Blair left the building and Byrne remained to see what happened. It was well after 10 o’clock at night before they returned into court. I suppose the clerk of assize knew that they had not agreed upon their verdict, and for humane reasons did not send for the prisoner. Then began a conversation between the judge and the foreman. The judge told the jury that he must direct that they be taken to the hotel for the night, and then said, “Is there any legal difficulty in which I can assist you?”
“Yes, but is there any legal difficulty in your way?”
To which the foreman replied, “Nothing, only that you have there.”
Upon which the judge again told them he must direct them to be taken to the hotel.
There was a pause. No one had any doubt what the trouble of the jury was. They wanted in their wrong-headed way to acquit Mrs. Britland because they could not convict Mr. Dixon.
Cave thought for a moment, and then turning to the jury made a short summing-up, tearing up any shreds of evidence there might have been against Dixon, and putting the case against Mrs. Britland in true and convincing colours, winding up by saying, “And now, gentlemen, you had better go and consider it, and to-morrow morning I will hear what you have to say.”
The jury held a brief consultation and begged a quarter of an hour in which to escape the threatened hotel. The judge granted this, and again the jury retired.
I am far from saying that modern judges permit wretches to hang that jurymen may dine, or that they are actuated by any but business motives in sitting late hours, but I have my doubts whether justice is as well administered in the late hours of the night as in more normal business hours, and it is at least noticeable how this takes place more in the provinces, where the judges live in lodgings, than in London, where their lordships are in reach of their clubs and their homes. I do not think the jury in the Britland case would have agreed but for the threat of the hotel made to them at 10 o’clock at night, but it was certainly in mercy to the wretched woman in the dock that the affair was ended, for there were two other indictments for murder hanging over her head.
I said the woman in the dock, but the late hours were, I fear, responsible for a very curious blunder in procedure.