The assizes were opened at the town of S---- with all due solemnity.
There were sheriffs, and magistrates, and town council, and
javelin-men, all on the move. The judges went to church and to dinner.
The day of that most disgraceful of exhibitions, an assize ball, was
fixed, and the grand jury was sworn and charged. Did a grand jury
perform its functions properly, or even know all its attributes as
they were formerly exercised, and still exist, it would be one of the
most useful institutions in the monarchy; but, alas! its just
attributes are nearly forgotten, its functions are falling into
desuetude, and it confines its operations, almost always, to returning
as true those bills presented to it which have even a shadow of
probability on their side; or, instead of denouncing real and serious
evils, to the presentment of waggons overthrown and suffocating
court-houses.
The lawyers were seen flitting about the streets; the usual morning
consultations and evening revels took place: witnesses and jurymen
crowded the inns; an enormous quantity of bad port, bad sherry, and
worse madeira, was consumed; and solicitors merited well the simile
applied by sailors to personages who are peculiarly busy.
The calendar was very heavy. Nine very hard-fisted farmers had had
their ricks burnt; a manufacturer who indulged in truck, and was
notorious for reductions on Saturday, had been awoke in the night by
the blowing up of one of his factories; there had been a riot in one
of the workhouses where the poor were starved according to law, on the
pretence of feeding them, and punished for complaining. The
magistrate, wisely or unwisely, had sent the case to the sessions; and
it was flanked by those of a man who had died from the neglect of a
relieving officer, and a woman who had drowned her child from the
insanity of destitution. There were several affrays with poachers, in
which blood had been shed; and that of two gentlemen, who had first
horsewhipped and then shot at each other, to the extinction of one
life, and the risk of both. In short, it was an edifying display of
the results of civilization up to the period at which we have now
arrived, and of the peculiarly polished state of England, and its
respect for social order. I say nothing of the brotherly love, the
Christian charity, and the enlightened benevolence which oozed out
through the pores of the calendar. Verily it was fitted to raise us
high in the eyes of Europe.
It is marvellous with what celerity the grand jury returned true bills
against the whole of the accused. Did I say against the whole? It was
a mistake. Out of a hundred and thirty-four cases, they threw out one,
just to keep up the privilege of rejection. It was the case of a small
proprietor who had knocked down in the presence of three or four men,
a rascally labourer, who would insist upon passing along a path which
had been used by his ancestors for five generations. They threw it
out, however, and the path was closed thenceforth to all men for ever
and aye.
Amongst the other bills found, was one against Chandos Winslow, Esq.,
for the wilful murder of John Roberts, attorney-al-law, &c. &c. &c.
But it was a late case on the roll, and a good deal of condemnation
was done before that came on. The first sharp appetite was taken off
from both judge and jury, and the solicitor congratulated himself and
his client on the hanging period of the assizes being on the decline.
It is strange and not pleasant to think of, on how many small
circumstances a man's life hangs in the most civilized countries of
Europe, especially in the most Christian. A famished juror or two will
turn the balance any day; and I fear me that hunger is not an appetite
which leans to mercy. The beginning of the assizes is always a bad
time to be tried. I would not advise my felonious friend to attempt it
if it can be put off. The jury then think themselves a many-headed
Aristides. Brutus was nothing to them, and Cato a mere babe. They
would condemn their own children to magnify the law. Then, again, the
end of the assizes is as bad; for both judge and jurymen have got
tired of the thing, and want to get home to their wives and families.
This can only be accomplished by despatching their men out of hand;
and haste is always cruel, rarely just.
The charge of the judge to the grand jury is a more important matter
than people generally imagine. It is treated as a matter of course: or
at best as an opportunity afforded once in so many months for a great
functionary to make a clever speech on a very favourable subject. But
it is much more than this. It frequently gives a tone to the whole
proceedings of the court. From the grand jury it is reflected upon the
petty jury, and affects them more than it does the former. If the
judge represents strongly the serious increase of crime upon the
calendar, and urges the necessity of vindicating the law and rigidly
administering justice, the Aristides' spirit I have talked of becomes
very rampant, and you are sure to hear, "Guilty, my lord," very
frequently repeated in the court. If, on the contrary, he
congratulates the county on the small amount of crime that has
occurred since last he was seated in that place, and declares that
there are but one or two serious cases for their consideration, the
worthy jurymen think, when there are so few, it may be just as well to
let the poor fellows get off, as it is cold work hanging without
company.
