So far as he can see, the question is not whether a murder has been committed, but whether, under the circumstances, it is a criminal offence.

The prisoner should never have been tried here at all.
It was a case for the petty sessions.

If the counsel cannot give some weighty reason for proceeding with further evidence, he will now put it to the jury.
[Illustration] After a few remarks from the counsel for the prosecution and the counsel for the defence, who calls attention to the prisoner's high and unblemished character, the judge sums up.

It is for the jury, he says, to decide whether the prisoner has committed a criminal offence.

That was the point; and in deciding it the jury should bear in mind the desirability of suppressing merely vexatious cases.