In the Court, the dock, attorneys' table, barristers' bench, my old reporters' box, every partition in fact, had been swept away to make room for shelves of costumes, armour, and tons of theatrical paraphernalia. Out of curiosity I asked to see the cells and was politely shown them. There they were as of yore--the iron doors, with the little window or grating; but the doors were not locked, barred, and bolted--they were wide open, and the prison cells were occupied with sock and buskin. Sir Thomas Henry was the main instrument in getting erected the spacious new Court opposite, in which he was never destined to sit. It was his ambition. Frequently had he said on the bench that the old court was a disgrace. I could not help thinking what Sir Thomas's opinion of the old Court would have been if he had seen it as I had just now. I could not help thinking the faithful old Court had followed my example, and gone in for the stage. Now it is razed to the ground, and there is not a brick left of the old place which, in my time, saw the preliminary examinations of the Flowery Land Pirates; Muller for the murder of Mr. Briggs; Barrett and others for blowing up Clerkenwell Prison; Burke and Casey; Dr. Hessell, who was acquitted on the charge known as the Great Coram Street murder, and on whose behalf Mr. Douglas Straight (now Mr. Justice Straight, of Allahabad) made the best speech he ever made in his life, I venture to think; the female impersonation case; and the charge against the police detectives Druscovich, Palmer, Meiklejohn, Clarke, and Mr. Froggatt, the solicitor, of assisting Kurr, Benson and others in committing the De Goncourt turf frauds. With the exception of the Pirates and Muller, _The Times_' reports were done chiefly by me. The record of which I am most proud was in a speech of Mr. Besley's in one of the above cases. He spoke for about seven hours, with one short interval, and as it proceeded I reported it in long hand, in the third person of course. To have done so _verbatim_ would have been an impossibility. To have reported this speech with a pencil and paper would have been a tolerably easy matter, but I wrote it on manifold, producing twelve copies--that is, there were twelve oiled tissue sheets and six blank tissues between, altogether a thickness of eighteen papers to press through with the stylus. To those uninitiated in the method of manifold writing, I can only explain that the system is the same as that adopted by cashiers in the stores and shops, who place a piece of black paper in a book, a little bill on the top, and by writing on the latter the impression is conveyed through the black to the book. Two copies are therefore procured. Imagine, therefore, the amount of pressure required for twelve copies, and the state of your fingers and hands after doing this with the utmost rapidity for seven hours with only about half an hour's cessation!