"Do you mean that you were employed by the government, or that the examination was a government one?" interrupted the judge.
"You'll hear something now," whispered Mr. Weasel to Mr. Balais, "by
Jove!"
"Both, my lord," explained the witness. "It had come to the knowledge of the government that there had been several cases of personation in the competitive examinations recently instituted both for the military and civil services. Not only were young gentlemen, who had apparently passed with credit, found grossly ignorant of the subjects which they had previously been examined upon, but their physical appearance was sometimes such as would have seemed to have disqualified them: it appeared incredible that they should have passed the preliminary medical examination. One was hump-backed; another almost blind. It was understood that some systematized scheme of imposture, of mispersonation, was at work to produce these results, and I was instructed to inquire into it. I did so. I came to the conclusion that only one person was concerned in the matter—the prisoner at the bar. I had had my suspicions of him for some time. I had seen him on three separate occasions as a candidate at public examinations. His nomination was correct and genuine, but (as I have since discovered) it had been issued to another person. He succeeded in every instance in obtaining the appointments in question for his employers, who received them in due course, though they have, I believe, since been canceled. In the case of Chandos, a letter was written, by the supposed successful candidate, to the authorities of the government branch—the India Board—under which he was to serve, so grossly misspelled that the fraud was at once suspected. In this instance the guilt was brought home to the prisoner by the confession of the young man Chandos himself, who paid over to him a considerable sum of money for the service in question. But I am now in a position to prove that on several other occasions the prisoner has committed the same offense; and, in short, if he may be said to have a calling, it is that of personating, at competitive examinations, young gentlemen of small ability, who are thus enabled to secure situations and appointments which they could otherwise never obtain."
Mr. Justice Bantam had his prejudices, but he had a fair and honest mind.
"This is a most unlooked-for communication, Brother Balais," said he, doubtfully; "and it is not permitted you to cross-examine upon a point of character."
"I am sorry to say, my lud," returned Mr. Balais, after a hurried conversation with the little attorney, "that my client is not in a position to dispute the evidence just adduced. He prefers to throw himself upon the mercy of the court, on the ground—a very tenable one, I think—of his youth and," he was going to add "inexperience," but, under the circumstances, he thought it better not—"of his extreme youth, my lud; my unhappy client is barely eighteen years of age."
"Very good," said Mr. Justice Bantam, looking as if it could not be worse. "Hem! Prisoner at the bar: after a careful and fair trial, in which you have had the benefit of the best legal aid, you have been found guilty of the charge of which you are accused. In that verdict I cordially concur. The offense was a very serious one; but the endeavor which you have made to screen yourself, at the expense of that beautiful and innocent young girl, is, in my opinion, still more heinous and contemptible than the crime itself. Having made yourself master of her affections, you used your power to the utmost to effect her moral and social hurt. You would have had her perjure herself, and proclaim herself guilty of a crime she did not commit, in order that you might yourself escape justice. Nobody who heard her evidence—who saw her in yonder box—can doubt it. Still, as your counsel has just remarked, you are but a youth in years, and I looked about me in hopes to find some extenuating circumstances in your past career—some record of good—which might have justified me in inflicting on you a more lenient sentence than your offense had earned. I had no other purpose in asking whether any thing was known of your previous career. The reply to that question has astonished and shocked me, as it has shocked and astonished every right-thinking person in this court who heard it. We knew to what base purpose you had used the comeliness and youth and good address with which nature had endowed you; and now we have learned how evilly you have misused your talents—with what perverted ingenuity you have striven, at so early an age, to set at naught those precautions by which your country has lately endeavored to secure for itself efficient public servants."
"That's neat," whispered a learned friend to Mr. Balais, reverently shutting his eyes, as though in rapt admiration.
"Very," returned that gentleman. "He's bidding for the Lord Chief
Justiceship."
"In the whole course of my legal experience, young man," continued the judge, "I have never seen a case which seems to me to call for more exemplary punishment than yours. The promise of your future is dark indeed—bad for yourself, and bad for that society which, though so fitted to adorn and benefit it, you have chosen to outrage. I will not, however, reproach you further; I will rather express a hope that when you return to the world after your long probation—and it will be as long as I am able to make it—you may be a wiser and better, as well as a much older man. The sentence of the court is, that you be kept in penal servitude for the space of twenty years."