based upon the humane principle of the common law, that it is better that ninety-nine guilty men should escape than that one innocent person should suffer, and declaring his conviction of the prisoner's innocence, asked them to give him the benefit of every doubt and lean to the side of mercy. His father, in reply, commented severely upon the airiness of his son, as inconsistent with the administration of justice and the dignity of the profession. He ridiculed Gall and Spurzheim's far-fetched theories, which he declared were not scientific deductions, but only speculative opinions, and brought the whole defence into contempt, by referring to the human skeleton, saying, "If you run your eye down the spine it alights upon the _oscoccygis_." Neither the court nor the jury understanding what these words meant, but overcome by the ludicrous manner of Mr. Peyton, both burst into a hearty laugh. "Now," he continued, "this oscoccygis is nothing more nor less than a rudimentary tail, as Lord Monbeddo has well said, and I suppose we shall have some modern philosopher startling the world again with the proposition that man once flourished a tail, but of which the civilized use of a chair has, in process of time, deprived him." He continued, somewhat in this style, "I say nothing against philosophers nor tails, both are useful in their way. What would a cow do without her tail, especially on our fly-pestered prairies, or the Pampas of South America? What would a monkey do without this caudal appendage and its prehensile quality? With him it takes the place of hands. And shall we have philosophers telling us we received our hands when we lost our tails, and that the monkey lost the use of his hands because of his peculiar facility of using a tail? A beautiful science," said he, "is the phrenology, according to the theory of the learned counsel for the prisoner. To all standing in the unenviable position of his client, it will prove, if the learned gentleman be correct, not only a thing of beauty, but a source of comfort and a joy forever. To the murderer, the burglar, the highwayman, to all in fact, who wish to be rid of the responsibility which attaches to their actions, it will become a positive blessing. Not to these only, but to the entire community--it opens a brilliant prospect of life, of life as it should be in this enlightened age, at this advanced period in the progress of the world. Upon the ruins of our present immature civilization it will uprear a charming state of society. Under the vivifying influence of this new system, mankind will be happy, perfectly happy; and until the auspicious day when the new order commences, this 'consummation so devoutly to be wished,' need not be anticipated. Throughout the world, at least so much of it as is illuminated by the light of phrenology, perfect liberty will obtain, and the present generation will wonder at the darkness in which their ancestors groped.