Two months from the burning of Close's Row, a large-nosed
man with brandy-colored cheeks was busy, at early
morning, locking the Hall gates, when a small old man
shambled up, and holding on at the outside, accosted him.

“Does the trial come on to-day?” he asked.

“To be sure it does,” answered the other, looking up;
“Didn't you know that? A man with a augur-hole for an
eye might see that. Look at them wagons over there,”

[figure description] Page 266.[end figure description]

pointing with a key through the bars, into Chatham-street.
“When you see 'em taking in pies at that rate in them
shops, there's a capital offence coming on up stairs. Them
shop-keepers is growing blessed rich on murders and
hommysides—the Oyer and Terminer demand for pies
sells 'em out twice a day while the court sits.”

“How did he sleep last night?” asked the old man.
He did not mention him by name, but the other knew that
he meant the prisoner.

“Oh, beautiful, sir—very beautiful, sir!” answered the
large-nosed gate-fastener. “We haint had a lovelier
prisoner sin' Johnson's day.”

An inexpressible spasm convulsed the countenance of
the questioner, which, being busy at the lock, the officer
did not observe.

“No dreams?” resumed the old man, holding hard upon
the bars. “Wasn't he troubled a little in his sleep, sir?”

He watched the answer with a breathless look.

“Not a bit of it; not as much as 'ud stir a eye-lash;
I was in the passage by his cell the better part of the
night, and his breath comed and went like a infant's.”

The old man's features fell; he had evidently expected
a different report. The gates were by this time
all fastened close and sure—the gate-fastener hurried
away, clattering his keys—and going round where an
opening was left for passers in and out, the old man went
in. Climbing the winding stairs, he proceeded along the
upper passage, and took his station by the court-room door,
where he hoped the prisoner would pass. For a long
time he stood there alone, starting at every sound that
broke through the Hall. By and by they began to come
in, one by one, and cluster about the door; and by ten
o'clock the passages were all filled. Presently blacktopped
staves were seen bobbing up and down in the
press, and forcing their way, with much jostling and an
occasional oath, the officers reached the door, and thrusting
the crowd back, held them in check till the door was
unbarred from within.

The crowd poured in in a flood-tide, bearing the officers
every now and then from their post at the door, into the
very centre of the court-room. In less than a quarter of
an hour the room was overflowed, crowded in every

[figure description] Page 267.[end figure description]

corner, all the seats back from the rail to the ceiling—all the
passages—and some stood perched in the window-seats
and about the cornices, holding on by what they could.
The prisoner was already at the table inside of the bar;
he had been got in by a private stairs; and when the first
rush of the crowd broke in, he started in his chair
and looked wildly round, supposing, for the moment, they
had been let in to tear him in pieces.

He soon recovered himself, and turning his seat about,
watched them as they came in one by one. Among the
first to enter was the small old man, upon whom, from the
first moment, Fyler fixed his eye, and turning from time
to time, watched him in the crowd. Was that man abroad
yet? his look seemed to say. Fyler thought he had
driven his plans so keenly, that he must have been by
this time clean out of his wits, and pent up in some cell
of madmen or other.

Presently the judge entered—a long, withered man, with
a face as dry and yellow as a mummy, and a shrub of
dusty-looking hair, standing off from his crown in every
direction. Fyler looked up into his face as he passed, and
smiled; the judge, without taking the slightest heed of
the prisoner, proceeded to his place upon the bench, where
he busied himself with a newspaper. In a couple of
minutes more he was followed by a large red-cheeked
man in a predominant shirt-collar, and a supple, small
man, who, bestowing themselves upon chairs on either
side of his honor, looked as judicial and dignified as a
pair of weazel-eyes and a highly-starched shirt collar
would allow them. The court was in session; and order
being demanded by the presiding judge, there was for five
minutes an incessant running to and fro of officers through
every part of the court room, crying “hats off,” and
waking up every echo that had slept over night in the
angles and cobwebs of the chamber. One rushed into
the outer passage shouting “silence” with such vehemence
that one might have supposed he was calling, in his distraction,
for a personal friend instead of a genius or spirit
with which he was on such doubtful terms of understanding.
The court was duly opened by proclamation, and
at the judge's bidding a crier of the court, a white-haired
old fellow, began turning a wheel, and drawing

[figure description] Page 268.[end figure description]

ballots on which were written the names of the persons
summoned for the present trial.

