Under such a regime it is self-apparent that principles and law must suffer; and so the result proves daily, if not hourly. The institution of the jury, one of very questionable utility in its best aspects in a country of really popular institutions, becomes nearly intolerable, unless the courts exercise a strong and salutary influence on the discharge of its duties. This influence, unhappily, has been gradually lessening among us for the last half century, until it has reached a point where nothing is more common than to find the judge charging the law one way, and the jury determining it another. In most cases, it is true, there is a remedy for this abuse of power, but it is costly, and ever attended with that delay in hope “which maketh the heart sick.” Any one, of even the dullest apprehension, must, on a little reflection, perceive that a condition of things in which the _ends_ of justice are defeated, or so procrastinated as to produce the results of defeat, is one of the least desirable of all those in which men can be placed under the social compact; to say nothing of its corrupting and demoralizing effects on the public mind. All this Dunscomb saw, more vividly, perhaps, than most others of the profession, for men gradually get to be so accustomed to abuses as not only to tolerate them, but to come to consider them as evils inseparable from human frailty. It was certain, however, that while our worthy counsellor so far submitted to the force of things as frequently to close his eyes to Timms’s manœuvres, a weakness of which nearly every one is guilty who has much to do with the management of men and things, he was never known to do aught himself that was unworthy of his high standing and well-merited reputation at the bar. There is nothing unusual in this convenient compromise between direct and indirect relations with that which is wrong. It had early been found necessary to employ local counsel in Mary Monson’s case, and Timms was recommended by his old master as one every way suited to the particular offices needed. Most of the duties to be performed were strictly legal; though it is not to be concealed that some soon presented themselves that would not bear the light. John Wilmeter communicated to Timms the particular state of the testimony, as he and Michael Millington had been enabled to get at it; and among other things he stated his conviction that the occupants of the farm nearest to the late dwelling of the Goodwins were likely to prove some of the most dangerous of the witnesses against their client. This family consisted of a sister-in-law, the Mrs. Burton already mentioned, three unmarried sisters, and a brother, who was the husband of the person first named. On this hint Timms immediately put himself in communication with these neighbours, concealing from them, as well as from all others but good Mrs. Gott, that he was retained in the case at all.