Before Fuddle’s court, then, Grabguy has succeeded in getting a hearing for his convicted property, still mentally obstinate.  Not the least doubt has he of procuring a judgment tempered by mercy; for, having well drunk Fuddle on the previous night, and improved the opportunity for completely winning his distinguished consideration, he has not the slightest apprehension of being many months deprived of his property merely to satisfy injured justice.  And, too, the evidence upon which Nicholas was convicted in Fetter’s court, of an attempt to create an insurrection—­the most fatal charge against him—­was so imperfect that the means of overthrowing it can be purchased of any of the attendant constables for a mere trifle,—­oaths with such fellows being worth about sixty-two and a half cents each.

If the reader will be pleased to fancy the trial before Fetter’s tribunal—­before described—­with the knock-down arguments omitted, he will have a pretty clear idea of that now proceeding before Fuddle’s; and having such will excuse our entering into details.  Having heard the case with most, learned patience, the virtue of which has been well sustained by goodly potions of Paul and Brown’s perfect “London Dock,” Fuddle, with grave deportment, receives from the hands of the clerical-looking clerk-a broken-down gentleman of great legal ability-the charge he is about to make the jury.  “Gentlemen,” he says, “I might, without any detriment to perfect impunity, place the very highest encomiums on the capabilities displayed in the seriousness you have given to this all-important case, in which the state has such deep and constitutional interests; but that I need not do here.  The state having placed in my possession such responsible functions, no one more than me can feel the importance of the position; and which position has always been made the judicial medium of equity and mercy.  I hold moderation to be the essential part of the judiciary, gentlemen!  And here I would say” (Fuddle directs himself to his gentlemanly five) “and your intelligence will bear me out in the statement, that the trial below seems to have been in error from beginning to end.  I say this-understand, gentlemen!—­with all deference to my learned brother, Fetter, whose judgments, in the exercise of the powers in me invested, and with that respect for legal equity by which this court is distinguished, it has become me so often to reverse.  On the charge of creating an insurrection—­rather an absurdity, by the way—­you must discharge the prisoner, there being no valid proof; whereas the charge of maiming or raising his hand to a white man, though clearly proved, and according to the statutes a capital offence, could not in the spirit of mercy which now prevails in our judiciary—­and, here, let me say, which is emulated by that high state of civilisation for which the people of this state are distinguished—­be carried rigidly into effect.  There is only this one point, then, of