The Queer Side of Things.
crime," said Lord Justice Pimblekin, "is the most heartless, atrocious, inhuman, and horrible that it has ever been my misfortune to hear of your long and coldblooded premeditation; the cynical indifference to the result of your atrocities, combined with the delight with which you have wallowed in human gore; your contempt for all the dictates of honesty, truth, pity, and good faith; your greed, ingratitude, treachery, savageness, meanness, and cannibalism; all these things stamp you the most atrocious, unmitigated and loathsome scoundrel, savage, monster, and vampire that ever wallowed in the foul and fathomless quagmire of infinite and immeasurable dastardliness.
"Under these circumstances I ought to inflict upon you the severest penalty which the law allows. I say it is my unmistakable duty to sentence you to penal servitude for life, with the cat once a week.
"Mercy would be thrown away upon you.
"Under these circumstances I will disregard my palpable duty, and render the whole proceedings a farce, by sentencing you to a fine of forty shillings, or a month."
The fine being immediately paid, the prisoner left the court amid the congratulations of his friends.
New laurels were added to the already superfoliated wreath of Lord Justice Pimblekin by this fresh masterpiece of judicial wisdom. He was already the most renowned of all the judges on the Bench, and the admiration and envy of the whole judicial and forensic body.
His verdicts had a character of their own; the severity of his denunciation of inextenuable crime was only equalled by the inadequacy of the punishment dealt out; as he explained on each occasion, he never did his duty.
He designed a mixture of justice, equity,
