at least with the knowledge or consent, of the unhappy
mother. It was not, however, necessary for him to bring positive proof that the
panel was accessory to the murder, nay, nor even to prove that the child was
murdered at all. It was sufficient to support the indictment, that it could not
be found. According to the stern, but necessary severity of this statute, she
who should conceal her pregnancy, who should omit to call that assistance which
is most necessary on such occasions, was held already to have meditated the
death of her offspring, as an event most likely to be the consequence of her
culpable and cruel concealment. And if, under such circumstances, she could not
alternatively show by proof that the infant had died a natural death, or produce
it still in life, she must, under the construction of the law, be held to have
murdered it, and suffer death accordingly.«
    The counsel for the prisoner, Mr. Fairbrother, a man of considerable fame in
his profession, did not pretend directly to combat the arguments of the King's
Advocate. He began by lamenting that his senior at the bar, Mr. Langtale, had
been suddenly called to the county of which he was sheriff, and that he had been
applied to, on short warning, to give the panel his assistance in this
interesting case. He had had little time, he said, to make up for his
inferiority to his learned brother by long and minute research; and he was
afraid he might give a specimen of his incapacity, by being compelled to admit
the accuracy of the indictment under the statute. »It was enough for their
Lordships,« he observed, »to know that such was the law, and he admitted the
advocate had a right to call for the usual interlocutor of relevancy.« But he
stated, »that when he came to establish his case by proof, he trusted to make
out circumstances which would satisfactorily elide the charge in the libel. His
client's story was a short, but most melancholy one. She was bred up in the
strictest tenets of religion and virtue, the daughter of a worthy and
conscientious person, who, in evil times, had established a character for
courage and religion, by becoming a sufferer for conscience' sake.«
    David Deans gave a convulsive start at hearing himself thus mentioned, and
then resumed the situation, in which, with his face stooped against his hands,
and both resting against the corner of the elevated bench on which the Judges
sate, he had hitherto listened to the procedure