rible trepidation, whereupon the ruffian shot the former in the right arm, and the latter in the leg. No attempt to arrest him seems to have been made, but the two surviving victims of the outrage and the servants had no doubt whatever that the perpetrator of the murders was Rush. On the following morning he was arrested in the lodgings where he had been living with his mistress, Emily Sandford, and contented himself with a simple denial of his guilt. In due time he was brought to trial, at the Norwich assizes, before Mr. Baron Rolfe and a jury. Mr. Sergeant, afterwards Mr. Justice Byle, author of the famous book on " Bills," and owner of the still more famous horse named "Business," which formed a convenient ex cuse for many a pleasant holiday," prose cuted for the Crown. The prisoner defended, himself. It is stated that he endeavored to secure the services of an English barrister upon the terms that the latter should not conduct his defense, but simply advise him, if so required, on any legal points that might arise in the case. Of course no counsel would accept his brief on such conditions, and he was accordingly left to fight his own battle to the best of his ability. The probabilities of his guilt almost amounted to demonstration. In addition to the strong and concurring testimony of Mrs. Jermy, Eliza Chestney and the servants, and to the powerful motive for the commission of the crimes, that we have shown to exist, Rush's conduct, both before and after the critical period, was inconsistent with the hy pothesis of his innocence. He had left his lodgings mysteriously shortly before the 1 Mr. Sergeant Byle's horse was as dear to him as his practice, and he often absented himself from chambers to enjoy its society. If a client happened to call on any of these occasions he was gravely informed that Mr. Sergeant Byle was " away on business."
crime was committed, and had returned to them in a state of profound agitation after an interval long enough to have allowed of his being the murderer. He had destroyed the clothes that he wore on the fatal night, and had solemnly conjured his mistress not to disclose the fact that he had been absent for more than a few minutes. Finally he set up, for the first time at the trial, the extra ordinary defense that when he left his rooms on the night in question, he met a gang of men, who were presumably in the service of the claimants to the estate, and who told him that they were going to take forcible possession of Stanfield Hall. Of course the suggestion was that these persons had been the authors of the outrage. But the strong intellect of Baron Rolfe brushed this specious tale aside, and put the circumstantial evi dence before the jury with convincing power. A verdict of Guilty was returned, and Rush suffered the last penalty of the law. He remained utterly impenitent to the end, and walked gaily to the scaffold in a pair of patent-leather shoes. During the process of pinioning he complained that the rope hurt him, and urged the executioner to keep cool and to take time. His case is one well calculated to arouse serious reflection. Here was a man possessed of good natural gifts and certain superficial graces of char acter, but who, when any obstacle crossed his path, at once displayed the pitiless fero city of a tiger. The misplaced sentiment of the present day would probably have digni fied his wickedness with the pretentious name of instinctive criminalism. But the grim school to which Rolfe belonged knew nothing of that strange disease which in re cent years has been imported from Italy into England and America, and he was treated as men treat the wild beast that he resembled.