As I have said, however, the calendar was heavy, and the judge made a
very serious and impressive charge, alluding particularly to the case
of the murder of Mr. Roberts. He called the attention of the grand
jury particularly to it; recommended them to cast from their minds
everything they had heard, and to consider the matter simply on the
testimony which supported the charge. He represented their duties as
merely preliminary; (in which, indeed, he was right;) but though he
never mentioned the name of the accused person, he declared the act to
have been most barbarous and horrible; spoke of the deceased as an
innocent, honourable, industrious man, whose murder was an awful stain
upon the county and the kingdom; and in aggravating the heinousness of
the offence, produced, naturally enough, a very unfavourable opinion
of the person charged with committing it. While he was speaking in
reprobation of the crime with so much eloquence, the minds of the
grand jury necessarily connected it with Chandos Winslow as the
perpetrator, and of course they returned a true bill, as they would
have done had not the evidence been half so strong against him. It is
very possible that the grand jury did dismiss from their minds all
they had heard before, though that is rarely done, and little to be
expected; but they assuredly did not dismiss from their minds the
judge's charge, and that was quite sufficient.
The speech of his lordship was printed and circulated in the town of
S---- that night, and when the solicitor read it, he muttered between
his teeth, "He will sum up against the prisoner, that is clear. Our
only hope is in the striking of the jury."
How horrible that any man should be able to divine, or pretend to
divine, how a judge will sum up in a case, the evidence upon which is
not yet before him! But, nevertheless, a solicitor of experience is
seldom wrong in such matters.
Chandos Winslow, too, read the charge, and came to the same
conclusion. In the cold and measured phrase, in the well-poised and
cautious words, even in the scrupulous abstinence from all allusion to
himself, he saw an impression against him, and was sure that it had
not only been felt, but communicated. The most deadly poison is that
which acts with the least outward signs. He thought over the
circumstances deeply, and remained in thought for many hours. He tried
to view his own case as if it were not his own. He recalled every
fact, and arranged the one in connexion with the other. He separated
what he himself knew, but was resolved not to communicate, from that
which was before the public eye, and a terrible mass of criminatory
circumstances was left unmixed. He looked at the whole steadfastly and
resolutely, and he asked himself what he had to oppose to it. The
answer was--"Nothing."
Vague professions of innocence, the testimony of persons who had known
him long to his general character--this was all; but he knew well that
all this was nothing in a case like that before him. He was aware,
moreover, that the refusal to give explanations would be construed
into a mere consciousness of guilt, and yet he could neither do away
the presumption of crime which existed in a thousand of the facts
against him, nor even account for one moment of his time without
casting back the charge of murder upon his own brother. It was a
terrible situation. The thought of Rose Tracy aggravated it, shook his
firmness, made his resolution waver; and starting up, he paced his
cell backwards and forwards for some minutes. But he conquered
himself; he conquered the repugnance to death and cold forgetfulness;
he conquered the clinging of the heart to life and love, and he sat
down again, saying aloud, "No, I will not be the destroyer of my
brother."
I will not say that hope went out, for the hope beyond this life
remained; but the hope of saving himself, the hope of his counsel
making any available defence, passed away as he reviewed the strong
presumptive proofs against him, spreading out, link after link, in a
long chain, which bound him ready for a death of ignominy. He made up
his mind to it. He gave up the consideration of the charge and the
defence. He took one step over the earthly future, and, as if standing
at the ports of the tomb, he ventured to cast his eyes beyond. It is,
it must be, an awful moment for any man, when the words of fate are
pronounced and heard, when the irreversible decree has been notified
to us, "This night shall thy soul be required of thee!" when all the
soft ties are to be broken; when all the warm affections are to come
to an end; when all the new cold things of an untried fate are before
us, and the prospect from the top of the bleak hill of death swells
into eternity. Then comes the terrible question, "How shall I answer
at the Throne of one perfectly pure, perfectly holy, for all the
trespasses committed in this mortal state? how have I stood the trial,
trod the path assigned to me? how have I fought the fight? how have I
employed the talent?"
Who is there at such a moment that can dare to answer, "Well?"
What would it be, when the presence of an earthly judge is terrible to
an offender, to plead one's own cause, to be one's own advocate before
the Almighty and Omniscient; to stand polluted in the Holy of Holies,
in the presence of Him who will not behold iniquity? But there is an
Advocate to raise his voice in our behalf; not to defend, but to
mediate, to justify us by his righteousness, to atone for us by his
blood, to make the compensation which eternal justice requires for
sin, and reconcile the offending creature to the offended Creator.
To Him Chandos Winslow raised his spirit in faith, and his voice in
prayer, and he found strength that no philosophy can give, hope when
all the hopes of earth had passed away.