[_Sums up lucidly in about five minutes, and Jury at once brings in verdict of Guilty of Manslaughter._
_Judge_ (_surprised_). Manslaughter, Gentlemen! Perhaps, after all, I was wrong in not summing up in the Booking-Office. It would have given time for more consideration. [_Awful collision occurs._
_Judge_ (_at bottom of an embankment_). Usher, Usher! I haven't pronounced sentence yet! Bring the prisoner before me!
_Usher_ (_wounded_). Beg your Lordship's pardon--prisoner's escaped!
_Judge._ Escaped? Well, I can sentence him in his absence quite as well. Oh, dear, my back _is_ bad! Those law-books came down on the top of me, I believe. The sentence of the Court is that the prisoner be imprisoned, when found, for three years.
_Facetious Counsel_ (_turning up from a heap of wreckage_). As a _First Class_ misdemeanant, of course?
_Judge_ (_catching the spirit of the joke_). First Class! No--Third Class, for Portland! [_Left on Circuit._
Members of the House of Commons have read with a thrill of interest Lord HENRY BRUCE's letter to his constituents, announcing his intention not to offer himself for re-election in North West Wilts. Full five years Lord HENRY has sat in the House. He has rarely joined in debate, but the manner of his occasional interposition was always notable. He slowly rose, placed one hand in his trousers' pocket, looked round the House and said nothing. Then, when the SPEAKER was about to call on someone else, Lord HENNY blurted forth a few sentences, the end generally coming first, and having apparently said about half what he meant to say, abruptly sat down. But the House, with keen instinct, always recognised the heaven-born orator, and knew his time would come. It has come with the opportunity of writing this letter, which is full of beautiful things. "I deprecated," says Lord HENRY, reviewing his distinguished Parliamentary career, "the surrendering of an ancient dependency like Heligoland, and which has since been strongly fortified, to satiate a shadowy claim of the GERMAN EMPEROR to the Island of Zanzibar." To satiate a shadowy claim is good. Space forbids quotation of more than one additional sentence from this masterpiece. "Let me conclude by saying, that I trust whoever may succeed me in North-West Wilts will wear ELIJAH's mantle with the same pleasure as I have already done." What that means no man can say.