One by one, as they were summoned, they emerged
from the crowd and were sworn. Some had read the
newspapers, and couldn't sit on the jury without hanging
the prisoner. One had a theory about heads which would
compel him to acquit the prisoner; and another a theory
about faces which would oblige him to convict. There
was a keeper of a livery-stable that never knew a man
nor a horse with such an eye as the prisoner's, that wasn't
vicious. More than a hundred were dismissed in this way.
At last, by dint of baffling the point, and hunting scruples
in at a needle's point, and out at an eyelet-hole, they succeeded
in obtaining twelve men, who, though they read
the newspapers, didn't believe a word of them; who
knew the facts of the case, but hadn't formed an opinion;
and who, though they had conscientious doubts about
hanging in any case, thought they could string a man up
if the law positively required it.

The case was called—the prisoner was arraigned—and
being helped to his feet by two officers at his side, was
asked for his plea.

“I'm a ruined man, sir!” answered Fyler, looking
wildly around; “and I 'd like to have a pint of beer!”

Saying which, he knocked his head through his hat, and
winked out at the top, at the judge, with all his might.

“I see how it is;” said the judge, coolly; “remove his
hat, officer—go on, Mr. District Attorney.”

The district attorney—who was for all the world, just
such another looking person as the judge, cut down two
sizes, that is, he was as dry, as hard featured and thinhaired,
but not so tall by a head—pulled down his waistcoat
and opened the case.

The crime of arson was a dreadful crime; it had prevailed
to an alarming extent in this community, and he
called upon the jury in that box to say whether a stop
should be put to it or not. Was there a more dreadful
crime conceivable, gentlemen of the jury, than the one
with which the prisoner at the bar was charged? Who
was safe in this community if such things were allowed?
Fire—that terrible element whose wing scathed wherever
it swept; (he detected in the jury-box a Presbyterian

[figure description] Page 269.[end figure description]

gentleman who smiled at this allusion, and he worked it out
at great length.) Fire—the accredited agent of omnipotenee
in balancing accounts with the world; the element
by which temples, and palaces, and warehouses were to
be all wrapped into everlasting nothingness. He would
be able to show the circumstances under which the buildings
in question, (he meant Close's Row) were fired; that
it was an act of cool, fiendish, and black-hearted villany.
That it had been premeditated for a long time, and that a
moment had been chosen to put it in execution when a
terrible loss of life must have ensued. He would show
that jury that the prisoner at the bar was inspired by the
spirit of a fiend; and had acted true to the spirit by which
he was inspired. It was to be seen whether this community
would countenance such a spirit. He sat down,
and the moment he struck the seat called out for J. Q. R.
Sloat.

Mr. J. Q. R. Sloat thereupon stepped forward, and
proved to be a gentleman with staring eyes, a pair of thick-set
whiskers, and extraordinary coolness of deportment.
He took the witness's stand, and, sucking his teeth sonorously,
was sworn.

“You are an officer of police, Mr. Sloat?” said the
district attorney.

“I am, sir,” answered Mr. Sloat.

“What do you know of the firing of the buildings called
Close's Row, on the 19th of June last?”

“I was a-walking about that time, at nine o'clock in
the evening,” answered Mr. Sloat, coaxing his whiskers
with his hand, and addressing himself to the jury,
“along Madison-street, in company with officer Smutch,
when we brushed by a man in a grey over-coat. `Smutch,'
says I, when we had passed him a step or two, `I smell
brimstone!' `So do I,' says Smutch, putting his fingers
to his nose; and here let me say, gentlemen of the jury,
there isn't a more indefatigable officer”—

“Never mind that,” interrupted the attorney for the
prisoner; “you needn't puff the police—we all know
what they are!” And the prisoner's attorney smiled
knowingly upon the jury.

“As I was saying when I was interfered with,” resumed
Mr. Sloat, rather impertinently; “`It's that man in the

[figure description] Page 270.[end figure description]

grey over-coat,' says I, `and we'll track him.' The smell
was strong upon him, and as Smutch and I's both quick
of scent, it wasn't much to do that. The grey over-coat
turned a corner, and went into an alley in Scammel-street.
Smutch and I followed. There the grey over-coat got
down into an area—crept into a window—which was too
small for Smutch and I to go in at—and we saw nothing
more till there was a blaze in the middle of the floor, and
the grey over-coat along side of it, feeding it with shavings
out of a basket.”

