Page:Paul Clifford Vol 3.djvu/276

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268
PAUL CLIFFORD.

every remark calculated to raise unnecessary prejudice against the prisoner. He should not allude to his unhappy notoriety, his associations with the lowest dregs.—(Here up jumped the Counsel for the prisoner, and Mr. Dyebright was called to order.)—"God knows," resumed the learned gentleman, looking wistfully at the Jury, "that my learned friend might have spared himself this warning. God knows, that I would rather fifty of the wretched inmates of this county gaol were to escape unharmed, than that a hair of the Prisoner you behold at the bar should be unjustly touched. The life of a human being is at stake; we should be guilty ourselves of a crime, which on our deathbeds we should tremble to recall, were we to suffer any consideration, whether of interest or of prejudice, or of undue fear for our own properties and lives, to bias us even to the turning of a straw against the unfortunate Prisoner. Gentlemen, if you find me travelling a single inch from my case; if you find me saying a single word calculated to harm the Prisoner in your eyes, and unsupported by the evidence I shall call, then I implore you not to depend upon the vigilance of