remember that he was at your house on Friday, the 18th of September, 1668 ?

Larimore. - No, my Lord, sure it was not upon that day that I was robbed.

L. C. B. Hale. Larimore, no, in my conscience thou sayest well, for it seems you were not robbed upon the same day that you have sworn you saw the prisoner at the bar commit this robbery.

Hawk. My Lord, nor upon any other day (as I do verily believe). And here many of the people cried out, that they believed as much.

[The plaintiff claimed to be Richard Hugh Smyth, son of Sir Hugh Smyth, and Jane Vandenbergh, a relative of Mrs. Jane Bernard, formerly Jane Gookin. The plaintiff's mother's marriage to Sir Hugh would have made him the heir to vast estates. He claimed to have been born in 1798, and to have been placed by his father in another family, to keep secret his relation to the father's family. He lived a long time abroad. On his return in 1826, he learned of his parentage. He produced two deeds of testament, signed and sealed by Sir Hugh Smyth, purporting to acknowledge in explicit detail all the facts of his mother's marriage and his own birth. The deeds bore date January 27, 1822, and September 10, 1823. They had not come into his possession, however, till 1852 or 1853.

The trial in ejectment for the estates came on in August, 1853. The last witness was the claimant himself, who thus continued.] . . . "I was going away from my father's house, and he called me back, took me upstairs to his bedroom, opened his bureau and gave me the Bible and the jewelry. The large picture said to be that of my father hung in the

room below. He also asked me to pledge my word to him that I would follow his directions. I assured him I would. He then gave into my hands a bundle of papers, sealed up with directions to take them to Mr. Phelps, an eminent solicitor, at Warminster. I then left him, and never saw him more. I brought the Bible and jewelry away without opening them. That is the Bible [produced], and this the jewelry."

Much interest was caused by the production of the jewelry. The Claimant brought out a newlooking morocco case containing a miniature portrait supposed by him to be his mother's, four gold rings, and two brooches. One ring was marked with the initials "J. B.," suggested to be those of Jane Bernard, and one of the brooches with the words "Jane Gookin" at length.

[He testified:] "I first saw the large parchment [the deed of 1823] some time in March last. It came to me by railway from London. There was a letter inclosed with it. The letter is dated March the 7th, but I think I did not receive the parcel until the 17th. I first heard of the small parchment of 1822 when my

attorney spoke of it to me. I first saw this parchment (the small one) to-day. I do not know where it came from. . . . I did not order any seals of Moring, seal engraver of Holborn, in December, 1852. It was in March, 1853. . . . The second seal was taken from the document of 1823, the only one I had. ... I got the seal, I think, the 7th of June. I had correspondence with Mr. Bennett, of Ballinadee ... stating that he had the certificates of his mother's marriage and wanted specimens of Mr. Lovett's writing....

[This letter to Mr. Bennett, being produced, was found to bear the date 13th March, 1853. Upon the envelope was a seal with the motto "Qui capit capitor," which was the same as the seal he said he did not have till 7th June.] In explanation of this witness said: "It must be a mistake of the engraver; he should make out his bill better and not lead me astray with wrong dates. I could not have had the seal long before I wrote to the Rev. Mr. Bennett. After I received the deed on the 17th March, I sent the impression to Mr. Moring. He was not long executing it.

ness

"Did you on the 19th of January last apply to a person at 361, Oxford Street, to engrave the ring with the Bandon crest, and the brooch with the words Jane Gookin?" Witness."I did, sir."

The excitement in court at this unexpected avowal was intense. Sir Frederick himself sat down, and was so much affected as to be quite unable to proceed or even to repeat the question. Mr. Bovill was also deeply moved. Mr. Alexander then repeated to the court, at the request of the judge, the question asked of the witness, Sir Frederick being quite unable to do so. The ring and brooch were then produced, and admitted by the plaintiff to be the ones referred to. Hitherto he had faced all the previous questions; but at this stage of the case he appeared cowed and crestfallen. . . His lordship thereupon appealed to Mr. Bovill whether he meant to go on. . . . Application was then made to the court by Sir F. Thesiger that the plaintiff should not be permitted to go at large, and he was accordingly taken into custody on a charge of perjury. The jury then returned a verdict for the defendant, and the extraordinary case came to an end..

.

All trinkets, deeds, etc., were then impounded; and in the course of the day the plaintiff was taken before a magistrate and committed for trial on a charge of forgery.

Mr. Alexander, on the part of the prosecution, stated the circumstances under which the previous action had been brought and its termination in the committal of the plaintiff to take his trial for perjury and forgery; and the shorthand notes of the plaintiff's examination in chief and crossexamination having been read,

Mr. Moring, a seal engraver of Holborn, was called. He deposed that in December, 1852 (only a few months before the trial), he had been employed by the prisoner to engrave a crest, garter, and motto

on a seal, from a pattern which the prisoner furnished him with. The proper motto was "Qui capit capitur," but the "u" being blotted, an error was made in the engraving, and the motto was made to read "Qui capit capitor." He also made a second seal at the request of the prisoner, with the arms of the Smyths of Ashton Court, in which the same error arose. The seal on the document purporting to be the will of Sir Hugh Smyth was made with this second seal, as also the seal on the letter from Sir Hugh to his pretended wife. He further proved that there had been an alteration in the mode of engraving seals within the last four or five years, and the seals on the will had been engraved in the new manner. The prisoner had subsequently called upon him and desired he would not give any information about the seals. Another witness, a seal engraver, corroborated the evidence as to the seal on the will having been made with the seal engraved by Mr. Moring, and also as to the new mode of engraving.