“Well, sir,” said the judge, hurrying him along, “you
waited till the person came out, and then seized him.”

“No, sir—begging your honor's pardon—no such thing,”
answered the heavy-whiskered witness, bristling up;
“`Smutch,' says I, `we'll walk away for an hour, and
then be hack and see what comes of this.' Smutch said,
`by all means;' and we went off to a porter-house and
played a couple of games of dominoes—and then walked
back quietly, so as to come upon the prisoner unawares.”

“Did you now arrest the person?” asked the judge
sharply.

“We did not, sir,” answered the officer: “But as luck
would have it, when we got back there was a grand blaze
of light; the buildings was all in flames. `The best
thing that could have happened,' said Smutch to me, `for
now we'll be able to catch the prisoner when we see him.'
`You're right,' says I, `and there he goes!' A man at
that minute went by the alley, and run down Scammel-street
at the top of his speed. `Now for it!' I cries to
Smutch, and we started off. We run him pretty keen
around four blocks, and got him at last into an enginehouse.”

“Well, sir, you took him prisoner?” said the judge
again.

“No, sir, it was a watchman running to give the alarm,”
rejoined the witness. “But we chased two or three other
men in the course of the night, on suspicion; when luck
would have it, we thought of going back to the fire.”

“Where you took the prisoner, I believe?” said the
district attorney,

“Not quite yet, sir; there we saw the prisoner, and
there we watched him, on suspicion; and seeing what I

[figure description] Page 271.[end figure description]

did, I felt justified, at last, in taking him into custody.
He tried gammon some, but Smutch and I was too much
for him. I takes no credit to myself,” concluded the witness,
turning to the judge. “Please your honor, it was
Smutch that planned the whole thing. If it hadn't been
for that indefatigable man”—But he was cut short again.

The attorney for Fyler was a square-built man, with
iron-grey locks, a determined eye and look, and sate confronting
the witness through his evidence, with his coat-cuffs
rolled back.

“Now, sir,” said he, leaving his seat and taking a place
where he could put his face close to the witness; “Do
you mean to say that a police officer has sufficient knowledge
of law to know how to arrest a criminal in a case of
arson? answer on your oath!”

“Police officers know some things as well as other
folks,” he replied, looking about the court to the constables
on duty, for approval.

“Now tell me, sir—didn't the prisoner tell you at the
time of his arrest that he was Barabbas, King of the Jews?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes, sir—and didn't he tell you that his mother was
Mary Scott, the clear-starcher in Republican Alley?”

“He did.”

“And you knew his name was Close. One more question;
Didn't he, when you seized him, order your arm to
wither?”

“Yes, sir, he did, but I thought”—

“Never mind what you thought—you forgot to mention
these rather material circumstances: That'll do!”

Mr. Smutch being next called upon the stand, corroborated
Mr. Sloat, with a single exception; he said it was
owing to Mr. Sloat's unparalleled exertions and ingenuity
that the prisoner was arrested, and not to himself.

During the testimony of these witnesses Fyler was
restless and uneasy, constantly murmuring to himself;
putting on and taking off his dilapidated hat, and dancing
his feet upon the floor. Having at length drawn
the attention of the court upon him, the judge asked
whether there was not some way to restrain the prisoner.
Fyler's counsel answered that he believed there was a
young man in court who was familiar with his ways, and

[figure description] Page 272.[end figure description]

who might perhaps be able to pacify him. Whereupon
Ishmael Small being summoned, came forward from behind
a pillar, whence he had watched the proceedings of
Fyler with unbounded delight.

“Do you know this man?” said the judge.

“A little, sir,” answered Ishmael, scraping the floor
with his foot, and waving his crape-bound hat. Ishmael
always wore a weed in public; it was more respectable,
and made the public sympathize with him as a bereaved
young gentleman.

“Can you mention any thing to make him quiet?”

“Nothin'll make him comfortable,” answered Mr. Small,
with the air of an oracle, for the eyes of the whole court
room were upon him—“but givin' him a small bag of
gold to look at, containin' about five hundred dollars.”

