The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 243: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

226 REYNOLDS’ WORKS the woman who attempted to rob me riding about Edmon- ton; I also scrutinized her well, between one and two o’clock this morning, when she had on her male attire, and I am convinced that the woman at the’ bar is the same that I have seen riding about Edmonton and whom I beheld in male attire during the past night. Therefore I maintain that, so far as I am concerned, I have proved the identity. ‘““T contess that I am staggered and even bewildered by the counter-evidence that has been given, and without for a single instant impeaching the veracity of the Marshalls, of Mr. Hood, or of his assistant, I can only say that if the woman at the bar is not the female highwayman who at- tempted to rob me and my partner, then from this time forth I shall not be able to put faith in the evidence of my own senses. Under all the circumstances, I think your worship will admit that this is a case which ought to be sent before a superior tribunal, and therefore I ask your worship to direct that the prisoner at the bar be sent up to London in charge of some officer of your court, with a view to a further investigation before the magistrate of the district in which the felony was committed. And before I conclude I will observe that a great responsibility rests upon the shoulders of your worship at the present moment, because if your worship refuses my demand, the proceedings must drop altogether here, as I should feel too disgusted and have too little confidence in the force of truth — and I may also say in the evidences of my own senses — to have the case re- opened or the investigation renewed elsewhere. ‘Therefore, as the fairest course which can be adopted, and that there may be no chance of a guilty person escaping punishment in consequence of testimony of a somewhat inexplicable nature, I repeat my demand that the prisoner be sent up to London.”’ ‘“ T have little trouble,” said the mayor, after a few minutes’ consultation with his clerk, ‘‘in giving my judgment in this matter. There are two views that may be taken of the case. Firstly, it is shown by the evidence of a most respect- able hotel-keeper of this town that the prisoner at the bar arrived at his house by seven o’clock last evening, and grant- ing that fact to be established, it is totally impossible the prisoner could have committed the assault upon the prose- cutor in the middle of the night. Secondly, we have the Gomichbooks (E(0)