The calendar was very heavy. Nine very hard-fisted farmers had had their ricks burnt; a manufacturer who indulged in truck, and was notorious for reductions on Saturday, had been awoke in the night by the blowing up of one of his factories; there had been a riot in one of the workhouses where the poor were starved according to law, on the pretence of feeding them, and punished for complaining. The magistrate, wisely or unwisely, had sent the case to the sessions; and it was flanked by those of a man who had died from the neglect of a relieving officer, and a woman who had drowned her child from the insanity of destitution. There were several affrays with poachers, in which blood had been shed; and that of two gentlemen, who had first horsewhipped and then shot at each other, to the extinction of one life, and the risk of both. In short, it was an edifying display of the results of civilization up to the period at which we have now arrived, and of the peculiarly polished state of England, and its respect for social order. I say nothing of the brotherly love, the Christian charity, and the enlightened benevolence which oozed out through the pores of the calendar. Verily it was fitted to raise us high in the eyes of Europe. It is marvellous with what celerity the grand jury returned true bills against the whole of the accused. Did I say against the whole? It was a mistake. Out of a hundred and thirty-four cases, they threw out one, just to keep up the privilege of rejection. It was the case of a small proprietor who had knocked down in the presence of three or four men, a rascally labourer, who would insist upon passing along a path which had been used by his ancestors for five generations. They threw it out, however, and the path was closed thenceforth to all men for ever and aye.