A small bag of gold was accordingly sent for at a
neighboring broker's, in the name of the Oyer and Terminer;
and being brought in was set down in front of
Fyler.

“You'll have to shake it, sir,” added Ishmael, appealing
to the court, “to satisfy him it's the full sum.”

An officer was directed to put him at rest on that point;
as soon as he was assured it contained honest metal to
the proper amount, he fixed his eyes upon the black brand
on the outside of the bag, and was quiet.

The cobbler, one of the tenants of the Row, was called
to the stand. He set out in his testimony, with a protest
against the organization of the court—avowed a hostility
to all courts, and forms of law—against all proceedings,
officers, sheriffs, and appurtenances of law—and was at
last brought to admit, which was the git of his evidence,
that with his wife, he was in Close's Row on the evening
it was fired.'

The lightning-maker proved a much more exuberant
and productive witness. He expatiated upon the domestic
comforts he had enjoyed; shed tears when he spoke of
his two children and his lame wife; and concluded by
saying he was never more taken aback in his life, except
once, and that was when Commodore Decatur was struck
in the pit of his stomach with a couple of quarts of lightning,
off Algiers. When called upon, in his cross-examination,
to explain this incident in Decatur's career, he

[figure description] Page 273.[end figure description]

stated that it occurred at the theatre, by mistake, when
Mr. Smirk, an intemperate gentleman, performed the part
of the Commodore.

Two or three other tenants of the Row were brought
forward, who showed that they were at home in the Row
when the fire occurred—and the district attorney, raising
his voice, said—“We rest!”

Springing from his chair at this summons, counsellor
Blast unslipped the knot of his tape-tied bundle of papers,
and dashed them sideways with his hand so that they
spread out over the table. Confirming the backward roll
of his coat-cuffs, and dotting the floor with a discharge of
tobacco pellets, he addressed the jury, in a manner peculiar
to himself; sometimes starting forward with doubled fists,
as if it were his purpose to challenge the twelve respectable
gentlemen before him to a personal encounter, and
sometimes ranging up and down their front discharging a
broadside of invective into the jury-box as be passed.

He had never risen, he said, under so great a sense of embarrassment
in his life, as in the present case. His client,
the prisoner at the bar—a poor, friendless old man—looked
to him as his last hope, the final wall and barrier between
himself and the grave that yawned for him. It had never
been his fortune to present to a court and jury, a case like
this one, so full of all that appealed to the noblest sympathies
of our nature. They beheld before them, in the prisoner
at the bar, a melancholy case—one of the most
melancholy he had ever known—of mania in a subdued
form. The unfortunate prisoner was non compos mentis, as
he meant to show, at the time of the alleged crime; and
they now saw in him a wreck of what he had been.

Fyler Close, gentlemen, the prisoner at the bar, was
once blessed with peace, and health, and competence like
you; but now what is he?—Behold for yourselves!
(Fyler was busy eating the end of a pipe-stem which had
been handed to him by his counsel before he rose to open
the case.) His faculties are all in disorder—his eye has
lost its lustre—in a word, reason has left its throne. By
a series of misfortunes, gentlemen, which it is out of the
power of the best of us to foresee and guard against,
this unfortunate prisoner has been deprived of all he possessed—
and at one time it was considerable. It was not

[figure description] Page 274.[end figure description]

necessary to go into the particulars of this loss; it was
enough to say he stood before them that day pleading in
behalf of a starving, a penniless, and a houseless lunatic.
And how was this lunacy brought on? Why, gentlemen,
as you have doubtless anticipated me, by the peculiar
state of his pecuniary affairs. It was four weeks and
four days, as they would show by competent testimony,
from the commission of the alleged act of firing, since the
belief first entered the mind of the prisoner, that he, the
prisoner, was an angel of light. We will show you, gentlemen,
that he acted up to the belief; and we will show
you further, that he, the prisoner, was of the opinion that
when he had served out a brief apprenticeship of four
weeks and four days, as a rag-picker—being all this time
an angel of light—he would become a regularly licensed
angel of Fire, empowered and authorized to burn buildings
and kindle conflagrations wherever he chose, throughout
the city of New-York. It does not appear that his patent
extended beyond that. And now, gentlemen, continued
the learned counsel, raising his voice after a visit to his
papers at the table; and now, gentlemen, how is this
borne out? Why, gentlemen, by the most incontrovertible
proofs that all his habits were regulated on this belief;
that he conformed as far as it is in sinful man to conform,
(this was for the Presbyterian juror, in offset to the prosecuting
attorney's appeal,) to his angelic calling. He had
from that time forward led the life of a pure spirit in all
his private acts, serving out only his probation as a rag-picker.
If he succeeded in showing this—if he succeeded,
as he believed he would, in proving that the insane belief
had taken entire possession of the prisoner's mind—
how much soever it might conflict with the policy and
interests of insurers, increasing the risk, as it did, of fires;
howmuch soever it put to the blush the religious portion
of the community, who had had in this poor, aged rag-picker
an example of true and beautiful humility; he was
sure of their verdict.

