It was absolutely necessary that I should be
able to bring satisfactory proof before a jury of the guilt of the
prisoner at the bar, and it would have been quite premature to arrest
him until I had that proof." "And pray, Sir Richard, when did you consider you had that proof?" "When the surgeon was able to swear to a portion of the remains of Mr.
Francis Thornhill." "Oh, then I am to understand that you rest the case for the prosecution
upon a bone?" "I do not prosecute." "But you took the prisoner into custody, sir; and am I to believe that
you did so solely on account of the finding a bone in some of the vaults
of St. Dunstan's?" "You can conclude so." "Oh, I can conclude so? Very well then. Gentleman of the jury, it
appears that the whole case against the prisoner at the bar, my worthy
and exemplary client, rests upon a bone. That will do, Sir Richard; we
will not trouble you any further. Perhaps the court will stop the case,
as it only rests upon a bone." "Not exactly," said the judge. The next witness was the surgeon, and his evidence was listened to with
great attention. He said--

"I was in the vaults of St. Dunstan's church, and I looked over a great
quantity of osteological remains. Among those remains I found a male
femur." "A what, sir?" said Todd's counsel. "It would be better," said the judge, mildly, "if the witness would be
so good as to give the vulgar names to what he may have to speak of, as
the jury may well be excused for not being in possession of anatomical
and scientific nomenclature." "I will endeavour to do so," said the surgeon. "I beg to assure the
court, that it was from no feeling of pedantry that I used the
scientific terms; but they are so common professionally, that they are
used without thinking that they are other than the terms in common use." "That is just the way I view it," said the judge, "and the court had not
the least idea of anything else. Pray go on, sir, with your evidence." "I found, then, a large quantity of human bones," said the surgeon, "in
the vaults of St. Dunstan's, and among them a male thigh-bone, which I
have with me." Here he produced from his great-coat pocket the bone he spoke of,
wrapped up in paper, and deliberately untying the string which bound the
paper to it, he handed it to the jury. One of that body, more bold than
the rest, took it, but several of the jurymen shrunk from it. "Now, sir," said the Attorney-General, "can you upon your oath, without
the slightest reservation, take upon yourself to say whose thigh-bone
this was?" "I can. It was the thigh-bone of Mr. Francis Thornhill." "Will you state to the court and jury, the grounds upon which you arrive
at that conclusion?" "I will, sir. Mr. Thornhill met with an accident of a tedious and
painful nature. The external condyle or projection on the outer end of
the thigh-bone, which makes part of the knee joint, was broken off, and
there was a diagonal fracture about three inches higher up upon the
bone. I had the sole care of the case, and although a cure was effected,
it was not without considerable distortion of the bone, and general
disarrangement of the parts adjacent. From my frequent examination I was
perfectly well acquainted with the case, and I can swear that the bone
in the hands of the jury was the one so broken, and to which I
attended." "Very well, sir; that is all I wish to trouble you with." The Attorney-General sat down, but Todd's counsel rose, and said--

"Did you ever have a similar case to that of Mr. Thornhill's under your
treatment?" "Never a precisely similar one." "But you have heard of such cases?" "Certainly." "They are sufficiently common, not to be positively rare and curious in
the profession?" "They are not common, but still they do occur sufficiently often to lose
the character of rarity." "Of course. You have no other means of identifying the bone, but by its
having been fractured in the way you describe?" "Certainly not." "Then, it may be the thigh-bone of any one who has suffered a similar
injury." With this remark, the counsel sat down, and the surgeon was permitted to
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 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 counsel 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.