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the theory of his defence: O'Donnell had discovered at Cape Town that Power was James Carey, and he resolved on the voyage from Cape Town to Natal to avoid him and, in point of fact, told Carey he would do so. But Carey would not keep aloof. On the 29th, when Carey, O'Donnell and Mrs. O'Donnell were in the cabin, O'Donnell declared to Carey that he would 'have nothing to do with an informer'. 'What do you mean by informer?', replied Carey. 'You are James Carey, the Irish informer', answered O'Donnell. On this, Carey sprung to his feet and produced a weapon; but O'Donnell, with more quickness, pulled out his pistol and fired first, with the results ·already mentioned. The case was a plausible one, but on what evidence did it rest? Simply upon a statement of the prisoner, made not immediately upon his arrest, or before a magistrate, but to his solicitor, and now set forth for the first time by Mr. Russell. Not only was there absolutely no evidence in ·support of this theory, there were two witnesses who swore they were present when the first shot was fired, and they did not see Carey produce any weapon. These witnesses were young Carey and Parish. After the death of Carey, two pistols, and only two, were found - one in the pocket of O'Donnell, and one in the pocket of young Carey. The question was how young Carey came by the pistol. He had sworn that, after the firing of the first shot, he had taken it out of a bag to give to his father. How was this to be met? Mr. Russell boldly asked the jury to believe that young Carey's evidence was unreliable, and to credit the statement that the pistol dropped from . Carey, senior, .and had been picked up by his son. In support of this view he had already called the only witness produced for the defence; Young, a cab proprietor at Port Elizabeth, who swore that young Carey had said to him, some days after the occurrence, that the reason he did not shoot O'Donnell was because he could not find the pistol in the bag 'for my father had it'. Supported , by this evidence of Young - an unimpeachable witness, it must be observed - Mr. Russell seems almost to have persuaded the jury that Carey had a pistol, and that he drew it on O'Donnell before the latter fired . That was the advocate's greatest achievement in the case - an achievement which might, perhaps, have saved the prisoner but for the firing of the second and third shots. With these shots, Mr. Russell deals very briefly, using the greatest efforts to fasten the attention of the jury on the first shot alone - which, as he said, had been fired in self-defence - and representing the other shots, whiqh had been fired in quick succession, as part and parcel of one transaction - the transaction being an effort on the prisoner's part to save his own life. This vulnerable point, however, did not escape the learned judge's notice, and it was probably in the three points emphasised by him: (1) the total absence of any evidence to support the theory of the defence; (2) the want of any theory to explain adequately the second and third shots; and (3) the fact that the woman who accompanied O'Donnell, but who was not even alleged to be his wife, was not called - that the verdict ultimately turned. That the verdict of 'guilty' was only reached after nearly three hours deliberation is a testimony at once to the fairness with which the trial was conducted, and to the ability and power of the advocate for the defence". O'Donnell was found guilty of murder, and condemned to death. Russell made a strenuous effort to get the capital sentence reduced to penal servitude, on the ground that O'Donnell had fired in hot blood, 46