Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 February 1885 — As Only a Frenchman Could. [ARTICLE]

As Only a Frenchman Could.

Mr. Poland, the great London criminal lawyer, was recently robbed of his watch in the immediate neighborhood of Cranbourn street, close to the notorious French quarter of Lower Soho. He gave information to the police and was soon informed that a pickpocket had been arrested with the stolen watch in his possession. He went down to Marlborough street to give his evidence, and, as he entered the door, a dirty Frenchman thrust a letter in his hand. It contained two sovereigns, a two shilling piece, and a half crown, the. exactly conventional fee for a barrister and his clerk. With them was the following touching appeal, scrawled in the vilest handwriting; “You talk well; you will be generous; you will defend me.” It was only a Frenchman who would h eve hit on this daring expedient of retaining as his counsel the man he had robbed. — New York Sun. 1