clerk's opinion, while the clerk's opinion did not always depend upon
his knowledge of law.

An impudent vagabond was brought up before this clergyman charged with
a violent and unprovoked assault on a man in a public-house. He was
said to have gone into the room where the prosecutor was, and to have
taken up his jug of ale and appropriated the contents to his own use
without the owner's consent. The prosecutor, annoyed at the outrage,
rose, and was immediately knocked down by the interloper, and in
falling cut his head.

There was to my untutored mind no defence, but the accused was a
man of remarkable cunning and not a little ingenuity. He knew the
magistrate well, and his special weakness, which was vanity. By his
knowledge the man completely outwitted his adversary, and shifted the
charge from himself on to the prosecutor's shoulders. The curious
thing was he cross-examined the reverend chairman instead of the
witness, which I thought a master-stroke of policy, if not advocacy.

"You know this public-house, sir?" he asked.

The reverend gentleman nodded.

"I put it to yourself, sir, as a gentleman: how would you have liked
it if another man had come to your house and drunk your beer?"

There was no necessity to give an answer to this question. It answered
itself. The reverend gentleman would not have liked it, and, seeing
this, the accused continued,--