When I hear the word “technicality” I think of American jurisprudence. If there is any such term used in British courts I never heard it. The procedure in this magistrate’s court was simple, alarmingly simple. The hotel man proved the burglary. The next witness, an old prospector who was wintering at the hotel, testified that he had changed a twenty-dollar bill at the hotel bar the evening before the burglary; that it was the only bill of that denomination he had; that he had carried it with him for six months and had looked at it so many times he remembered the big serial numbers on the back of it. He swore further that he went to the hotel man the next morning and gave him the numbers. The arresting officers now told of following the train, getting the conductor’s statement, and arresting me. They produced the fatal twenty-dollar bill, the only one in the roll that could have hurt me, the prospector’s bill. They testified that they got it from the conductor, who told them I had paid my fare out of it.

The prospector now identified his bill. On top of this it was shown that I had suddenly and suspiciously left the town, avoiding the ticket office and paying cash fare with the deadly twenty.