The String of Pearls (1850), p. 559

retire. The bone was laid upon the counsel's table, and there it reposed a sad memento of poor Thornhill, and a mute but eloquent piece of evidence against the prisoner at the bar. Todd, however, did not seem to be at all moved at the sight of the relict of the murdered victim. Probably he had for too long a time
been intimate with the remains of mortality, during the frightful trade he had carried on, for such a circumstance to touch him in any perceptible way.
The next witness called, was another medical man, who merely corroborated the ship's-surgeon, as to the fact of the bone produced having been fractured in the way he described.

CHAPTER CXXX.
TODD ENTERTAINS SOME HOPES OF AN ACQUITTAL.

The next witness was the sexton of St. Dunstan's.
"Will you state to the jury, when the last entombment took place in the vaults of St. Dunstan's?" was the question asked of him.
"On the 30th. of January, five years ago," he replied, "a gentleman named Shaw, from Chancery Lane, was placed in a vault, but no one since then. The vaults were considered offensive to the living, and was not used."
"Let the medical men be called again," said the Attorney-General.
They were so called; and the question put to them was, as to the age of the bone produced in court. They both swore that it could not have been six months in its present condition. It had all the aspect of a fresh bone; and they entertained no sort of doubt upon the subject, but that the flesh had been roughly taken off it, and then the slight remainder had rapidly dried and decayed.
This, then, was the case for the prosecution, and it will be seen that the evidence or confession of Mrs. Lovett was not at all made use of or attended to, so that even in her dying hope of doing vast injury to Todd, she failed. The case was considered to be good enough without such testimony, and the lawyers, too, were of opinion that it would not be received by the judge, even if tendered, under all the circumstances.
The Attorney-General rose again, and said—
"That is the case, my lord, and gentlemen of the jury, for the prosecution; and we leave it in your hands to deal with as you shall think fit."
Todd's cousel now rose to commence the speech for the defence, and he spoke rather ingeniously, as follows—
"My lord, and gentlemen of the jury—
"I have, upon the part of my client, the prisoner at the bar, most seriously to complain of the vast amount of extraneous matter that has been mixed up with this case. To one grain of wheat, we have had whole bushels of chaff; and gentlemen have been brought here surely to amuse the court with long-winded romances.
"Gentlemen, the prisoner at the bar is clearly and distinctly charged with the murder of one Francis Thornhill, and instead of any evidence, near or remote, fixing that deed upon him, we have nothing but long stories about vaults, and bad odours in churches, and moveable floor-boards, and chairs standing on their heads, and vaults, and secret passages, and pork pies! Really, gentlemen of the jury, I do think that the manner in which this prosecution has been got up against my virtuous and pious client, is an outrage to your common-sense."
Todd rather looked up at this. It was something to hear even an Old Bailey counsel call him virtuous and pious; and a gleam of hope shot across his heart that things might not be quite so hard with him after all.
"This, gentlemen of the jury," continued the counsel, "is an attempt, I must say, to take the life of a man from a variety of circumstances external to the real charge to which he is called upon here to plead. Let us examine the