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"swear the case through," and for this reas on he came armed and had his weapons blessed before giving his testimony. This would seem incredible if it was not sup ported by a mass of historical evidence, and by the fact that it goes down to those deep springs of humanity, which no abstract reasoning can gauge. To tell a lie is sinful, as our catechisms have told us. But we have learned from Hugo that a nun can

of time, however, there obtained in some countries an extension of the custom in the nature of an appeal. The defeated suitor, instead of going down to the tavern and swearing at the Court, could challenge the Bench to mortal combat, and, if possible, reverse the decision by right of sword. But this privilege, although it extended to all criminal trials, and to civil causes wherein the amount involved exceeded what, in our

FIGHT BETWEEN RAVMBAULT DE MORUEIL AND GUYON DE LOSENNE. THE ABBOT OF ST. DENIS AT THE FEET OF THE ARCHBISHOP OF PARIS, TAKING OATH THAT HIS CAUSE, DEFENDED BY RAYMBAULT, IS A JUST ONE. From a manuscript of the Fifteenth Century. utter a saintly lie, as one did when she saved Jean Valjcan from the police. The phrase "to lie like a gentleman " is well understood. The admitted impossibility of conviction in certain cases in Ireland and other places, even in our own country, show that men and women deliberately lie, not only to save themselves, but to help a friend. Wager of Battle, therefore, became recog nized as the best remedy for the perjury which was everywhere prevalent. In process

own currency, would be about twenty-five dollars, was not often availed of, perhaps for the reason that the judges in the minor courts were usually stalwart barons, who believed that " law was the power of decid ing," and were quite willing to sustain their decision with lethal weapons. Moreover, the Court being a unit, no matter how many judges composed it, the appellant ran the risk of having to fight the whole Bench at once, in which case the judgment was