I honor his heroism, applaud his chivalrous zeal, and wish that I stood in his place; but not mine the privilege of mounting the white horse, and waving the red flag of the ‘Lactees.’  Dedicated to the mournful rites of justice, I have laid an iron hand on the quivering lips of pity, that cried to me like the voice of one of my own little ones; and very sorrowfully, at the command of conscience, reason and my official duty, I obey the mandate to ring down the black curtain on a terrible tragedy, feeling like Dante, when he confronted the doomed—­

“‘And to a part I come, where no light shines.’”

So clearly and ably has my distinguished associate, Mr. Wolverton, presented all the legal points bearing upon the nature and value of the proof, submitted for your examination, that any attempt to buttress his powerful argument, were an unpardonable reflection upon your intelligence, and his skill; and I shall confine my last effort in behalf of justice, to a brief analysis and comparison of the hypothesis of the defence, with the verified result of the prosecution.

“Beautiful and sparkling as the frail glass of Murano, and equally as thin, as treacherously brittle, is the theory so skilfully manufactured in behalf of the accused; and so adroitly exhibited that the ingenious facets catch every possible gleam, and for a moment almost dazzle the eyes of the beholder.  In attempting to cast a lance against the shield of circumstantial evidence, his weapon rebounded, recoiled upon his fine spun crystal and shivered it.  What were the materials wherewith he worked?  Circumstances, strained, well nigh dislocated by the effort to force them to fit into his Procrustean measure.  A man was seen on the night of the twenty-sixth, who appeared unduly anxious to quit X—­before daylight; and again the mysterious stranger was seen in a distant town in Pennsylvania, where he showed some gold coins of a certain denomination, and dropped on the floor one-half of an envelope, that once contained a will.  In view of these circumstances (the prosecution calls them facts), the counsel for the defence presumes that said stranger committed the murder, stole the will; and offers this opinion as presumptive proof that the prisoner is innocent.  The argument runs thus:  this man was an accepted lover of the accused, and therefore he must have destroyed the will that beggared his betrothed; but it is nowhere in evidence, that any lover existed, outside of the counsel’s imagination; yet Asmodeus like he must appear when called for, and so we are expected to infer, assume, presume that because he stole the will he must be her lover.  Does it not make your head swim to spin round in this circle of reasoning?  In assailing the validity of circumstantial evidence, has he not cut his bridges, burned his ships behind him?