another on the head with a spear,--prodding was the fashion of murder only,--but legal evidence was lacking. Nevertheless, the “jury of the North-gate” found him guilty on the principle that for an eye an eye was due, and he was sentenced to pay damages to the injured man, to the King, and to the town, and to stand committed “until such time as he catches another in his place.” And he in jail! [Illustration: THE IRON HAND.] It seems almost jolly by comparison, certainly it has a more modern, not to say familiar sound, to find another jury acquitting a malefactor in the face of convincing evidence of his guilt upon grounds that seem delicately suggested in the question from the bench why they, the jurymen, “had demanded a keg of beer of the prisoner.” The record mentions one obstinate juryman, perhaps the original prohibitionist, who entered an ineffectual protest against the verdict. With all their staid solemnity there is a comic vein in some of these old records. As, for instance, when Jep Bennedsen, appearing to prosecute a horse thief, swears that “the dappled mare which is here present, he bought of Anders Munk and it is God’s and his own horse.” Or, when a man charged with the theft of a neighbor’s axe proceeds to swear “on his soul and salvation and his uplifted hand, and asks God to curse him and push him in under the foot of Lucifer if he ever had the axe”; then, suddenly reflecting, adds, “Wait; if I did, I will give it back to him.” But the musty pages in which these facts are set down with minutest care betray no appreciation of their humor.