"O my lord," said a policeman, "there was a hinquest on a babby, which was the female prisoner's babby and what had died. Then it come out afore Mr. Coroner, my lord, and he ordered the woman into custody, and then the man was took."
I thought they had had punishment enough for their offence, and gave them no imprisonment, but ordered them to be released on their own recognizances, and to come up for judgment if called upon.
Now came my sentence. The clergyman of the parish in which this terrible crime had been discovered evidently felt that he had been living in the utmost danger for years. Here these people came to his church, and for aught he knew prayed for forgiveness under the very roof where he himself worshipped.
He said I had done a fine thing to encourage sin and immorality, and what could come of humanity if Judges would not punish?
He denounced me, I afterwards learned, in his pulpit in the severest terms, although I did not hear that he used the same vituperative language towards the poor creatures I had so far absolved. Luckily I was not attending the reverend gentleman's ministration, but he seemed to think the greatest crime I had committed was disallowing the costs of the prosecution. That was a direct incentive to bigamy, although in what respect I never learned.
It sometimes suggested to my mind this question,—
What would this minister of the gospel have said to the Divine Master when the woman caught "in the very act" was before Him, and He said, in words never to be forgotten till men and women are no more, "Neither do I condemn thee"?
I thought those who loved a prosecution of this kind—whoever it may have been—ought to pay for the luxury, and so I condemned them in the costs.