 of which at least one copy marked »own« was bound in calf. For my
part I have some fellow-feeling with Dr. Sprague: one's self-satisfaction is an
untaxed kind of property which it is very unpleasant to find depreciated.
    Lydgate's remark, however, did not meet the sense of the company. Mr. Vincy
said, that if he could have his way, he would not put disagreeable fellows
anywhere.
    »Hang your reforms!« said Mr. Chichely. »There's no greater humbug in the
world. You never hear of a reform, but it means some trick to put in new men. I
hope you are not one of the Lancet's men, Mr. Lydgate - wanting to take the
coronership out of the hands of the legal profession: your words appear to point
that way.«
    »I disapprove of Wakley,« interposed Dr. Sprague, »no man more: he is an
ill-intentioned fellow, who would sacrifice the respectability of the
profession, which everybody knows depends on the London Colleges, for the sake
of getting some notoriety for himself. There are men who don't mind about being
kicked blue if they can only get talked about. But Wakley is right sometimes,«
the Doctor added, judicially. »I could mention one or two points in which Wakley
is in the right.«
    »Oh, well,« said Mr. Chichely, »I blame no man for standing up in favour of
his own cloth; but, coming to argument, I should like to know how a coroner is
to judge of evidence if he has not had a legal training?«
    »In my opinion,« said Lydgate, »legal training only makes a man more
incompetent in questions that require knowledge of another kind. People talk
about evidence as if it could really be weighed in scales by a blind Justice. No
man can judge what is good evidence on any particular subject, unless he knows
that subject well. A lawyer is no better than an old woman at a post-mortem
examination. How is he to know the action of a poison? You might as well say
that scanning verse will teach you to scan the potato crops.«
    »You are aware, I suppose, that it is not the coroner's business to conduct
the post-mortem, but only to take the evidence of the medical witness?« said Mr.
Chichely, with some scorn.
    »Who is often almost as ignorant as the coroner himself,« said Lydgate.
»Questions of medical
