Let the juryman ponder these things, and beware how he lets his mind lapse into a conclusion either for or against the prisoner. To perform the duties of his office, so that the days which he spends in the jury-box will bear retrospection, his eye, his ears, and his intellect, must be ever on the watch. A witness in the box, and the same man in common life, are different creatures. Coming to give evidence, "he doth suffer a law change." Sometimes he becomes more truthful, as he ought to do, if any change is necessary; but unhappily this is not always so, and least of all in the case of those whose testimony is often required. I remember a person, whom I frequently heard to give evidence quite out of harmony with the facts; but I shall state neither his name nor his profession. A gentleman who knew perfectly well the unpalatable designation which his evidence deserved, told me of his death. I ventured to think it was a loss which might be borne, and touched upon his infirmity, to which my friend replied in perfect sincerity of heart, "Well! after all, I do not think he ever told a falsehood in his life--_out of the witness' box_!" Part XVIII. BANK-NOTE FORGERIES. CHAPTER I. Viotti's division of violin-playing into two great classes--good playing and bad playing--is applicable to Bank-note making. We shall now cover a few pages with a faint outline of the various arts, stratagems, and contrivances employed in concocting bad Bank-notes. The picture cannot be drawn with very distinct or strong markings. The tableaux from which it is copied, are so intertwisted and complicated with clever, slippery, ingenious scoundrelism, that a finished chart of it would be worse than morally displeasing--it would be tedious. All arts require time and experience for their development. When anything great is to be done, first attempts are nearly always failures. The first Bank-note forgery was no exception to this rule, and its story has a spice of romance in it. The affair has never been circumstantially told; but some research enables us to detail it:--