elicited by my repeated shouts, and more than one door and window opened, and two or three persons made their appearance.

"What's the row?" cried one.

"What's up?" exclaimed another.

“Who has hung himself?" chorused a third.

'My friends, come hither, and help me.

through foul play," I cried.

Here is a woman dying

Soon a little crowd had gathered around, and lights were brought; but the woman had died in my arms.

"How pale he looks!" noted one, observing my features.

"How he shakes!" said another. "Maybe he did it himself." "I'll swear I saw him with her ten minutes ago!" exclaimed a third.

"He looks guilty. He has got a gallows' swing in his countenance," averred a fourth.

Why, I know not, unless it was the peculiar position that I occupied, but my trepidation increased momently, and the blood, habituated as my profession had rendered me to the sight, became nauseous, and I appeared to reel beneath the reflection of the gory hues that danced everywhere before me. The crowd, too, closed in around me, and the frosty air of December became, for an instant, sultry as the parching breath of the siroc.

"Let me have fresh air," I cried, "or I shall faint."

"He wants to escape-that's his move," was the response.

At this moment three policemen arrived together.

"He is the murderer," said two or three, pointing simultaneously towards me.

"Here's the knife he did it with," said one individual, picking up from the pavement the weapon with which the deed had certainly been committed.

"Her name is Nanny Simmons," deposed another. "I know her well. She lives in Swallow-street; and this gentleman is a doctor that used to visit her."

"Are you a doctor, sir?" questioned a policeman.

"I am a doctor," I answered; "but there is some mistake here." "Hark to him, the dirthy vagabone," shouted an Irishwoman. "Oh, there's no mistake, my jewel. Think of his cutting the cratur's throat in a mistake."

"I cut her throat!" I exclaimed; "I found her lying here with her throat cut, and I cried for help."

“Ah, but you did it yourself for all that," said a stout fellow, in a coalheaver's dress. "I know the woman; I saw her, not twenty minutes ago, standing by the church. Good night, Missis Simmons,' says I. I'm waiting for the next 'bus,' says she-Saucy Bill's 'bus. There's some one I knows coming in it. Maybe I shall have some words with him to-night, so it wont be good night, d'ye see.' Them's just her words."

"Well, I didn't see the woman, but I saw this one (pointing to me) get out of Saucy Bill's 'bus, not ten minutes ago, and it was by the church, too," said another.

"We must move off to the station," said a policeman.

"Tom, go

for a stretcher, and take up the body. You must come with us, sir," tapping me on the shoulder.

"I am ready to go with you," I answered.

So, amidst the comments of the crowd, who continued to attend and press upon us, we took our departure.

Many times have I reflected upon the occurrence of that evening, and have striven to account for the unwonted and irresistible depression which stole over me, influencing my limbs, till they appeared to bend under my weight, and lying with an incubus' pressure upon my naturally elastic spirits.

The inspector of night charges, stationed at the office, took a report of the case.

"You found the woman bleeding at the neck?" he said, addressing me. "Have you any idea how the wound was inflicted! Remember, I caution you to avoid saying anything which may criminate yourself. Your answers will be written down, and used in your favour, or against you, as may hereafter happen."

"Anything that may criminate myself! Good God! I am not suspected of murder! Here is my card."

The man took the pasteboard, and, glancing at it, remarked that it was a name well known in the medical profession. He also ordered me a seat, remarking, at the same time, that I was in a state of extreme agitation.

Here one of the officers spoke to the effect that two or three witnesses were in attendance who could swear to my acquaintance with the deceased, and to having seen me with her only a few minutes before the murder must have been committed. They were ordered in, and questioned.

"What is your name?" said the inspector, to the first-a man of a forward, and yet repulsive appearance.

"Thomas Turnaway," answered the fellow.

"Are you acquainted with the person of the deceased?"

Very well. She lived only three doors from my house, in Swallowstreet. Her name is Nanny Simmons."

"Have you ever seen the gentleman seated in that chair before?" "I saw him to-night, for the first time.

He was talking to her at

the corner of Hart-street, about half-an-hour ago."

I was about to interrupt, but the inspector imposed silence.

"Are you positive of his identity?" he asked of the witness.

