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84 &. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

gentlemen! Peep with the eyes of the mind through the
infinitely possible combination of circumstances, and group to-
gether facts in such wise as to save her. She is innocent! She
thas shed no blood! She was asleep when the deed was done!
Her mistress died by the hands of others! I say others—and
the innocent slumberer did not learn of the tragedy until
hours after her mistress was in heaven or hell! Oh! can you
not see it! Reason out her innocence! Summon your imagi-
nation to the help of a poor girl! It is hard that the reason-
ing process, so loftily praised, so loudly eulogized in speech,
so elaborately complimented in the fine rhetoric of judicial
philosophy, should be unable to work out the innocence of
one poor girl!

I think I hear her counsel aay, ‘‘This evidence is not fit
to take life; all may be true that you have proved, and still
she may be innocent, and if this be possible the law declares
she shall not die on such circumstantial testimony. There
may have been a false key and entrance by it and exit after
the murder. It was a two-story house, and there is no proof
that the windows were fastened in the upper story. It might
be that 2 ladder carried the assassin up to one of them through
which he descended below, killed the sleeping mistress, and
returning on his path gained the ground; when, removing
the ladder, he removed all trace of his entrance and his crime,
It may be in other modes, that do not present themselves to
my mind, the deed was done by others—the thing is possible
—the proof does not necessarily and certainly show her guilt;
and that is the legal test of sufficiency.’? I hear the counsel.
for the Crown say, ‘‘These speculations are fancy work, the
inventions of ingenious lawyers, contrived to sereen guilt end
baffle justice! A false key! What evidence is there of a
false key? A ladder! Who proves there was ever one near
the house since it was erected? Jurors act on facts, not on
nice and cunning theories—they render verdicts on teatimony,
not on fine-spun subtleties of advocates; and this testimony
establishes her guilt.””

The cases supposed by the counsel for the girl ought to
have aaved her; they were enough to show that every hy-

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