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 Baron Martin. a smile, and then passed a sentence, not at all severe, adding, " Mind, you must not send me that game-cock." Shortly after taking silk, Martin was elected, at the general election, in August, 1847, on Liberal principles, one of the members for Pontefract, which he repre sented till 1850. His unsuccessful opponent was the late Lord Houghton, then Monckton Milnes. It was on this occasion that a voter, more or less under the influence of liquor, presented himself at the poll, and, on being asked for whom he voted, an swered, " I vote for Mr. Gully's friend." The clerk not unnaturally refused to take the vote, but Mr. Milnes, interposed with, "We all know what that means. Take the vote for Martin." In 1850, Baron Rolfe was made a vicechancellor, and Martin was appointed to fill his place. He, with Bramwell and Willes, have been classed as the three strongest judges of the century, and this is true in the sense that they were not led by counsel, but had decided opinions of their own, with sound legal reasons to back them. Shortly after Martin's appointment, Campbell enters in his diary: " I have had a very agreeable circuit, the Oxford, my colleague being Baron Martin, an excellent lawyer and an exceedingly good-natured fellow. We got through the whole of our business extremely well at every place, leaving no remnants, and asking for no assistance." On the bench, as well as at the bar, Sir Samuel sought to reduce matters to a small compass. After a great deal of contradic tory evidence and long speeches made in a case which he was trying, he summed up as follows: " Gentlemen of the jury, you have heard the evidence and the speeches of the learned counsel; if you believe the old woman in red, you will find the prisoner guilty; if you do not believe her, you will find him not guilty." The length of his charge, however, was no indication of the anxiety with which he considered his cases.

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After pronouncing a severe sentence in court, he would sometimes modify it in favor of the prisoner before signing the charge sheet. Trying capital cases was extremely repug nant to him, and when trying such a case was unavoidable it weighed on his mind for weeks beforehand. His was a kindly na ture and it sometimes overflowed in charity to those whose woes came before him in court. A writer in the " Times " related the following stories : — "A wandering boy fiddler had been rob bed by gypsies and left tied to a tree. The scoundrels who had pillaged him were dis covered, and sentenced by Baron Martin. The learned judge made inquiries about the prosecutor, found he was alone in the world, used influence to get him into a school, and regularly sent him a hamper while he was there. The object of this wisely directed assistance now occupies a respectable posi tion in life. "A miserable creature who had com mitted some trifling offense was brought be fore Baron Martin on circuit, and sentenced to three days' imprisonment, which meant im mediate release. The Baron was struck by his wretched demeanor, sent round to know whether he had any money, and, on hearing that he was penniless, made the culprit whom he had just condemned a present of .£10." He was not, however, indiscriminate in his mercy. Once at Liverpool, he had be fore him a man who had committed some peculiarly atrocious crime. Baron Martin, in charging the jury, had worked himself up to such a fervor of honest indignation that when they immediately returned a ver dict of "Guilty" he felt he could hardly trust himself to give judgment calmly; so he turned to the prisoner and said, "Would you like to have sentence to-night or to morrow morning?" The convict, who had felt every word of the judge's summing up like a blow of the lash, cowered in the box, and, hoping that the night would mitigate the judge's wrath, asked for a respite until