whether she had ever witnessed any violence that led her to fear
personal danger to her sister, she replied, that, on one occasion,
Captain Wilde, being displeased at something in relation to the
preparation of a meal, seized a large carving-knife and flung it at his
wife, who only escaped further outrage by flying from the house. On
another occasion, she remembered, he became furiously angry because her
sister wished him to see some guests, and, seizing her by the hair,
dragged her to the door of his study, and cast her into the hall so
violently that she lay senseless upon the floor until accidentally
discovered,--her husband not even calling assistance. It is easy to
imagine what an effect such exposures of the habitual brutality of the
man, narrated by a near relation of the sufferer, and interrupted at
proper intervals by sobs and tears, would have upon an impulsive jury,
obliged to derive their knowledge of the case wholly from such a source,
and already strongly impressed by the circumstantial details with a
presumption unfavorable to the defendant. Now, since there were other
persons in the court-house who had witnessed these two scenes of alleged
maltreatment, it may seem strange that they were not brought forward
to contradict this woman on those two points, which would at once have
destroyed the effect of her entire testimony,--the maxim, _Falsum in
uno, falsum in omnibus_, being always readily applied in such cases. Had
this been done, a reaction of popular feeling would almost certainly
have followed in favor of the accused, which might have borne him safely
through, in spite of all the presumptive proof against him. For nothing
is truer than Lord Clarendon's observation, that, "when a man is shown
to be less guilty than he is charged, people are very apt to consider
him more innocent than he may actually be." But in this case the
falsehood was secured from exposure by its very magnitude, until it was
too late for such exposure to be of any benefit to the prisoner. The
persons who had beheld the scenes as they really occurred never thought