“No, no; did she accuse you?”
“She might.”
The learned counsel then sat down with the quickest motion imaginable, and then the policeman gave his evidence as to taking the man into custody; and produced the huge watch. Mr. Bumpkin was recalled and asked how long he had had it, and where he bought it; the only answers to which were that he had had it five years, and bought it of a man in the market; did not know who he was or where he came from; all which answers looked very black against Mr. Bumpkin. Then the policeman was asked to answer this question—yes or no. “Did he know the prisoner?” He said “No.”
Mr. Nimble said to the jury, “Here was a man dressing himself up as an old man from the country (laughter) prowling about the streets of London in company with an associate whose name he dared not mention, and who probably was well-known to the police; here was this countryman actually accused of committing an assault in the public streets on a young woman with a baby in her arms: he runs away as hard as his legs will carry him and meets a man who is actually wearing the watch that this Bumpkin or Pumpkin charges him with stealing. He, the learned counsel, would call witness after witness
to speak to the character of his client, who was an engraver (I believe he was an engraver of bank notes); he would call witness after witness who would tell them how long they had known him, and how long he had had the watch; and, curiously enough, such curious things did sometimes almost providentially take place in a Court of Justice, he would call the very man that poor Mr. Simpleman had purchased it of five years ago, when he was almost, as you might say, in the first happy blush of boyhood (that ‘blush of boyhood’ went down with many of the jury who were fond of pathos); let the jury only fancy! but really would it be safe—really would it be safe, let him ask them upon their consciences, which in after life, perhaps years to come, when their heads were on their pillows, and their hands upon their hearts, (here several of the jury audibly sniffed), would those consciences upbraid, or would those consciences approve them for their work to-day? would it be safe to convict after the exhibition the prosecutor had made of himself in that box, where, he ventured to say, Bumpkin stood self-condemned before that intelligent jury.”
Here the intelligent jury turned towards one another, and after a moment or two announced, through their foreman (who was a general-dealer in old metal, in a dark street over the water), that if they heard a witness or two to the young man’s character that would be enough for them.
Witnesses, therefore, were called to character, and the young man was promptly acquitted, the jury appending to their verdict that he left the Court without a stain upon his character.
“Bean’t I ’lowed to call witnesses to charickter?” asks the Prosecutor.
“Oh, no,” replied Mr. Nimble; “we know your character pretty well.”
“What’s that?” inquired the Judge.