"I am positive that the man I saw talking to the woman who was found with her throat cut is the man now sitting in that chair." "Have you any further evidence?"

"None."

"You may now question him, sir," said the inspector.

A minute before I could have spoken; I now declined.

"Then he may stand back," said the officer. "Who is next?"

Here a woman made her appearance.

"What is your name?" said the inspector.

66

"Mary Mince, I live at 16, Swallow-street, next door to the house occupied by deceased, whom I knew well."

"Do you know this person?" pointing to me.

Very well, by sight. I never spoke to him.

He used to come

and see her till within a month ago. He hasn't been since.”

"Did you know his name?"

"I did not. I always understood he was a doctor. Mrs. Simmons

told me he was the father of her child. She was a widow. Her hus

band has been dead many years. She has a child about one year and a half old. She said a doctor was its father, and that he used to come and give her money. I saw him one day coming along the street, and I pointed him out to her, and asked her if he was the father of her child, as I knew he used to call and see her? She answered that he was."

"And can you swear that the person now before you is the gentleman whom you saw on the day you allude to, and whom the deceased said was the father of her child?"

"I can swear it: he is the same."

Another witness deposed to observing the woman standing by the church, and afterwards seeing me alight from an omnibus, upon which she walked away, and I followed her.

A fourth witness stated that the deceased had informed him that she had quarrelled with a doctor, who was the father of her child, and that she had not seen him for a month, but that she expected him that night, when she hoped to make it up with him.

I here claimed right to make an observation.

Scarcely had I commenced to speak, when some one remarked, in an undertone, that my teeth chattered. They did, certainly. The inspector commanded silence, and awaited my speech, but the ardour had passed off, and I was unable to utter a word. On such a charge bail could not be accepted, and I was locked up on suspicion of murder.

Never shall I forget the horror of that night. The certainty that immediate intelligence would be dispatched to the press, and that on the following morning my name would go forth to the world as the suspected perpetrator of so horrible a deed-the damning evidence, every whit false, with which destiny seemed resolved to work my ruin-my own palsied powers-the abstraction of my faculties-the tremour I had exhibited during the inquisition at the station-houseall would be published, and would co-operate against me in the public mind. I was frantic at the thought. I sat in my narrow cell, and gnawed my fingers; then, roused into momentary madness, I impotently struggled at, escape.

The next day I was taken before a magistrate, when the same witnesses attended, and the same and even additional evidence was gone into. Saucy Bill, as he was called, the conductor of the omnbius in which (curses on it!) I had arrived at Whitechapel, stated that he had brought me as far as the church; that I had got up at Holborn, at the end of King-street; that I had distinctly said "Whitechapel;" and that on arriving at the spot I had designated, I endeavoured to shuffle him out of his fare, and created a disturbance by pretending that I wanted to have been taken to Shoreditch, and charged him with having falsely called his a Shoreditch omnibus. He added, that a gentleman, who was the only other passenger in the vehicle at the time, and who overheard the altercation, was in court, and had evidence of his own to give. This person was immediately called for by the magistrate, and proved to be the individual before spoken of, with the small chuckling voice. He corroborated the fellow's statement of my attempt to swindle him out of his fare, and avowed his belief that I was the murderer.

"What reasons have you for that belief?" asked the magistrate. "In the first place," answered this individual, "I observed that he was very much excited. When the other passenger alighted, and we were the sole occupants of the vehicle, he seemed to overlook my presence, making passionate gestures, and drawing from his pocket a case of surgical instruments, with one of which he appeared disposed to make other than a professional use."

"Explain yourself," said the magistrate. "What do you mean by other than a professional use?”

"I mean that he went through the pantomimic action of cutting or stabbing."

"Were your suspicions in any way aroused by his gestures?"

"I cannot say that they were at the time. I thought him a singular customer, and was not sorry when he alighted."

The policeman who searched me deposed to the finding a case of surgical instruments on my person.

