landlord of a public-house, and a post-boy. But we cannot relate at length the further details of this thrilling story. How she was hurried by her nominal husband, first to London and then to Calais, or some five or six hundred miles in five days; how she was rescued by her relatives, who first knew of her abduction by seeing the announcement of her marriage in the newspapers; and how she had to undergo the scarcely less arduous ordeal of a trial, are all now matters of history. But it must suffice for us here to point out that the case will serve as a fair instance of the romances which are to be found in the law reports. Indeed, so rich and wide is the field before us that it is difficult to choose. But perhaps those in stances in which the innocent have paid the penalty for other people's crimes command most ready sympathy and universal interest. Many recent examples will be fresh in the public mind, but in the books many are to be found. For instance, there is a very remark able case cited in Lord Romilly's "Memoirs," in which a sailor of the name of Thomas Wood was tried by court-martial on a charge of having been concerned in a mutiny, and upon his own confession was condemned to death and executed. The man's relations, who had appealed in vain for a respite, got the case taken up by some of the papers, and this led to the facts being laid before the Attorney-General prior to taking proceedings against the journals for libel. A careful inquiry was made into the facts, with the result that the man's innocence was completely established, and it was proved that he was at Portsmouth, on board the "Marlborough," at the time when the mutiny took place on board the "Hermione." Of course, the old reports, especially the criminal reports, teem with cases where the most flagrant partiality was shown by the judges, and record scenes of trials which were a parody upon justice; but even in more modern times there are many similar cases reported. Thus the conviction of Lord Cochrane of conspiring fraudulently with seven others "to raise the price of the public funds by causing persons, disguised as officers, to pretend that they had arrived at Dover and Northfleet with expresses from France on the morning of Feb. 21, 1814, announcing the overthrow of Buonaparte, and the conclusion of the war," is certainly of doubtful validity. And the humiliation endured by the brave hero of the Basque Roads, not only in this conviction, but in its consequences, which involved the removal of his name from the Navy List, his being deprived of his command of the "Tonnant," and being stripped of his title of Knight of the Bath, while his banner was taken down at midnight from Henry VII.'s Chapel, is very pathetic. In this case, it is true, some tardy reparation was made after a lapse of thirty-nine years, during most of which time he served with distinction in the South American War, and upon his succeeding to the title—Earl of Dundonald—by restoring him to his rank in the navy, and appointing him Vice-Admiral of the Blue. The Bank of England long preserved, and, for anything we know to the contrary, still preserves the identical £1,000 note with which Lord Cochrane paid his fine, and upon the face of which he recorded his fierce protest against his conviction.
But it must not be supposed that the law reports omit to record details of small and insignificant cases, as well as those of national importance or of a romantic interest. As we have already intimated, we can find there the germ of many a nursery legend and childhood puzzle. A single instance will suffice. We are all familiar with that mysterious and complicated sum in arithmetical progression, in which one penny was to be given for the first nail in a horse's shoes; twopence for the second; fourpence for the third, and so on; the puzzle being to find out what was the sum to be given for the last nail. It is, however, at any rate interesting to know that this case actually occurred in real life, and that in the reign of Charles II. (1 Leo. iii.) one Morgan agreed to pay one James, as the price of a horse, a
