becomes dry and hard; and there is headache, accompanied by more or less wandering of the mind, or a low muttering form of delirium. When there is no mismanagement, convalescence usually begins about the fourteenth, and is seldom delayed beyond the twenty-first day. The diagnostic symptom of this fever is a mulberry rash, which appears most commonly between the fifth and eighth day, and fades away after a few days in favourable cases. The spots do not disappear when pressed by the finger. In this, and in other respects, it essentially differs from the fever which so nearly resembles it in name, typhoid fever. It very rarely twice affects the same individual. By protracted contact, and in crowded dwellings, it is contagious. In such places it likewise spontaneously rises among the inhabitants, probably, as Mr. Simon suggests, from “the putrefaction of their undispersed exhalations.”
2. Typhoid or Gastric Fever.—This is the fever which created so much anxiety in 1858, at Windsor. Then and there, as in other well-observed outbreaks of it, the engendering morbific influence was proved to arise from emanations consequent upon defective ventilation in the drains, and from the gases which belong to such nuisances as pigsties, dungheaps, and foul gulleys. There is no class which suffers so much from typhoid fever as domestic servants, a circumstance which may be explained by the fact of their living and sleeping apartments being so often in the basement of houses, proximity to the sink holes and crevices, whence emanate the sewer gases. They must, therefore, oftener breathe the poisonous gases in a less diluted form than other members of the same household. Cowkeepers and others ex-