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the most innocent. A moral and well-spent life, a high character, the esteem of friends alike wither before this blasting charge; they even add fuel to it. This is shown by the extraordinary remark of one of our judges: "A good character only means that a man has not yet been found out."
To the intrinsic difficulty of defence presented by the very nature of the alleged offence, the poverty of the man accused often adds a terrible aggravation. The rich man can protect himself by all the resources of legal defence; the poor man is left to the mercy of the wolves by his poverty; which, although it may protect him from blackmail, yet gives him no security against malignant spite—perhaps the most fruitful source of false accusations. England, unlike continental countries, provides no legal defence for accused persons. This is serious enough in ordinary cases, but, in any trial in which a woman is concerned, it amounts to a refusal to a man of the commonest conditions of fairplay. The public prosecution of alleged offences against women devolves on the Treasury—in other words, on the skilled advocates of the Crown, with the resources of the English taxpayer at their disposal in the preparation of cases and the procuring of witnesses. The accused is left undefended, to contend alone against the prejudice of juries. Public opinion and the press, which so ably voices it, are arrayed against him. It is not, therefore, a matter for surprise that to be accused by a woman means, practically, in the vast majority of cases, to be condemned.
The necessity for careful inquiries into the character and antecedents of witnesses is nowhere so great as in cases of offences against women and girls. Charges so easy to make, so difficult to refute, ought to be regarded with the greatest suspicion, and not be accepted with ready credulity. The bona fides of all witnesses, the character of the accuser ought to be carefully scrutinised. To the undefended prisoner this is impossible. And even
