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cotton (equal to Sea-island) were among the
products of the valley. Thus, some three
hundred souls adolescent, with a back-ground of
women and children, were dependent upon
Peter.

Eden was, as I have already hinted, a model
of picturesqueness, nor was it less remarkable
for comfort and for happy physiognomies.
The population, not only here but throughout
great part of Lebanon, is Maronite; and the
Maronites, as a people, are in almost every sense
admirable. They are Christian by profession, and
therefore allied to us of the North by the closest
and most sympathetic ties. They are a very
handsome race, and polite in manner without
slavishness. The Catholic Maronite clergy are
liberal in their views and pure in their
morals; and the secular portion are allowed to
marry.

In every village is a sheik for the administration
of justice; but, truth to say, law and
police have little occupation in a community
so peaceful and industrious. My friend Peter
contrived to introduce a vast number of
ameliorations among the people of his village of Eden,
without interfering with the sheik, who kept up
his usual state, seated at his door, surrounded
by his horses, and by his officers in superb
pelisses, like himself, and armed with the jewelled
yataghan and kandjiar. Here I must remark
that there are many Edens, or Ehdens, in the
Libanus. One of these, of which travellers
speak much, is situated on the slope of what
may be termed the " real" Lebanon. But my
friend's Eden was like none of them. It was much
less a collection of streets, than of gardens, each
with its pretty villa-like dwelling. And, as to
cleanliness, those habitations are something
delightful to look upon. My friend has not
hitherto experimented largely in cotton-growing,
but the result has been most successful,
and the quality is equal to the finest from the
Southern United States. He is now about to
speculate on an extensive breadth of land, and,
blessed by climate, soil, and a hard-working
Christian and intelligent population, there can
be no doubt of his success. The Maronite
is, by his qualities and his religion, a great
commercial element, and is infinitely superior
to the Pagan Druse, who, statistically, has no
future. The Eden of my friend Peter and the
territory around, did not come within that
vortex of spoliation which originated with a
faction of bigoted Turks, and is never likely to
recur.

And, therefore, Manchester capital could not
be better employed than in encouraging the
production of cotton in Peter's region. The
average production would be at least equal to
that of Egypt, and of finer quality and of more
certain crop; and, as the statistics of the latter
have been published, I need not say more on
that head. Here is a vast territory to commercial
enterprisea territory with an admirable
port, and not remote from our own shores. If
America should continue unavailable, we may
solace ourselves by looking eastward, and we
shall soon discover that India, Egypt, and the
Lebanon, will give us all the cotton we
require.

GUILTY, OR NOT GUILTY?

A MAN whom all the world held to be guilty
was acquitted of a charge of murder at the last
assizes. The reporters necessarily abridged the
proceedings before the court; and the prisoner's
counsel, content with the curious perplexities
raised by the cross-examination, withheld all
direct evidence for the defence, in order that he
might not give to the prosecution the right of
reply, and of thus having the last word in the
ear of the jury. The issue proved that a skilful
lawyer exercised a sound judgment herein. But
now, as it chances that we have the whole
story before us, including evidence withheld,
and hearsay evidence not legally admissible, we
find coincidences so curious on the side of a
theory of innocence, warring against circumstantial
evidence so strong for the theory of guilt,
that it will be instructive to show by a little
detail how sometimes a man's life and credit
may hang on the nicest poising of the scales of
justice.

The case will at once be recognised by every
newspaper reader; but we disguise it, as much as
may be necessary to avoid the permanent
association of the good names of innocent people
with a story of crime that has already given
them trouble enough, by reason of their having
seen or heard something that made them links in
a chain of circumstantial evidence. And now for
the tale:

Mr. Bright, rector of Wegby, a rural parish
in Surrey, had, for some time before Monday the
tenth of June, been sojourning, together with his
whole household, at the house of his wife's
father, at Brome: himself coming to Wegby to
officiate, every Sunday. He slept at the
parsonage on the night of Sunday, the ninth, and
left again for Brome on Monday morning.
During the absence of the family, Martha Smith,
an elderly woman, wife of the parish clerk, had
charge of the parsonage; and there she was left
alone on the Monday evening, by the clerk, her
husband, who had his own house to take care of,
and who went there to sleep. Except her
murderers, he was the last person by whom she was
seen alive.

When he came to the back door of the
parsonage on Tuesday morning, Martha's husband
found it shut, but the front door was open, this
being the reverse of what was usual during the
family's absence. Not finding his wife
downstairs, he went to her bedroom, and there found
her lying on the floor, in her nightdress, stiff and
cold, bound hand and foot with hempen cord,
and with a handkerchief tied over her face.
Under the handkerchief was a sock belonging to
the house, that had been crammed into her
throat. The entrance of the murderer had
evidently been made at the window, for it was
open, and a pane had been broken from the
outside to undo the latch. The room had been