I am right in this, the result must be a verdict on your
part of guilty, and therefore I direct that you find a verdict of
guilty."

Again Henry Selden was on his feet. "That is a direction," he
declared, "that no court has power to make in a criminal case."

The courtroom was tense. Susan, watching the jury and wondering if
they would meekly submit to his will, heard the judge tersely order,
"Take the verdict, Mr. Clerk."

"Gentlemen of the jury," intoned the clerk, "hearken to your verdict
as the Court has recorded it. You say you find the defendant guilty of
the offense whereof she stands indicted, and so say you all."

Claiming exception to the direction of the Court that the jury find a
verdict of guilty in this a criminal case. Henry Selden asked that the
jury be polled.

To this, Judge Hunt abruptly replied, "No. Gentlemen of the jury, you
are discharged."

* * * * *

That night Susan recorded her estimate of Judge Hunt's verdict in her
diary in one terse sentence, "The greatest outrage History ever
witnessed."[307]

The New York _Sun_, the Rochester _Democrat and Chronicle_, and the
Canandaigua _Times_ were indignant over Judge Hunt's failure to poll
the jury. "Judge Hunt," commented the _Sun_, "allowed the jury to be
impanelled and sworn, and to hear the evidence; but when the case had
reached the point of rendering the verdict, he directed a verdict of
guilty. He thus denied a trial by jury to an accused party in his
court; and either through malice, which we do not believe, or through
ignorance, which in such a flagrant degree is equally culpable in a
judge, he violated one of the most important provisions of the
Constitution of the United States.... The privilege of polling the
jury has been held to be an absolute right in this State and it is a
substantial right ..."[308]

Claiming that the defendant had been denied her right of trial by
jury. Henry Selden the next day moved for a new trial. Judge Hunt
denied the motion, and, ordering the defendant to stand up, asked her,
"Has the prisoner anything to say why sentence shall not be
pronounced."[309]

"Yes, your honor," Susan replied, "I have many things to say; for in
your ordered verdict of guilty, you have trampled underfoot every
vital principle of our government. My natural rights, my civil rights,
my political rights, my judicial rights, are all alike ignored...."

Impatiently Judge Hunt protested that he c