where
ex parte testimony was alone received, and the voice of defence could
not be heard? The law infers that the keen instinct of
self-preservation will force the accused to secure the strongest
possible legal defenders; and failing in this, the law perfunctorily
assigns counsel to present testimony in defence. Do the scales balance?

"Imagine a race for heavy stakes; the judges tap the bell; three or
four superb thoroughbreds carefully trained on that track, laboriously
groomed, waiting for the signal, spring forward; and when the first
quarter is reached, a belated fifth, handicapped with the knowledge
that he has made a desperately bad start, bounds after them. If by dint
of some superhuman grace vouchsafed, some latent strain, some most
unexpected speed, he nears, overtakes, runs neck and neck, slowly
gains, passes all four and dashes breathless and quivering under the
string, a whole length ahead, the world of spectators shouts the judges
smile, and number five wins the stakes. But was the race fair?

"Is not justice, the beloved goddess of our idolatry, sometimes so
blinded by clouds of argument, and confused by clamor that she fails
indeed to see the dip of the beam? If the accused be guilty and escape
conviction, he still lives; and while it is provided that no one can be
twice put in jeopardy of his life for the same offence, vicious
tendencies impel to renewal of crime, and Nemesis, the retriever of
justice, may yet hunt him down. If the accused be innocent as the
archangels, but suffer conviction and execution, what expiation can
justice offer for judicially slaughtering him? Are the chances even?

"All along the dim vista of the annals of criminal jurisprudence, stand
grim memorials that mark the substitution of innocent victims for
guilty criminals; and they are solemn sign-posts of warning, melancholy
as the whitening bones of perished caravans in desert sands. History
relates, and tradition embalms, a sad incident of the era of the
Council of Ten, when an innocent boy was seized, tried and executed for
the murder of a nobleman, whose real assassin confessed the crime many
years subsequent. In commemoration of the public horror manifested,
when the truth was published, Venice decreed that henceforth a crier
should proclaim in the Tribunal just before a death sentence was
pronounced, 'Ricordatevi del povero Marcolini! remember the poor
Marcolini;' beware of merely circumstantial evidence.

"To another