maiming a white gentleman, with intention—­Ah! yes (a pause) the intention the court thinks it as well not to mind! open to you for a conviction.  Upon this point you will render your verdict, guilty; only adding a recommendation to the mercy of the court.”  With this admonition, our august Mr. Fuddle, his face glowing in importance, sits down to his mixture of Paul and Brown’s best.  A few moments’ pause—­during which Fetter enters looking very anxious—­and the jury have made up their verdict, which they submit on a slip of paper to the clerk, who in turn presents it to Fuddle.  That functionary being busily engaged with his punch, is made conscious of the document waiting his pleasure by the audience bursting into a roar of laughter at the comical picture presented in the earnestness with which he regards his punch-some of which is streaming into his bosom-and disregards the paper held for some minutes in the clerk’s hand, which is in close proximity with his nasal organ.  Starting suddenly, he lets the goblet fall to the floor, his face flushing like a broad moon in harvest-time, takes the paper in his fingers with a bow, making three of the same nature to his audience, as Fetter looks over the circular railing in front of the dock, his face wearing a facetious smile.  “Nigger boy will clear away the break,—­prisoner at the bar will stand up for the sentence, and the attending constable will reduce order!” speaks Fuddle, relieving his pocket of a red kerchief with which he will wipe his capacious mouth.  These requests being complied with, he continues-having adjusted his glasses most learnedly-making a gesture with his right hand—­“I hold in my hand the solemn verdict of an intelligent jury, who, after worthy and most mature deliberation, find the prisoner at the bar, Nicholas Grabguy, guilty of the heinous offence of raising his hand to a white man, whom he severely maimed with a sharp-edged tool; and the jury in their wisdom, recognising the fact of their verdict involving capital punishment, have, in the exercise of that enlightened spirit which is inseparable from our age, recommended him to the mercy of this court, and, in the discretion of that power in me invested, I shall now pronounce sentence.  Prepare, then, ye lovers of civilisation, ye friends of humanity, ye who would temper the laws of our land of freedom to the circumstance of offences—­prepare, I say, to have your ears and hearts made glad over the swelling sound of this most enlightened sentence of a court, where judgments are tempered with mercy.”  Our hero, a chain hanging loosely from his left arm, stands forward in the dock, his manly deportment evincing a stern resolution to meet his fate unsubdued.  Fuddle continues:—­“There is no appeal from this court!” (he forgot the court of a brighter world) “and a reversing the decision of the court below, I sentence the prisoner to four years’ imprisonment with hard labour, two months’ solitary confinement in each year, and thirty blows with the paddle, on the first day of each month until the expiration of the sentence.”  Such, reader, was Fuddle’s merciful sentence upon one whose only crime was a love of freedom and justice.  Nicholas bowed to the sentence; Mr. Grabguy expressed surprise, but no further appeal on earth was open to him; Squire Fetter laughed immeasurably; and the officer led his victim away to the place of durance vile.