Mr. Clerk, call Ishmael Small.

Counsellor Blast retreated to his chair, and Ishmael,
emerging from a knot of officers with whom he had been
conferring, passed Fyler, casting a mournful look upon him

[figure description] Page 275.[end figure description]

as he went by, and appeared in the witness' stand, with
his crape-wreathed hat upon his head.

The Clerk presented the Bible, and hinted a removal
of the hat.

“Conscientious scruples, your honor,” said Ishmael,
looking toward the judge, and laying his right hand upon
his breast. “The 'Pocryphal—give me the 'Pocryphal.”

It being found, on investigation, that the Apocryphal
books were not included in the court version, Mr. Small
consented to compromise matters by spreading his palm
upon the blank pages between the Testaments, and was
sworn.

“Be good enough to tell the court and jury, Mr. Small,”
said Fyler's counsel, “what you know of the belief that
has got possession of this unfortunate prisoner's mind?—
When did you first begin to observe symptoms of his
malady?”

“I'm inclined to think,” answered Ishmael, “it's a long
time since he thought he was a angel of light, but it's only
lately—about four weeks and four days before the fire, as
you mentioned in that eloquent openin' of yours—since he
took up the business regularly.”

“He seemed to consider himself a sort of angel a long
time ago—did he?”

“He did, sir, judgin' by his conduct,” continued Mr.
Small. “He seemed to despise all sorts of plain food—
and as for roast beef and baked 'taters, the very smell of
the family dishes from the baker's down stairs, almost
drove him mad.”

“How was it about fire and clothing?”

“Worse and worse. To see how he'ud sit in that
room o' his in the sharp, blowy nights, countin' the bare
bricks in the fire-place, one would ha' thought there never
was such a angel for standing low temp'ratures; and as for
clothing, he thought flannels was invented by a man out
o' work. He was a great advocate, when he was himself,
for cut-down shoes and round-jackets. That was Mr.
Close's model for a well-dressed angel.”

“Did Mr. Close ever assume such a dress himself?”

“He did, sir, when he began to turn out as a rag-picker.
He was to be a rag-picker four weeks and four days, and
then he was to be a angel of fire.”

[figure description] Page 276.[end figure description]

“That will do, Mr. Small,” said counsellor Blast; “you
may go down.”

“Stop a minute,” cried the prosecutor, as Ishmael was
stepping from the stand. “Do you say, sir—recollect
you are in a court of justice”—

“I do, sir,” interrupted Ishmael, “and I feel a veneration
for that plaster-head over there, that I can't express.”

The audience turned in a body towards the nondescript
bust fixed in a niche of the opposite wall, and laughed.
The court ordered silence; the officers shouted silence;
and an echo, to the same effect, came from the niche
where the cast in plaster stood—and the district attorney
put his question directly—

“Do you say that this prisoner's conduct has been,
since the time you speak of, that of an angel?”

“Not havin' the pleasure of a personal acquaintance in
that sphere of life,” answered Ishmael, “I wouldn't say.”

“I will ask you,” continued the district attorney, “if
you don't know that he was in the habit of taking heavy
usury on money which he loaned?”

“If he did take twenty or thirty per cent. from a seedy
feller, now and then, he learned it from a church-member
that he knew—and he was the most angel-like gentleman
that ever come to see him. The church-member used to
tell Fyler he felt the cherrybins wings a-fanning him.”

“Then you consider the prisoner an angel—do you?”

“All things considered,” answered Ishmael, pondering
and turning his hat in his hands, “I do. If there ever
was a angel on earth, he was one.”

