Our ancestors' justice strikes us as rather heavy-handed and dull-eyed on these occasions. In another class of trials we see the opposite phase—the manifestation of that curious tenderness which has shown itself in so many forms since the days when highway robbery appeared to be a graceful accomplishment if practised by a wild Prince and Poins. Things were made delightfully easy in the race which flourished after the Restoration. Every Peer, by the amazing privilege of the 'benefit of clergy,' had a right to commit one manslaughter. Like a schoolboy, he was allowed to plead 'first fault;' and a good many Peers took advantage of the system. Lord Morley, for example, has a quarrel 'about half-a-crown.' A Mr. Hastings, against whom he has some previous grudge, contemptuously throws down four half-crowns. Therefore Lord Morley and an attendant bully insult Hastings, assault him repeatedly, and at last fall upon him 'just under the arch in Lincoln's Inn Fields,' and there Lord Morley stabs him to death, 'with a desperate imprecation.' The Attorney-General argues that this shows malice, and urges that Mr. Hastings, too, was a man of good family. But the Peers only find their fellow guilty of manslaughter. He claims his privilege, and is dismissed with a benevolent admonition not to do it again. Elsewhere, we have Lord Cornwallis and a friend coming out of Whitehall in the early morning, drunk and using the foulest language. After trying in vain to quarrel with a sentinel, they swear that they will kill somebody before going home. An unlucky youth comes home to his lodgings close by, and after some abuse from the Peer and his friend, the lad is somehow tumbled downstairs and killed on the spot. As it seems not to be clear whether Lord Cornwallis gave the fatal kick, he is honourably acquitted. Then we have a free fight at a tavern, where Lord Pembroke is drinking with a lot of friends. One of them says that he is as good a gentleman as Lord Pembroke. The witnesses were all too drunk to remember how and why anything happened; but after a time one of them is kicked out of the tavern; another, a Mr. Cony, is knocked down and trampled, and swears that he has received what turned out some days later to be mortal injuries from the boots of Lord Pembroke. The case is indeed, doubtful; for the doctor who was called in refused to make a post-mortem examination on the ground that it might lead him into 'a troublesome matter;' and another was disposed to attribute the death to poor Mr. Cony's inordinate love of 'cold small beer.' He drank three whole tankards the night before his death; and when actually dying, declined 'white wine posset drink,' suggested by the doctor, and 'swore a great oath he would have small beer.' And so he died, whether by boots or beer; and the Lord High Steward in due time had to inform Lord Pembroke that his lordship was guilty of manslaughter but, being entitled to his clergy, was to be discharged on paying his fees.