Year: 1872

difficulty in opening the glass case which
protected the dial. After uselessly
searching for some instrument to help
her, she got from the footman without
telling him what she wanted it for,) a
small chisel. With this she opened the
case, after accidentally scratching the
brass frame of it, and set the hands by
guess. She was hurried at the time,
fearing that her mistress would discov.
er her. Later in the day she found that
she had overestimated the interval of
the time that had passed while she was
attempting to put the clock right. She
had, in fact, set it exactly a quarter of
an hour too fast


No safe opportunity of secretly put
ting 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 Mr.. Dubourg had called on her
mistress, she positively swore that the
clock was a quarter of an hour too fast.
1t had pointed as her mistress had de-
clared, to twenty-five minutes to nine
the right time then being, as Mr.. Du.
bourg had asserted, twenty minutes
past eight.


Questioned as to why she had refrain.
ed from giving this extraordinary evi-
dence at the inquiry before the magis.
trate, she declared that in 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 or the
trial. She would not have been pres
ent to state the vitality important cir
cumstances to which she had sworn if
the prisoners twin brother had not
found her out on the previous day, had
not questioned her if she knew any
thing about the clock, and had (hearing
what she had to tell insisted on her
taking the journey with him to the
Court the next morning.


This evidence virtually decided the
trial. There was great burst of relief
in the crowded assembly when the wo-
mans statement had come to an end.


She was closely cross examined, as q
matter of course. Her character was
inquired into; corroborated evidence
(relatlng to the chiscl and the scratch
es on tho frame) was sought for, and
was obtained. The end oft was that,
at late hour on the second evening,
the jury acquitted the prisoner without
leaving the box. 1t was not too much
to say that his life had been saved by
his brother. His brother alone had
persisted, from first to last, in obsti-
natey disbelieving the clock-for no
better reason than that the clock was
the witness which asserted the prison
er's guilt. He had worried everybod y
with incessant inquiries; he had dis
covered the absence of the house. maid
after the trial had begun and he had
started off to interrogate the girl; know
ing nothing and suspecting nothing
| simply determined to persist in the one
everlasting question with which he
persecuted everybody, "The clock is
going to hang my brother can you tell
me anything about the clock 2"


| -Four months later the mystery of the
crime was cleared up. One of the dis
reputable companions of the murdered
man confessed on his death bed that he
had done the deed. There was nothing
interesting or remarkable in the circum
stances. Chance, which had put limo
cence in peril, had offered impunity t.
guilt. An infamous woman, jealous
quarrel, and an absence at the momen
of witnesses on the spOt-these were re
ally the common place materials which
had composed the tragedy of Pardon
Piece