“It's a lie—he was a thumping villain!” cried a voice
in the crowd.

The court started to their feet; the lawyers sprang up
and turned around; the officers ran to and fro, shaking
their staves, and on the look-out for the offender—there
was an universal commotion.

“Bring that man up!” shouted the chief judge. The
officers echoed the order from one to the other; every
eye was hunting for the culprit—yet he was not found.

The prisoner knew the voice well, and would have
named the peace-breaker if he had dared. It was the
little old man who had been the first at the Hall-gates in

[figure description] Page 277.[end figure description]

the morning. After a while the excitement subsided, and
they resumed business.

“I'd like to have that gentleman as a witness,” said
the state's attorney to a brother counsellor, in a whisper,
and then to Ishmael, who was withdrawing from the
stand—“Are you related, in any way, to the prisoner,
Mr. Small?”

“I call him uncle, sir, sometimes,” answered Ishmael,
falling stupid, suddenly, at the question; “I'd call you
uncle, sir, if you'd let me.”

“Has it ever been suggested to you, that there's a
family likeness between you and the prisoner?”

“A family likeness,” exclaimed Ishmael, “between
me, a sinful eater of cutlets, and that pure-minded old gentleman
that lives on fresh air and sea-biscuit! Don't mention
sich a thing again, sir—you hurt my feelings!”

“I see how it is,” said the district attorney; “you may
go down, sir.”

Ishmael touched his hat to the judge, and making a
graceful bow to the court-room generally, descended to
common life, and resumed his post as an observer, as before.

The next that appeared in behalf of the defence, was a
sharp-eyed little man, (the dealer in crockery, whom Fyler
had foreseen as a witness,) who hopped upon the
stand, and was very uneasy till he was sworn; a rite
which he seemed to enjoy.

“You know the prisoner, I believe,” suggested Fyler's
counsel.

“I do, sir,” answered the crockery-dealer, fastening
upon the rail before him with both hands, and jerking his
body back and forth as he delivered his testimony. “His
name is Fyler Close, he lives in Pell-street, up one pair
of stairs; there's a bakery underneath with a back-yard,
there's a cistern in the yard, but the water isn't good;
that's owing to pigeon-houses in the next street—there
isn't a finer collection of pigeons in the city, however—
the owner's a potter-baker in Doyer-street, a large man
with a wen on his nose”—

“Stop—stop!” cried Mr. District Attorney Pudlin, as
he would have done to a runaway horse; “You must

[figure description] Page 278.[end figure description]

come a little nearer the case. We don't want Long-worth's
Directory.”

“Be good enough to tell the court,” resumed counsellor
Blast, “what you know of an aberration of mind on
the part of the prisoner. Answer directly, if you please.”

“I will answer directly,” said the crockery-dealer, “and
I know this much—I was standing in my shop-door, if
the court please, in the month of June last, looking about
me, as is my custom, when about two blocks off I saw”—

“Two blocks?” interrupted the district attorney.

“Yes, sir, two blocks,” retorted the crockery-dealer
rather angrily; “I saw a man engaged—he was about
five feet high, a little under perhaps—the sun was setting
up the street, and I saw his face was as pale as a white
china dinner-set; he had on a blue roundabout, a broad
straw hat, and he was running backward and forward in
the gutters, at a terrible rate, stooping down and raising
up like whalebone. `I see how it is,' said I to myself;
`Judging by the rate at which he's at work, that's an insane
rag-picker.' Presently he works his way down directly
opposite my shop—I keep in Division-street, gentlemen
of the jury, No. 19½, china-ware, earthern-ware
and every thing, of the first quality—and by that time his
basket was brim-full and running over the top of the handle,
and I saw it was the prisoner at the bar.”

“Well, sir—was there any thing peculiar in his look at
that time?” asked the judge.

“There was, sir—he looked sideways out of both eyes
at once. I saw the mania was coming on him strong, for
he began to fumble with his jacket-buttons, and whistled
for an invisible dog.”

“What was the dog's name, sir—perhaps you'll be
good enough to give us that,” said the prosecuting attorney,
looking at the jury and then at the witness.

