THE SCOTTISH PITAVAL.* NINE stories, most of them drawn from
the records and traditions of Scottish criminal jurisprudence of the early part of this century form the contents of Mr. Leighton's capital little volume—a volume which has a much better chance of reaching that mystic person- age, posterity, than its ingenious author seems to anticipate. It is compacted of the very stuff which has never failed to interest readers of all degrees of culture, and hearers of no culture at all, and which never will fail to interest them whilst tragedy and mystery retain their fascinating power over the mind of man- One of the most widely and enduringly popular books that ever was written, is the "Causes Celebres,' edited by Pitaval. The title is well known to everybody, though the book itself is now little read —but why ? Only because its contents have been rifled by the litterateurs of all nations, and have in various forms become fami- liar as household words or nursery tales to all readers. Judging from the specimen now before us, we are strongly inclined to be- lieve that Mr. Leighton has it in his power to become the Pitaval of Scotland. In the first place, he possesses that grand requisite, a rooted and cherished love of his subject. He has always been fond of this kind of literature—yea, he declares "from my earliest remembrances, I was a hanger upon the lips of grandams, and a worshipper of the goddess with the dark palla." Next, he is en- dowed with the constructive faculty in no ordinary degree, and unites with it a corresponding power of graphic expression. Along with the keen wit of a detective for ferreting out minute shreds of Curious Storied Traditions of Scottish Life. By Alexander Leighton. Fait. lisbed by W. P. Nimmo. evidence, and piecing them together into a logical clue, he ex- hibits a judicial breadth of survey and a practical command of ethical and psychical principles, which his more cultivated readers will recognize with pleasure, as giving solid value to his very amusing volume. We will not mar any of his good tales by telling them again in the crippled fashion to which the apex at our com- mand would compel us to reduce them, but we eh do no injus- tice to the author or his fixture readers by detaching the follow- ing episode from one of his stories. It illustrates an alleged de- fect in an institution keedliar to Scotland, and the want of which has often been complained of in England—that of a public prose- cutor. As we may some day have to establish an analogous offioe on this side of the border, it is well that we should be forewarned against the evils which may be incident to it. " ' I fear there is something wrong in the constitution of the ministerial department of our criminal practice,' said I. There's something even ter- rible in the idea that one man—not always, certainly., thanks to politics, necessarily gifted with a superabundance of either brains or discretion— should have the power, after reading a precognition got up by a man, a fis- cal paid by blood-money—for what otherwise are his fees paid by the exche- quer—to drag any man or woman in this kingdom before a court, to be tried for his or her life. I say nothing of the cases of innocent persons known to have been criminally hanged. I speak of the mere ordeal. I remember a story told often by my father, where a relative of his own figured as a vic- tim. His ease stands yet in the books of adjournal, as a blazoned disgrace to the authorities of the time. The gentleman's wife, a nervous, excitable woman, used his razor, without his consent or knowledge, below the chin, and where a beautiful blue-veined neck showed nothing of the hirsute. The woman bled to death in the drawing-room, which had a window used as the means, by a step, of getting to a parterre. He was in the garden, from which he saw his wife, whom he loved tenderly, but whom he had often se- cretly great difficulty to manage in consequence of her constitutional ten- dency, WI, and rushing in, found her lying in a pool of blood. A doctor came too late to save her. When she died the doctor, more probably from mere curiosity than any suspicion, inquired how she got the razor.'
"'Is it one of yours ? ' he said to the husband.
"'Yes,' was the the reply ; but I always keep them looked up. She must have got the key of my dressing-case.' "'I wonder where it is,' said the doctor. "'Good God !' exclaimed the husband, searching his pocket, and drawing it out, it is here! Let us see, lathe dressing-case locked or open ? ' and, running to the bed-room, he came back with it. It is locked.'
" Locked ! ' responded the doctor. " ' Locked ; we must ascertain how she had got it opened.' "'And so they went a-searching, but no trace could he got of the key. "'The doctor was, in a few days after the funeral, visited by the fiscal, whose ledger was always a ready receptacle of thirteen and fourpences, more of which he would have spent if there had been more nervous women in the country, and the doctor told him the circumstance concerning the key. The two servants were next booked. They were honest girls. The interro- gation went somewhat in this way :— "'Did you know that Mr. F— always kept the key of his dressing- box ?'
"'Always; and I found it always locked when I went up to the dressing- closet.'
"'Did your master and mistress agree well ? '
"'No, sir. Both I and my neighbour often heard noisea as of quarrels, and-sometimes screams, from my mistress, as if my master had been treating her cruelly. We thought too, that he tried to prevent them being heard, by attempting to hold her throat or cover her mouth.'
"'And how often would this occur ?'
"'Two or three times in a month.'
"And thus the prosecutor filled his book by question and answer. Nor was such evidence permitted to undergo due qualification by the statement of the gentleman iu his examination, that his wife was subject to nervous fits, which he wished to conceal from the servants ; that, in consequence, he often applied a gentle force to her, restraining her shaking limbs, and even putting his hand gently over her mouth, all which appeared to her at the time, and during the attack, as attempts against her life, whereupon her cries were increased, sometimes carrying on their wings the word "help." Of all which she was in her healthier moods ashamed, and for all which she loved him the more tenderly. But then the doctor who had given his tes- timony about the key, was a new corner in place of the dead old hand, who could have spoken of her peculiar diathesis. Mr. F— was apprehended, tried, acquitted, and killed. In three months afterwards, he fell under the sticking barb shot by a Lord-Advocate.'"
Heartily commending Mr. Leighton's book to the attention of our readers, we take leave of him with a parody of his own parody on a snatch of an old song, bidding him,
"Since it's vera west hobbit,
E'en bob it again.
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