The first story belongs to the year 1715. The case of Dormer _v._ Dormer and Jones came on for hearing at Westminster Hall. It was a divorce case, in which the co-respondent had been a footman in the plaintiff's house. There seems to have been no defence, practically. The verdict of the Jury was for the plaintiff, with 5,000_l._ damages. Now, consider for a moment what that verdict meant. In these days, when a defendant without any private means at all is mulcted in damages and costs, whether of 5,000_l._ or of 100_l._, he simply smiles. He is not in the least degree affected. Nothing worse than bankruptcy can happen to him, and when a man has nothing bankruptcy presents few terrors. In Portugal Street _subridet vacuus viator_--the insolvent pilgrim smiles cheerfully. But in those days it was very different. To inflict damages of 5,000_l._ meant simply that the Jury considered the case one in which the defendant, who could not be tried in the criminal courts, could only be adequately punished by being locked up for the whole of his remaining days in a debtor's prison, where, since he was only a footman whose relations were probably unable to assist him and certainly unable to maintain him, he would speedily take his place on the common side, and there he would be slowly done to death by insufficient food and insufficient clothing, by privation, cold, fever and misery. The Jury therefore gave this verdict with deliberate intention. It meant prison and slow starvation and insufficient warmth, and so everybody instantly understood, including Mr. Jones himself. In a moment the officers would have laid hands upon the unhappy but undeserving footman. But he was too quick for them: he turned: he fled: he hurled himself down Westminster Hall through the crowd of lawyers, witnesses, booksellers, glovesellers, and visitors: he tore across New Palace Yard, now pursued by the officers: he made for the 'Bridge,' that is, the pier so called, for as yet there was no Bridge: he jumped into the first boat and shoved off. When the bailiffs arrived breathless at the Stairs, they saw their prisoner already half way across the river. They too jumped into a boat: for some reason or other--one knows not why--it was most unlucky--their boat took a long time to get off: something was wrong with the painter: the ropes were knotted: the stretchers wanted to be set right: the oars were on the wrong sides: the men were slow in getting off their coats: finally, when she was cast loose the boat proved to be another Noah's Ark for creeping slowly over the face of the waters. Jones therefore got safely ashore on the other side, and the bailiffs turned back with a good deal of cursing. Once ashore, the fugitive made straight to Mint Street, as to a Levitical City which was also a City of Refuge. I know not what became of him afterwards. It was a hive where all the bees were busy. Jones could not eat the bread of