“He didn't whistle it quite slow enough to make it
out,” answered the omniscient dealer in crockery; “but
as soon as he whistled, and the dog didn't come, I know
he dashed his basket upon the ground, and running backwards
first, came back to the basket again with such a
supernatural leap as I shall never see again while I live.
And this he kept doing till it was broad dark, and when I
went in to strengthen myself with a cup of tea and a piece

[figure description] Page 279.[end figure description]

of toast, (I like my toast done brown, please your honor,)
against the shock of such a pitiful sight, leaving my shopboy
to keep an eye on it. When I got back the basket
was gone, the prisoner at the bar was gone, and when I
came to question the boy, I found out”—

“That will do, sir,” interrupted the district attorney,
bringing him to a dead pause; “We don't want to know
what your boy said or what your boy saw. Now, sir, if
your friends can spare you I'll put a question or two to
you.”

“He's your witness, sir,” said counsellor Blast, waiving
his hand over the table.

“Now, sir, you say you judged the prisoner to be insane
from the rate at which he was picking rags into his
basket when you first saw him. How fast would that be,
sir?”

“Why, sir,” rejoined the witness, not taken by surprise
in the least; “A sane man might pick a ton a day.”

“Then an insane one would pick a ton and a quarter,
perhaps?”

“No, I don't think that would be conclusive of his insanity—
a ton and a half might.”

“Will you be good enough to account for the remarkable
observation you have made: How do you explain
it,” smiling to the jury.

“Why, sir, if the court will pardon me, I should say it
was owing to an increased nervous vitality in the fingers”—

“You needn't go any further,” interrupted counsellor
Blast; “we are done with you, and much obliged. We
have a medical gentleman here, Mr. District Attorney,
who will perhaps be able to put your mind at ease on
that point. Will Dr. Mash be good enough to take the
stand?”

At this request, a stout gentleman in a red face, a red
camlet wrapper, as much overrun with frogs as the land
of Egypt itself, and bearing in his hand a burly cane with
an ivory head, came forward, and climbing into the witness'
station, propped himself with both hands upon the cane,
and looked steadily at Fyler's counsel in waiting for a
question. He was evidently loaded to the very mouth.

“Dr. Mash is so well known, I will not put the usual

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questions as to how long he has practiced, &c.,” said
Fyler's counsel; “will you be good enough to oblige the
court, Dr. Mash, with a definition of insanity?”

“Insanity, I would say, sir,” answered the doctor swelling,
till he strained his very red-camlet coat fastenings,
with professional pride; “insanity, I would say, sir, is a
general looseness, or incoherence of ideas, brought on by
the over-action of the brain. For instance”—

“Ah,” interposed Fyler's counsel with deference; “you
will favor the court by giving an example.”

“I will, sir,” rejoined the doctor; “for instance: if the
district attorney, there, should become so engrossed in his
duties as a public officer, as to put the fines he collects into his
own pocket, instead of carrying them to the city treasury;
that would be a case of limited mania, or partial insanity.”

There was a general laugh at this view of the case.

“That would be an example of looseness of ideas
brought on by over-action of the brain, would it?” asked
counsellor Blast, grinning; “How would that apply to
the case of the prisoner?”

“Very clearly, sir,” answered the doctor; “the sudden
loss of fortune fixing the mind upon one point constantly—
that of the loss in question—would exhaust the recuperative
powers of the other faculties; and the consequence
would be, that in a very short time the brain would go by
the board.”

“Have you had opportunities of observing the deportment
of the prisoner before to-day?”

“I have, sir; and I am decidedly of opinion, as I was
then, that he is disordered in reason. I have seen him in
the public streets, and such were my convictions as a professional
man, that I thought the public safety required
that he should be lodged in an asylum.”

“That's all, Dr. Mash.”

“Stop a minute, sir,” cried Mr. Attorney Pudlin; “Perhaps
you will be good enough to tell us who first called
your attention to the lunacy of the prisoner?”

“I think it was the young gentleman on the stand this
morning,” answered the doctor.

“You think?—You know it was, Dr. Mash,” pursued
the district attorney; “and now tell me, sir, hadn't you a

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suspicion all along, that this was a got up thing between
the prisoner and that young gentleman?”

“Not the slightest,” said the learned doctor. “He
seemed to be a benevolent young person, who meant
well by the community—and I gave him a certificate of
prisoner's lunacy.”

