Hung for a Found Note.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 200, 23 April 1887, Page 5

Hung for a Found Note.

An article upon law and lawyers, by the late Mr Sergeant BallanUne, appears in the February numbei of "Temple Bar." Amongst other anecdotes the following is told : A gentleman, the head of an eminent linn of solicitors at Bristol, and with whom I wad intimate, i elated an anecdote to me ■\\oiihy of mention, as it exemplifies a state of the criminal law existing in the country which in the.-c days almost defies belief. Biistol possessed a Kecoider Sir Robert (Jiflbrd -a man ot gie.it eminence, and the Court over A\hieh he pu-sided had juribdiction in capital eases. My friend Avas present, Avhen a boy, scarcely more than a child, was prosecuted foi passing a forged one pound Bank of Kngland note H this time doubtless the.se were la ty circulated through the countiy, am ihe tiadopeople, of >\ horn i'io |nries wei'» ompo&ed, bulFeied gn'atly by the traffic. Tlie leeorder summed up strongly for an acquittal, but the juiy convicted. The recorder was much affected, and leant over to the solicitor who appeared for the Bank, and my iriond heaid him say, " For (Jod's take, save this poor boy's life ! " If any responr^e were made, it was not an allirmative one, and the boy Avas hung. Do my readers recollect a most affecting description Avritten by Thackeray in his sketch of l)r. Dodd's execution, of a child carried to Tyburn in the same vehicle with the doctor, the mother clinging to it, Aveeping o\ er her offspring, the victim of the same Darbarous law and of merciless statesmen ?