“Not at all, my lords—though I have some doubts as to the fact. The fact remains to be established,” answered the other, taking snuff.
“The fact is certain, and will not admit of cavil. In the case of Rex versus Noah Poke, the court ordered the punishment of decaudization to take precedence of that of decapitation, in the case of Regina versus the same. Process had been issued from the bench to that effect; the culprit has, in consequence, lost his cauda, and with it his reason; a creature without reason has always been held to be non compos mentis, and by the law of the land is not liable to the punishments of life or limb.”
“Your law is plausible, my brother Downright,” observed my lord chief-justice, “but it remains for the bench to be put in possession of the facts. At the next term, you will perhaps be better prepared—”
“I pray you, my lord, to remember that this is a case which will not admit of three months’ delay.”
“We can decide the principle a year hence, as well as to-day; and we have now sat longer in banco,” looking at his watch, “than is either usual, agreeable, or expedient.”
“But, my lords, the proof is at hand. Here is a witness to establish that the cauda of Noah Poke, the defendant of record, has actually been separated from his body—”
“Nay—nay—my brother Downright, a barrister of your experience must know that the twelve can only take evidence on affidavit. If you had an affidavit prepared, we might possibly find time to hear it, before we adjourn; as it is, the affair must lie over to another sitting.”
I was now in a cold sweat, for I could distinctly scent the peculiar odor of the burning tail; the ashes of which being fairly thrown into Noah’s face, there remained no further obstacle to the process of decapitation—the sentence, it will be remembered, having kept his countenance on his shoulders expressly for that object. My brother Downright, however, was not a lawyer to be defeated by so simple a stumbling-block. Seizing a paper that was already written over in a good legal hand, which happened to be lying before him, he read it, without pause or hesitation, in the following manner:
“Regina versus Noah Poke.”
“Kingdom of Leaphigh, Season of Nuts, {Personally this fourth day of the Moon.} appeared before me, Meditation, Lord Chief-Justice of the Court of King’s Bench, John Goldencalf, baronet, of the Kingdom of Great Britain, who, being duly sworn, doth depose and say, viz., that he, the said deponent, was present at, and did witness, the decaudization of the defendant in this suit, and that the tail of the said Noah Poke, or No. 1, sea-water-color, hath been truly and physically separated from his body.