At this there was a general laugh through the court-room;
every body that had seen Ishmael seemed to be
pretty thoroughly satisfied that he was badly treated when
he was called a philanthropist.

“You did, eh?” said the district attorney; “then the
sheep was wronged that was killed to furnish your diploma:
we are done with you—you are not wanted any
more.”

Dr. Mash went down, clinging to his came in his vexation
till the sweat poured from his brow.

“As it may be as well to set the jury right on this question
of insanity, I'd like to put a question or two to Dr.
Parsley if he is in court,” said Mr. Attorney Pudlin.

Dr. Parsley, being called, came forward briskly: he
was a little bald-headed man with glasses, and a nose as
red and shining as a cherry. He hopped into the witness'
stand smartly—and having his coat buttoned, and a slight
shrub of hair brushed away from either side of his head
to give him a more formidable appearance—he stood ready
for questioning.

“Dr. Parsley, will you be good enough to give the court
your definition of insanity?” asked the District Attorney.

“With pleasure,” answered the bald-headed Doctor,
speaking up: “Insanity, according to my notion, is a general
concentration, not a looseness, of ideas superinduced
by the apathy or imperfect action of the rest of the
brain.”

“Do you think the prisoner insane from what you have
heard?”

“I do not, sir.”

“Will you be good enough to tell the court and jury,
Dr. Parsley, why you think the prisoner not insane?”

“I will, sir, with great pleasure,” answered the Doctor.
“It appears, from a part of the testimony, that the prisoner,
in his supposed attacks of the disease, jumped backward
and forward over a basket. It does not appear that

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he ever jumped into the basket. Now, insane men—as
far as my observation extends, and it has been by no
means limited—always jump into a basket when they get
a chance.”

“He is your witness,” said the District Attorney.

“One question only, Doctor. How does that agree
with your definition,” asked counsellor Blast.

“Well enough—in this way, sir. If his mind had been
concentrated, or overtasked to an insane degree, he must
have jumped into the basket.”

The case was now mainly closed, and a clerk of the Phoenix
Company being called, only to show that the buildings
in question belonged to Fyler Close, and had been insured
for a handsome sum in that Company, rather more in fact
than their real value; the court suggested that it was
ready to hear the summing up of the prisoner's counsel.
The plea for Fyler was brief:—he was an old man; he
had lost his all; he was before them a melancholy spectacle
of dethroned reason; a verdict of “Guilty” would
be a judicial murder; and he appealed to them as humane
men—men having grandfathers and old uncles, to deal to
the prisoner justice tempered with mercy.

The district attorney—hoisting and lowering his waistcoat
incessantly, in the intensity of his eloquence—followed
at greater length.

He had proved the arson beyond all question: the prisoner's
counsel had yielded that point: and now, as for
the insanity, he regarded it as a fetch from beginning to
end—there were certain eccentricities in the prisoner to
be sure, but not more than an old apple woman exhibited
every day in the year. There was cunning, he was inclined
to think, mixed with the prisoner's madness. Did you
observe, gentlemen, in opening this case, how silent the
prisoner was when his own counsel was before you? and
yet when I addressed you, you recollect, he was as busy as
he could well be crushing his teeth and kicking the table
in the legs. You can draw your own inference from that,
gentlemen. I had expected to prove that the young gentleman,
who appeared on the stand, was more nearly connected
with the prisoner by ties of blood than he was willing
to admit? that a corrupt understanding existed between
them in relation to the circumstances of the present
case, there could be no reasonable doubt. I have now

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done my duty, gentlemen of the jury, as prosecuting officer,
and it only remains for you as good citizens to do yours.

Calling an officer to him, and whispering him to bring
a tumbler of brown stout, by the private stairs, and place
it in the folds of the ermine—the red curtain behind him—
to be ready when he was through, the long judge rose
from his chair, drawing himself out, joint by joint, and
proceeded to charge the jury. As the sole object of the
long judge seemed to be to wrap the case up in a swathing
of words and generalities, to prevent its taking cold,
it would be impossible to do him any thing like justice
in a report. The result was, that after he had been
on his legs better than two hours, when the clock numbered
towards midnight, the jury—all abroad as to the
facts, the law and the equity—were put in charge of an
officer and led off through a door into a small, dusty, cobwebbed,
candle-lighted room, where they were locked in,
in company with a small square table, to meditate upon
the case.