Court. We are all clearly of that opinion.
Counsel for Pros. Please your worships of the honourable bench. On Saturday the day of February inst. on or about the hour of five in the afternoon, the deceased Mr. Hare was travelling quietly about his business, in a certain highway or road leading towards Muckingham; and then, and there, the prisoner at the bar being in the same road, in and upon the body of the deceased, with force and arms, a violent assault did make; and further, not having the fear of your worships before his eyes, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of a devilish fit of hunger, he the said prisoner did him the said deceased, in the peace of our lord of the manor then and there being, feloniously, wickedly, wantonly, and of malice aforethought, tear, wound, pull, haul, touzle, masticate, macerate, lacerate, and dislocate, and otherwise evilly intreat; of all and singular which tearings, woundings, pullings, haulings, touzleings, mastications, and so forth, maliciously inflicted in manner and form aforesaid, the said Hare did languish, and languishing did die, in Mr. Just-ass Ponser’s horsepond, to wit, and that is to say, contrary to the statute in that case made and provided, and against the peace of our said lord, his manor and dignity.
This, please your worships, is the purport of the indictment; to this indictment the prisoner has pleaded not guilty, and now stands upon his trial before this honourable bench.
Your worships will therefore allow me, before I come to call our evidence, to expatiate a little upon the heinous sin, wherewith the prisoner at the bar is charged. Hem!—To murder,—Ehem—To murder, may it please your worships, in Latin, is—is—Murderare;—or in the true and original sense of the word, Murder-ha-re. H—, as your worships well know, being not as yet raised to the dignity of a letter by any act of parliament, it follows that it plainly is no other than Murder-a-re, according to modern refined pronunciation. The very root and etymology of the word does therefore comprehend in itself a thousand volumes in folio, to show the nefarious and abominable guilt of the prisoner, in the commission and perpetration of this horrid fact. And it must appear as clear as sunshine to your worships, that the word Murderare, which denotes the prisoner’s crime, was expressly and originally applied to that crime, and to that only, as being the most superlative of all possible crimes in the world. I do not deny that, since it first came out of the mint, it has, through corruption, been affixed to offences of a less criminal nature, such as killing a man, a woman, or a child. But the sense of the earliest ages having stamped hare-murder, or murder-ha-re, (as the old books have it,) with such extraordinary atrociousness, I am sure that Just-asses of your worships’ acknowledged and well-known wisdom, piety, erudition, and humanity, will not, at this time of the day, be persuaded to hold it less detestable and sinful. Having said thus much on the nature of the prisoner’s guilt, I mean not to aggravate the charge, because I shall always feel due compassion for my fellow-creatures, however wickedly they may demean themselves.—I shall next proceed, with your worships’ leave, to call our witnesses.—Call Lawrence Lurcher and Toby Tunnel.
Pris. Counsel. I must object to swearing these witnesses.—I can prove, they were both of them drunk, and non compos, during the whole evening, when this fact is supposed to have been committed.
Bottle. That will do you no service. I am very often drunk myself, and never more in my senses than at such times.
Court. We all agree in this point with brother Bottle.
[Objection overruled and witnesses sworn.]
Lurcher. As I, and Toby Tunnel here, was a going hoam to squire Ponser’s, along the road, one evening after dark, we sees the prisoner at the bar, or somebody like him, lay hold of the deceased, or somebody like him, by the back, an’t please your worships. So, says I, Toby, says I, that looks for all the world like one of ’squire Ponser’s hares. So the deceased cried out pitifully for help, and jumped over a hedge, and the prisoner after him, growling and swearing bitterly all the way. So, says I, Toby, let’s run after ’um. So I scrambled up the hedge; but Toby laid hold of my leg, to help himself up; so both of us tumbled through a thick furze bush into the ditch. So, next morning, as we was a going by the squire’s, we sees the deceased in his worship’s horse-pond.
Pris. Counsel. Are you sure he was dead?