"
Beneath this portrait, on the second Wednesday in June, 1886, were
gathered no fewer than six Justices of the Peace, a number the more
astonishing because Petty Sessions chanced to clash with the annual
meeting of the Royal Cornwall Agricultural Society, held that year
at the neighbouring market town of Tregarrick. Now, the reason of
this full bench was at once simple and absurd, and had caused
merriment not unmixed with testiness in the magistrates' private
room. Each Justice, counting on his neighbour's delinquency, had
separately resolved to pay a sacrifice to public duty, and to drop in
to dispose of the business of Sessions before proceeding to the Show.
The charge-sheet, be it noted, was abnormally light: it comprised one
single indictment.
"Good Lord!" growled Admiral Trist, Chairman of the Bench, Master of
the famous Gantick Harriers. "Six of us to hear a case of sleeping
out!"
"Who's the defendant?" asked Sir Felix Felix-Williams. "'Thomas
Edwards'--Don't know the name in these parts."
"I doubt if he knows it himself, Sir Felix," answered Mr. Batty, the
Justices' Clerk. "The Inspector tells me it's a tramping fellow the
police picked up two nights ago.
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