Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 70: what you’re looking at

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

Pah JUDGE AND JURY SOCIETY dd dividuals acting as jurymen drank somewhat more than was good for them, and in plain terms grew very intoxicated. The lord chief baron addressed them as an intelligent and enlightened body oi men, — men representing the wisdom of the country, men who indeed for the time being con- stituted ‘‘ the country,’ the matter at issue between the plaintiff and defendant being, in legal parlance, ‘‘ tried by God and their country.’’ The solemn gravity with which the lord chief baron thus addressed his drunken jury, and the vacant stare as well as the tipsy swaying to and fro with which the said jurymen listened to the great func- tionary, formed by no means the least ludicrous portion of the comedy. When we observe that though these proceedings lasted two hours and a half, without for a single moment flagging into dulness or waning into insipidity, and when we add that from first to last the spectators experienced unfailing amusement, those of our readers who have never visited the Judge and Jury Society will be enabled to understand how well sustained the spirit and interest of the proceedings must be. Lord Saxondale waited until the end, when he adjourned to the supper-room below; and there he invited the lord chief baron, the barristers, the clerk of the court, and the witnesses, to sup with him. The conviviality was kept up until a somewhat late hour, and if it had not been that a couple of waiters conveyed Lord Saxondale into a cab, he never could have reached it of his own accord. Edmund slept until a late hour on the following day, and when he descended to the breakfast-parlour, it was with a racking headache and an accompanying depression of spirits. The morning newspapers lay upon the table. He took up one, and almost the very first announcement upon which his eyes fell was that of a horrible and mysterious murder committed in Lincolnshire. He read on, and callous, indifferent, emotionless though he naturally was, it was nevertheless with dismay and horror that he thus learned the particulars of the frightful tragedy which had occurred on the bank of the Trent. The journal concluded its account by stating that the whole affair was involved in the deepest mystery, suspicion attaching to no known person. And mysterious was it indeed to Edmund Saxon- Gomicdoo Ss (EO)