Was Eugene Aram guilty or not? To his confession, probably, no serious attention need be paid. The man was highly strung clearly, he had been a penniless prisoner for nearly a year at a time when our prisons were hells upon earth, he had conducted his own defence during an arduous and, from our modern point of view, very unfairly conducted trial, he attempted suicide by opening a vein on the night before his execution, he was desperate, probably not master of himself, and last, perhaps not least, confessions were the custom of the criminals of the age. It has been urged on his behalf that the trial was unfair, from our point of view, since counsel might not be retained for the defence of prisoners in those days nor wives called in defence of their husbands. As to the wife's evidence, if it had been admissible, the story makes it plain that it would have been more likely to be damning than favourable. She had been deserted, she had been left to shift for herself for many years, she had said that Aram knew all about the disappearance of Clarke. It was a distinct advantage to Aram that she could not be called. That he suffered from having to defend himself is in the last degree unlikely. Paley, who travelled all the way from Cambridge to hear his defence, said he had secured his conviction by his own cleverness. The original defence, preserved by Bulwer, is indeed marked by singular ability; but it is not in the very least convincing. I can imagine the jury saying to one another: "If this obviously clever man can think of nothing better than this to say, he is guilty sure enough." Houseman, it might very fairly be said, was not a credible witness. He was, indeed, on his own showing, a most mean and despicable villain; but the strength of the circumstantial evidence, the fact that Aram ran away, that he did not cross-examine Houseman or attempt to overthrow his evidence, and that his defence really amounted to an essay on the fallibility of circumstantial evidence, were quite enough to secure his conviction then, or now. The sympathy felt for Eugene Aram has sprung from the fact that the villain Houseman escaped, and that Aram was an able and a brilliantly learned man. Hume, I believe, said he was a century ahead of his age in Celtic research; but neither the one fact nor the other is inconsistent with a belief that Clarke was murdered, and that Aram was present at the murder.