WITNESS: Yes, deary. I got Heavens-hard drunk for sixteen year afore I took to this; but this don’t hurt me, not to speak of. MR. CROTCH: You keep an opium den in the East End of London, I believe? WITNESS: I do; but business is slack. MR. CROTCH: Do you know the prisoner? WITNESS: Know him! Better far than all the Reverend Parsons put together know him. MR. CROTCH: He is a customer of yours, I believe? WITNESS: When he first came to me he was quite new to it, but after a while he could take his pipe with the best of ’em, deary. MR. CROTCH: I conclude from that he was a heavy opium smoker? WITNESS: He was, deary. MR. CROTCH: Do you remember his being in your place on the night of the twelfth of December? WITNESS: He was, deary. I see him coming to, and I says, deary, “Get him another ready when he wakes, and he will remember the market price of opium is very high.” MR. CROTCH: What was the date he next visited you? WITNESS: December 23, my deary dear. MR. CROTCH: You need not be so affectionate. What happened next day? WITNESS: I followed him to his home. MR. CROTCH: What happened? WITNESS: I lost him where the omnibus he got into nigh his journey’s end plies betwixt the station and the place. MR. CROTCH: Did you meet anybody else? WITNESS: I met a dear gentleman named Edwin. MR. CROTCH: What did you say to him? WITNESS: I said to him, “My lungs is weak, my lungs is bad”—and the dear gentleman he put three-and-sixpence in my hand. MR. CROTCH: And when did you next meet the prisoner? WITNESS: Oh, my poor head! In 1861. He comes to me all over like for the want of a smoke. I says, “You have come to the right place. This is the place where the all overs is smoked off.” MR. CROTCH: Then what happened? WITNESS: Then what happened, deary? I follows him to Aldersgate Street, the place where he puts up, and I finds out where he comes from, and I says to my poor self “I missed you the first time, and I swore my oath I will not lose you again, my gentleman from Cloisterham. I’ll go there first, and bide your coming.” And I did. I goes to Cloisterham, and I waits outside the Nun’s House, just where the omnibus goes, and he gets down, and I follows him up a bystreet till he disappears under a archway to the left. I turns round, and he was gone. MR. CROTCH: Did you see any one? WITNESS: A white-haired gentleman who told me that his name was Datchery. MR. CROTCH: Did you go to the Cathedral next morning? WITNESS: I did, deary. MR. CROTCH: Did you see the prisoner there? WITNESS: I see him from behind a pillar. MR. CROTCH: You recognised him? WITNESS: I recognised him, deary. MR. CROTCH: Did you afterwards meet the white-haired gentleman you have spoken of? WITNESS: I did, deary. MR. CROTCH: Did you tell him you knew the prisoner? WITNESS: I told him that I knew him. MR. CROTCH: Yes? WITNESS: I said, “I know him. I know him better than all the Reverend Parsons put together knows him.” MR. CROTCH: Thank you.