Moreover I should never come to an end were I to
keep to a strictly narrative form, and detail the infinite absurdities
with which I daily came in contact.
The prisoner was placed in the dock, and the jury were sworn much as in
Europe; almost all our own modes of procedure were reproduced, even to
the requiring the prisoner to plead guilty or not guilty. He pleaded not
guilty, and the case proceeded. The evidence for the prosecution was
very strong; but I must do the court the justice to observe that the
trial was absolutely impartial. Counsel for the prisoner was allowed to
urge everything that could be said in his defence: the line taken was
that the prisoner was simulating consumption in order to defraud an
insurance company, from which he was about to buy an annuity, and that he
hoped thus to obtain it on more advantageous terms. If this could have
been shown to be the case he would have escaped a criminal prosecution,
and been sent to a hospital as for a moral ailment. The view, however,
was one which could not be reasonably sustained, in spite of all the
ingenuity and eloquence of one of the most celebrated advocates of the
country. The case was only too clear, for the prisoner was almost at the
point of death, and it was astonishing that he had not been tried and
convicted long previously.
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