Year: 1871

tor halt an hour, when the attor
} ney for the prisoner was seen tt
; hand a paper to the counsel fol
the defense.


The counsel rose, showing sign,
of agitation which reused .he Gu.


riosity of the audience. He de.
manded the immediate bearing of
a new witness, whose evidence in


the prisoners favor be declared to


be too important to be delayed for
a single moment. After a short


colloquy between the judge and


:he barristers on either side, the


Court decided to continue the sit.


ting.


The witness appearing in the


box, proved to be a young woman
in delicate health. On the eve-
ming when the prisoner had paid


his visit to the lady she was in
that lady's service as housemaid.


The day after she had been per.


mltted (by previous arrangement
with her mistress) TO take week s
holiday, and to 60 on visit to
her pa. ents, in the west of Corn.
!. wall. While there she had fallen


i'll, and had not been strong enough


since to return to her employment.
Having given this preliminary ac-
count of herself, the housemaid
then narrated the following ex-


traordinary particulars in relation


to her mistress's clock.


On the morning of the day
when Mr.. Dubourg had called at
the house she had been cleaning
the mantle piece. She had rub
bed the part of it which was un-
der the clock with her duster, had


accidently struck the pendulum,
and had stopped it. Having once
before done this, she had been Sc.
verely reproved. Fearing that
repetition of the offense, only the
day after the clock had been reg
ulated by the maker, might lead
perhaps to the withdrawal of
her leave of absence, she had de-
termined to put matters right o.
gain, if possible, by herself.


After poking under the clock
in the dark, and failing to set the
pendulum going again properly in


that way, she next attempted to
lift the clock, and give it shake.


1t was set in a marble case, with
bronze figure or the top, and it
was SO heavy that she was obliged
to hunt for something which she
could use as q lever. The thing
proved to be not easy to fLd on
the spur of the moment. Having
at last laid her hand on what she
wanted, she oontrived so to lit the
clock few inches and drop it a.
gain on tue mantle piece as to set
it going once more.


The next necessity was of
course, to move the hands on
Here again she was met by an OBJ
stacle. There was q difficulty in
opening the glass case which pro-
tected the dial. After uselessly
searching for some instrument
to help her, she got from the foot
man without telling him what
she wanted it fOr) a small chise'.
With this she opened the case
after accidentally scratching the
brass frame of it-and set the
hands of the clock by guess. Sic
was furried at the time, fearing
her mistress would discover her.
Later in the day she found that
she had over-estimated the inter-
val of time that had passed while
she,,was attempting to put the clock
right. She had, in fact, set it ex-
actly a quarter Of an hour too fast.


No safe opportunity of secretly
putting the clock right again had
occurred until the last thing at
night. She had then moved the
hands back to the right time
At the hour OF the evening when
MIR. Dubourg had called on her
mistress she positively swore that
the clock was quarter of an
hour too fast. 1t hau pointed, as
her mistreea had declared, to twen-
ty-five minutes TO nine-the right |
time then being, as Mr.. Dubourg
had asserted, twenty minutes past /
eight.


Questioned as to why she had /
refrained from giving this extra
ordinary evidence at the inquiry |
before the magistrate, she d. clared
that in the distant Cornish village
to which she had gone the next
day, and in which her illness had
detained her from that time, no.
body had heard of the inquiry on
the trial. She would not have
been then present to state the vi
tally important circumstances to
which she had just sworn if the
prisoners twin brother had not