on the bench. The ordinary details were all gone
through with accustomed formality, the jury sworn, and the indictment
read aloud by the clerk of the crown, whose rapid enunciation and
monotonous voice took nothing from the novelty of the statement that was
yet to be made by counsel. At length Mr. Wallace rose, and now curiosity
was excited to the utmost. In slow and measured phrase he began by
bespeaking the patient and careful attention of the jury to the case
before them. He told them that it was a rare event in the annals of
criminal law to arraign one who was already gone before the greatest of
all tribunals; but that such cases had occurred, and it was deemed of
great importance, not alone to the cause of truth and justice, that
these investigations should be made, but that a strong moral might be
read, in the remarkable train of incidents by which these discoveries
were elicited, and men were taught to see the hand of Providence in
events which, to unthinking minds, had seemed purely accidental and
fortuitous. After dwelling for some time on this theme, he went on to
state the great difficulty and embarrassment of his own position, called
upon as he was to arraign less the guilty man than his blameless and
innocent descendants, and to ask for the penalties of the law on those
who had not themselves transgressed it.

"I do not merely speak here," said he, "of the open shame and disgrace
the course of this trial will proclaim--I do not simply allude to the
painful exposure you will be obliged to witness--I speak of the heavy
condemnation with which the law of public opinion visits the family of
a felon, making all contact with them a reproach, and denying them even
its sympathy. These would be weighty considerations if the course of
justice had not far higher and more important claims, not the least
among which is the assertion to the world at large that guilt is never
expiated without punishment, and that the law is inflexible in its
denunciation of crime."

He then entered upon a narrative of the case, beginning with an account
of the Dalton family, and the marriage which connected them with the
Godfreys. He described most minutely the traits of character which
separated the two men and rendered them uncompanionable one to the
other. Of Godfrey he spoke calmly and without exaggeration; but when
his task concerned Peter Dalton, he drew the picture of a reckless,
passionate, and unprincipled man, in the strongest