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EDWARD D. WORRELL. 43

dle of the nineteenth century, devised by rampant guilt in
fraud of the gallows and the penitentiary!

A man may smile at this folly as the senseless ery greets
him on the street, or he reada it in the expression of thought-
less type, hastily put up to sustain a nine days’ wonder, but
he may not amile if he sees this stupidity eome into court de-
cently dressed, and taking ita seat on the bench, at the bar
or in the jury box.

Silly individuals sometimes lift the same hue and ery
against the ‘plea of alibi,”’ because “it has sheltered scoun-
@relz,”” and hurried forward by a blind fury, they would
deprive an innocent man of the only certain affirmative proof
of his innocence, which can ever be made by evidence.

It may help these short-sighted ones to learn that ‘‘elibi’’
and ‘‘insanity’’ sre not ‘‘pleas;’’ that the former is ‘‘proof’”
of the innocence of the accused, and the latter ‘‘proof’’ of his
irresponsibility to human judgment; and this ‘‘proof’’ in
each case, ia directly within the legal issne made in every
case of sceusation. To illuatrate: If one of these simplifiers
should be charged with murder, it would be incumbent on the
State to show he was present at the place of the homicide, at
the time of the killing, and therefore it is within that issue
for the simplifier to prove he was elsewhere at that time. That
ig the “‘plea of alibi,” and if established by proof, the inno-
cence of the short-sighted one is affirmatively established.

T trust that ‘alibi’? will survive as a protection to the
innocent, if for no larger reason, at least for the benefit of
these inconsiderates; and as to that other plea, which goes to
the qnestion of human responsibility, I know of no clasa of
men more deeply or personally interested in its maintenance.

Gentlemen, the learned counsel, aware that he could not
keep you from entertaining the defense of insanity, if pre-
sented, resolved at last to simplify your labors. He suggesta
a method of investigation, which, if adopted, will relieve you
at once of all analysis, all thought, all classification, all pains-
taking toil. You will be able to reach by 2 single bound, with-
out a mental proceas, a conclusion, upon which may hang the
destiny of a human being. You are to determine insanity

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