token-that the fat cows always stand in the most exposed places, but the lean ones always go into the ditch for shelter."

One point in O'Connell's methods of advocacy that was very notable was his power of vituperation, in which, though he had many rivals, he appears to have been unsurpassed by any member of the Irish Bar. He had a tolerably good tongue for inventing at the moment epithets of abuse that seemed to his hearers to fit the occasion. He was fighting a case against an attorney who constantly interrupted him with futile and absurd objections, urged with considerable rudeness and pertinacity. O'Connell stood the annoyance for some time with more or less patience, and at length fastened him with a stern look and shouted at him in tones that reverberated through the Court-house: "Sit down, you snarling, pugnacious Ram Cat!"

The attorney was quelled, the court rocked with laughter, and the sobriquet remained with the unfortunate man for ever. It must have been incidents like this that caused the old crier in Ennis to try and clear the court by shouting out: "All ye blackguards that isn't lawyers quit the court," a phrase that delighted O'Connell beyond measure.

But if there was a touch of genial ruffianism in O'Connell's advocacy, no doubt it was necessary in the day in which he lived, for it was a day of sledge-hammers rather than pin-pricks. O'Connell was no greater a sinner than any other advocate, but his abuse was more original and epigrammatic than most. The picture of his home life that we have from many sources shows that at heart

he was of a just, kindly, generous nature. In a happier generation there is no doubt that O'Connell would have made an ideal Irish Judge. At his home at Darrynane, where he was much beloved, he would find on his return from the hunt a large number of peasants from the surrounding county waiting for him to arbitrate in their disputes. These he heard and determined at his gate, the proceedings being held in the Irish tongue, and his decisions were never disputed, nor was there ever an effort made to re-try a case before a more regular tribunal.

It is true that in 1838 the offer was made to him of the office of Lord Chief Baron, but he declined it, although it went to his heart to refuse a position which would leave him free in April to join his beloved beagles “just when the jack hares leave the most splendid trails in the mountains." But nothing could keep O'Connell from what he considered his mission in life. The joys of his home, the pleasures of sport, the glory of a great forensic career, were all gladly sacrificed to what he deemed to be the call of his country. Eighteen years before his death, at the height of his fame, he relinquished his practice at the Bar. To use his own words:

"I flung away my profession, I gave its emoluments to the winds, I closed the vista of its honours and dignities, I embraced the cause of my country, and, come weal or come woe, I have made a choice at which I have never repined, nor shall ever repent."

Chapter V Concerning the Passing of the

:

Indictment

"Here is th' indictment of the good Lord Hastings;
Which in a set hand fairly is engross'd,

That it may be to-day read o'er in Paul's :
And mark how well the sequel hangs together :-

Eleven hours I have spent to write it over.”

Richard III, Act III, Scene vi.

HROUGH the long ages of our history, the

Indictment, that dread instrument of the Law,

has continued through its outward shape and inward legal form to symbolise in its parchment permanence and quaint mysterious phrasing the ancientry of our legal institutions. How many sheep and lambs have gone to the slaughter-their wool taken for sacks for Chancellors to sit on, perchance, their mutton comfortably digested by the unthinking mob-that their skins might be preserved for the engrossment of horrid crimes, and that the wicked ones in the dock, comforted with the solemn parchment record of their sins, might tremble before the Clerk of Assize as he mumbled out the mysterious arraignment from the counts of the never-ending parchment roll that doomed the evil doer to the gallows. That the Law should be no respecter of persons is well, but that it should treat our most ancient historical institutions without due reverence is hardly to be borne.

"Let wealth and commerce, laws and learning die,
But leave us still our old nobility."

And what has more nobility in form, language, and historical tradition than the Indictment of our Common Law? If such an institution is to be abolished without protest, our oldest nobility may well be in danger of judgment. Yet here, without a word of explanation or consolation, comes along a King's Printer's copy of a little thin, flippant statute calling itself "Indictments Act, 1915, alias 5 & 6 Geo. V. Ch. 90," and we find to our dismay that the Indictment-that entertaining miscellany of our criminal courts, at once the Palladium of our liberties and the Coliseum of our Constitution-has passed away, unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.

I remember long ago on a Sunday afternoon a little child in a nursery, whose sole Sabbath reading was " Line upon Line,” an undramatic version of the Old Testament, was discovered by her elders sitting on the hearth-rug weeping as if her heart would break. For a long time she refused to tell her grief, but at length, in answer to the tender questions of her parents, she sobbed out the mournful news: "Oh, Mummy, Aaron's dead!"

It can scarcely be that the career of Aaron had captivated her young idea, but she had spelled through long pages of his respectable history. There seemed every reason to hope he had lived down the memory of that little incident about the golden calf, and now, just as she fondly imagined he had settled down to a permanent ecclesiastical sinecure, the news came that they had carried him to the top of a mountain, taken away his garments, and left him alone to die.

When I read "Indictments Act, 1915," I seemed to remember that little child and fully entered into her

feelings. I felt tears in my own throat to think that my ancient friend the Indictment, once generous to me even in guineas, was no more. I, too, longed to sit on a hearthrug and sob until some Alma Mater would come to console me in my sorrow.

One hesitates to reveal to sober citizens the true frightfulness of the details of this iconoclastic statute. It is even enacted that parchment is no longer necessary, "durable paper may be used. One knows what that means. Imagine indicting Sir Walter Raleigh for treason on wood pulp! Again, the Indictment need not be joined together in one roll: In the old days it was some small satisfaction and pride to the poor fellow in the dock to see his false pretences set out with due averment and scientific negation on long rolls of sheepskin; now he will have to listen to a bald catalogue of his crimes from sheets of paper twelve inches square bound in book form. True, it is enacted that "a proper margin not less than three inches in width shall be kept on the left-hand side of each sheet "—a touch of the vanished hand of your old scrivener here-but alas! if this good order is disobeyed it does not appear that the unfortunate man in the dock has any remedy. He cannot plead in abatement, or bring a writ of error, or move to quash, or perform any of those ancient legal gymnastics that used to bring him relief.

When one comes to the form of the futurist Indictment it is even more heartrending. It is like gazing at a beautiful ancient city whose noblest and most ancient towers and landmarks have been brutally destroyed. No longer do you describe to the unhappy wretch in the dock