Detective and mystery stories, English; Police -- Fiction; Short stories
"I am exceedingly sorry, sir, that such an unusual oversight should
have occurred to give you so much trouble, which I trust your
candor will induce you to excuse when I assure you that the
unfortunate mistake has arisen entirely out of the hurry and
multiplicity of business.
"I am, sir,
"Your most obedient servant,
"J. RIPPON.
"A. BURNETT, ESQ.
"7 Belle Vue Terrace.
"Southsea, near Portsmouth."
A more extraordinary case is on record:--A note was traced to the
possession of a tradesman, which had been pronounced by the Bank
Inspectors to have been forged. The man would not give it up, and was
taken before a magistrate, charged with "having a note in his
possession, well knowing it to be forged." He was committed to prison on
evidence of the Bank Inspector, but was afterwards released on bail to
appear when called on. He was _not_ called on; and, at the expiration of
twelve months, (having kept the note all that time,) he brought an
action against the Bank for false imprisonment. On the trial the note
was proved to be genuine! and the plaintiff was awarded damages of one
hundred pounds.
It is a fact sufficiently dreadful that three hundred and thirty human
lives should have been sacrificed in twenty-one years; but when we
relate a circumstance which admits the merest probability that
some--even one--of those lives may have been sacrificed in innocence of
the offence for which they suffered, the consideration becomes
appalling.
Some time after the frequency of the crime had in other respects
subsided, there was a sort of bloody assize at Haverfordwest, in Wales;
several prisoners were tried for forging and uttering, and thirteen were
convicted--chiefly on the evidence of Mr. Christmas, a Bank Inspector,
who swore positively, in one case, that the document named in the
indictment, "was not an impression from a Bank-of-England plate--was not
printed on the paper with the ink or water-mark of the Bank--neither was
it in the handwriting of the signing clerk." Upon this testimony the
prisoner, together with twelve participators in similar crimes, were
condemned to be hanged!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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