528 Slide – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

496 X. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

fire was. The account given by other witnesses, of the collee-
tion of the citizens, evidently refers to those who assembled
on the soldiers rushing ont, in the manner before mentioned.
And thongh it cannot be fully justified, yet who will say, that
any thing better could be expected when the people found
they could not walk the streets in peace, without danger of
assassination, But how does all this prove the grand point
for which it was produced, namely, that there was 4 eombina-
tion of the inhabitants to atteck the soldiers? Does the
threatening, rude and indecent speeches, of which 50 rouch
pains haa been taken to give you evidence, prove any thing
like this? Is it to be wondered at, that among a number of
people collected on such an occasion, there should be some
who should rashly and without design express themselves in
guch a manner? And must the disposition and intention of
the whole, be collected from such expressions heard only from.
afew?
THE CHARGE TO THE JURY.
December 5.

Me. Juerice Teowsrwer, Gentlemen of the Jury: The
principal questions for your consideration are these:

First. Whether the five persons said to be murdered were
in fact killed? And if a0,

2 The rest of the papars, which have been preserved, relating to
this trial, are so torn and the notes therein so imperfect and discon-
neetad, that it is impossible to determine the concluding remarks of
Mr. Paine, It appears, however, from his very copious minutes, that
he commented largely on the testimony, with much ingenuity and
wit; that be stated the nature of the crime of murder, in so far as it
is to be distinguished from manslaughter or simple homicide; and
insisted that the eonduct of the inhabitants was no justification for
the firing of the soldiers, or the order of the captain for them to
fire—that the first abuse and riot was from the soldiers at an earlier
hour, which called the people together in the eenter of the town—that
thus alarmed and agitated, some of them, chiefly boys, addressed the
sentinel with threatening and abusive language—that some snowballs
were thrown, and some hustling and pushing, when the erowd was
about the sentinel, ete. But that the soldiers were not in danger of
being beaten or wounded, as the citizens designed to act merely on
the defensive, and therefore, that by the order to fire and by firing,
the prisoners were justly charged with murder,