Chapter LXXXVIII.
Sunt Leges: Vis Ultima Lex: Tunc Aut Libertas Aut Servitudo;
Mors Enim Benedicta.
On the reassembling of the Court, at three o'clock, Mr. Ireland rose to
address the Jury for the defence.
The learned Counsel spent a heap of dry yabber-yabber on the law of
high-treason, to show its absurdity and how its interpretation had ever
proved a vexation even to lawyers, then he tackled with some more tangible
solids. The British law, the boast of 'urbis et orbis terrarum',
delivered a traitor to be practised upon by a sanguinary
Jack Ketch: - I., to hang the beggar until he be dead, dead, dead;
II., then to chop the carcase in quarters; III., never mind the stench,
each piece of the treacherous flesh must remain stuck up at the top of
each gate of the town, there to dry in spite of occasional pecking from
crows and vultures. The whole performance to impress the young generation
with the fear of God and teach them to honour the King.
I soon reconciled myself to my lot, and remembering my younger days at
school, I argued thus: -
Where there are no bricks, there are no walls: but, walls are required
to enclose the gates; therefore, in Ballaarat there are no gates.
Corolarium - How the deuce can they hang up my hind-quarters on the gates
of Ballaarat Township?
