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Essays and addresses" After congratulating the prisoners on being " so capable of defend- ing themselves " when they were prevented by law from ad- dressing the jury by counsel, he adds, " Wilson was of humble origin and saw his prospects blasted if he submitted to the degradation and was impelled by the usages of Society and the slights he had partially felt or foresaw to adopt the only alternative which men of honour thought opan to him he to the last relied upon an amicable adjustment and went out determined not to fire at deceased and did so at last in a state of nervousness. " It is no great wonder that the jury took the very broad hint and followed the example of other juries -who, finding " all was fair," refused to convict. The Chief Justice notes that " the jury was but a short time in consultation. " Wilson subsequently married the young lady, who wa? amiable and accomplished; not the faintest suspicion was This reminds one of the charge of Chief Justice Fletcher of the Court of Common Pleas of Ireland, when in the second decade of the 19th century, he presided over the trial of one Fenton for the murder of Major Hillas, whom he had killed in a duel : " Gentlemen, it is my business to lay down the law to you, and I will. The law says the killing a man in a duel is murder, and I am bound to tell you it is murder : therefore in the discharge of my duty. prev next |