Less exhaustive than the conventional review of a complicated case, it was a disquisition of conspicuous clearness and impartiality.

Only the salient points were laid before the jury, for the last time, and in a nutshell, but with hardly a hint of the judge's own opinion upon any one of them.

The expression of that opinion was reserved for a point of even greater import than the value of any separate piece of evidence.

If, said the judge, the inferences and theory of the prosecution were correct; if this unhappy woman, driven to desperation by her husband, and knowing where he kept his pistols, had taken his life with one of them, and afterwards manufactured the traces of a supposititious burglary; then there was no circumstance connected with the crime which could by any possibility reduce it from murder to manslaughter.

The solemnity of this pronouncement was felt in the farthest corner of the crowded court.