I will not attempt to recapitulate all the evidence. I even pass over the surprise of my friends, and their strenuous, but useless endeayours to acquit me. It was proved, indeed, that I had been sent for to attend a patient residing at Shoreditch. To my own mind, the most staggering point was, the production of a letter found in the house occupied by the murdered woman, and which even my friends confessed to be in my handwriting. The direction was to the deceased. It was dated on the previous day, and the writer stated that he should come and see her in the evening, and hinted that he would make up their differences, and otherwise expressed goodwill towards her.

"It is a lie, they are all lies," I stammered out, and sank exhausted on the floor of the dock.

The magistrate seemed to pity me, and himself subjected the various witnesses to a sharp cross-examination, but he elicited nothing to shake their evidence. I was remanded till the jury who were to sit in inquest upon the body should have pronounced their verdict. The next day I was told that they were dissatisfied with the witnesses, and had brought in a verdict of " Wilful murder against some person unknown." I was assured of my acquittal, and that it was only necessary to be taken once more before the magistrate to have my deliverance pronounced by his lips for form's sake.

The day to which I had been remanded arrived. The office was crowded; my wife was there,-my own true-hearted wife; so were my elder children. My friends were sanguine. For my own part, my blood seemed rushing through my veins with an impetuous speed. I was certain of being liberated.

There was one fresh witness against me.

"What is your name?" said the magistrate, in proceeding to take his deposition.

"My name is Andrew Harris," answered the man. "I am a cutler. I live in Bell-alley, Fleet-street. On Tuesday afternoon, the day on which the woman was murdered, the prisoner came to my shop, and intimated that he wished to purchase a knife. I asked him what kind of a knife; he said, a knife such as gardeners use to prune trees with. I shewed him several. He chose the largest, and drew his finger lightly across the edge of the blade, to prove whether it was

He made no

sharp. He seemed anxious to have it very sharp. observation whatever. I sold him the knife, and he went away." "Are you sure that the prisoner now in the dock is the person you allude to?" asked the magistrate.

"I am positive that he is the man," was the reply.

"On your solemn oath, have you any hesitation whatever in pronouncing the prisoner to be the individual who purchased the knife of you on the day in question?"

"I have no hesitation: I am certain that he is the man." "Could you identify the knife?"

"I could."

"Have you seen it since the day on which you sold it?"

"I have. It was shewn me by a policeman. It is the same knife which was picked up on the spot where the prisoner and the deceased were found. It is stained with blood."

The cross-examination on the part of my legal assistant in no whit shook the fellow's testimony. It was clear and straightforward. The depositions of the other witnesses were read over to them. They acknowledged them to be correct. I was committed to Newgate. When I was being removed from the dock, a piercing shriek rang through the court. It was from my wife, who had fainted.

Night and day to be immured within four stone walls, or allowed only to pace the flag-stones of a paved court-yard, guarded by huge iron spikes, with two gaolers ever at your elbow;-to inhabit a cell, tenanted only by such as had been imprisoned for murder, and had subsequently expiated their crimes on the scaffold,—to eat your meals from the same table from which they had eaten,-to rest your hand on the very spot where their blood-stained hands had rested,-to be yourself considered, to know that you are branded by society, as a murderer, and withal, to be conscious of your innocence,-this would be horrible indeed, you say. Well, the case was mine!

The old Greek drama recognised the notion of destiny as existing apart from all moral agencies. The web of Fate is inextricable. The spider spreads her net, and the fly is entangled therein. Struggle as I might, I felt that I could not escape. How could I baffle the witnesses, who were determined to confound me with the real author of the deed! Did not a handwriting, which was not mine, testify against me, even from the lips of friends? I bore those who had deposed against me no malice. I owed them no ill-will. I felt that they were but instruments in the hand of destiny to accomplish my predetermined end. At times I imagined that I really did commit the terrible act for which I was incarcerated. For how could Providence be unjust? I exclaimed with the author of the Grecian Iphigenia

“ Οὐδενα γὰρ οἷμαι δαιμονων ειναι κακόν.”

It was true I had no recollection of the deed. I had never even seen the victim till I found her weltering in her blood. Yet, through brooding incessantly upon the subject, I came at length to consider myself guilty, and I resolved so to plead upon my trial.

I was not allowed to see either a daily or weekly paper; but I imagined well what they contained. At first there had been two, or perhaps three columns, devoted to the examination and the inquest.