Mr. Robert Cox, a jeweler, of No. 351, Oxford Street, London, through whose instrumentality the plaintiff had been so effectually confounded on the third day of the trial, proved

that on the 5th January, 1853, the prisoner came to his shop and said he was trustee of some children, and had the care of some jewels which he had lost; but the jewels had been asked for, and he was desirous of buying some others in their place. As the children had never seen the originals the prisoner said the new ones would do just as well. He also asked for a miniature or miniature frame, which he said he should wish to pass off as that of the mother of the children. He selected two brooches and a wedding and a mourning ring. The engraving on the mourning ring, "Mary, wife of Sir Hugh Smyth, m. 1796, d. 1797," was done by order of the prisoner. On one of the brooches the name "Jane Gookin" was engraved, also by his order, and on the signet ring the Bandon crest. The witness deposed that it was by casually reading a report of the proceedings of the first day's trial in the "Times" newspaper that he had been led to communicate with the defense at the last trial.

The jury after a few minutes' deliberation returned a verdict of guilty both of forgery and of the uttering, and the prisoner then received the well-merited sentence of twenty years' transportation.

One of the great triumphs of Lincoln at the bar was won in the trial of William D. (“Cal") Armstrong, indicted with one Norris, for murder. The crime had been committed in Mason County, near a camp meeting. Norris was convicted and sent to the State prison. Armstrong took a change of venue to Cass County, on the ground that the prejudices of the people in Mason

County were so strong against him that he could not have a fair trial. He was the son of Jack Armstrong, who had been so kind to Lincoln in early life. Jack was dead; but Hannah, who, when Lincoln was roughing it at New Salem, had been so motherly, thought that Lincoln only could save Bill from disgrace and death; he could do anything. She went to Springfield, and begged

him to come and save her son. He at once relieved her by promising to do all he could.

The trial came on at Beardstown, in the spring of 1858. The evidence against Bill was very strong. Indeed, the case for the defense looked hopeless. Several witnesses swore positively to his guilt. The strongest evidence was that of a man who swore that at eleven o'clock at night he saw Armstrong strike the deceased on the head. That the moon was shining brightly and was nearly full, and that its position in the sky was just about that of the sun at ten o'clock in the morning, and that by it he saw Armstrong give the mortal blow. This was fatal, unless the effect could be broken by contradiction or impeachment. Lincoln quietly looked up an almanac, and found that at the time this, the principal witness, declared the moon

to have been shining with full light, there was no moon at all. There were some contradictory statements made by other witnesses, but on the whole the case seemed almost hopeless. Mr. Lincoln made the closing argument. "At first," says Mr. Walker, one of the counsel associated with him, "he spoke slowly and carefully, reviewed the testimony, and pointed out its contradictions, discrepancies, and impossibilities. When he had thus prepared the way, he called for the almanac, and showed that, at the hour at which the principal witness swore he had seen, by the light of the full moon, the mortal blow given, there was no moon at all."

This was the climax of the argument, and of course utterly disposed of the principal witness. But it was Lincoln's eloquence which saved Bill Armstrong.

66

.. Netherclift's dogmatic manner rendered him peculiarly liable to fall into traps like this, and many were the occasions on which he was found tripping. Readers of Lord Brampton's book will recall another amusing instance in which the expert was put in a hole" by his opponent, who tells the story in these words: "When I rose to examine I handed to the expert six slips of paper, each of which was written in a different kind of writing. Netherclift took out his large pair of spectacles, magnifiers, which he always carried. Then he began to polish them with a great deal of care, say

ing, as he performed that operation, 'I see, Mr. Hawkins, what you are going to try to do you want to put me in a hole.' 'I do, Mr. Netherclift, and if you are ready for the hole, tell me were those six pieces of paper written by one hand about the same time?' He examined them carefully, and after a considerable time, answered, 'No; they were written at different times, and by different hands.' 'By different persons, do you say?' 'Yes, certainly.' 'Now, Mr. Netherclift, you are in the hole! I wrote them myself this morning at this desk.""

Trespass on the case, for personal injuries. Appeal from the Superior Court of Cook County; the Hon. James GOGGIN, Judge, presiding. Heard in this court at the March term, 1896. Remittitur ordered, etc. Opinion filed March 31, 1896.

63 Ill. App. 241.)

Mr. Justice SHEPARD delivered the opinion of the Court.

The appellee was a passenger, bound from Chicago to New York, on one of the appellant's passenger trains. Near a station named Tuscarawas, Ohio, the train in