The public had taken the matter into its own hands.
The sturdy common sense of the public was being applied to the affair.
On the whole it may be said that the sturdy common sense of the public was against Priam.

For the majority, the entire story was fishily preposterous.

It must surely be clear to the feeblest brain that if Priam possessed moles he would expose them.

The minority, who talked of psychology and the artistic temperament, were regarded as the cousins of Little Englanders and the direct descendants of pro-Boers.
Still, the thing ought to be proved or disproved.
Why didn't the judge commit him for contempt of court?
He would then be sent to Holloway and be compelled to strip--and there you were! Or why didn't Oxford hire some one to pick a quarrel with him in the street and carry the quarrel to blows, with a view to raiment-tearing?
A nice thing, English justice--if it had no machinery to force a man to show his neck to a jury! But then English justice _was_ notoriously comic.
And whole trainfuls of people sneered at their country's institution in a manner which, had it been adopted by a foreigner, would have plunged Europe into war and finally tested the blue-water theory.

Undoubtedly the immemorial traditions of English justice came in for very severe handling, simply because Priam would not take his collar off.
And he would not.
The next morning there were consultations in counsel's rooms, and the common law of the realm was ransacked to find a legal method of inspecting Priam's moles, without success.