Let us look at another aspect of this medical evidence given on this memorable occasion. Doctor the _first_ pronounced his authoritative decision solely on the evidence given in court: influenced, it may be, by his having, many years before, been called in to attend the prisoner's father when labouring under symptoms of poisoning by laudanum. Doctor the _second_ gave merely speculative evidence, without, as it would seem, having even seen the prisoner, and founded solely on what passed at the trial. Doctor the _third_ never saw the prisoner before the trial but once, and then for "_perhaps half an hour_," on the first day of the trial, or the day before it! How potent that half hour's observation! Doctor the _fourth_ saw the prisoner with doctor the third, for "_perhaps three-quarters of an hour!_" Doctor the _fifth_ was a practising surgeon of not four years' standing--owning how "short a time he had been in practice." Let us only surrender our understandings to this queer quinary, and we arrive at a short and easy solution--very comfortable, indeed, for the young gentleman at the bar, who is doubtless filled with wonder at finding how sagaciously they saw into the thoughts which had been passing through his mind--the precise state of his feelings, views, objects, and intentions, when he fired at the Queen. But in the mean time we ask, can it be tolerated that medical gentlemen should thus usurp the province of both judge and jury? We answer, no! and shall place here on record the just and indignant rebuke of Mr Baron Alderson to a well-known medical gentleman, who had thus authoritatively announced his conclusion on the recent trial of Robert Pate. Dr----.--"From all I have heard to-day, and from my personal observation, I am satisfied the prisoner is of unsound mind." BARON ALDERSON.--"Be so good, Dr ----, as not to take upon yourself the functions of both the judge and the jury. If you can give us the results of your scientific knowledge in this point, we shall be glad to hear you; but while I am sitting on this bench, _I will not permit any medical witness to usurp the functions of both the judge and the jury_." It fell to the lot of Sir Thomas Wilde to reply for the Crown, in Oxford's case, as in that of Frost; and he discharged the responsible duty with his usual clearness and cogency. As to the facts, irrespective of the question of insanity, a single sentence disposed of them. "What would be the condition of society--exposed as we all are to such attacks, and the infliction of death by such means--if, with the evidence of previous preparation of the means; the use of balls and pistols; inquiries as to the effect of their discharge, and whether the party was hurt, coupled with admission, incidental and direct, of the fact that balls were in the pistols: what would be the state of society, if evidence like this left an assassin the chance of escape merely because the balls could not be found?"