e defendants killed him without provocation or excuse.
These are the material issues to be proven in this ease.

"If you believe from the evidence that he was murdered and that
these men killed him, as charged in the indictment, then the
question is settled. Then you have the law as to murder to govern
you, and you are the judges of the law and the evidence; and if you
find that these defendants killed him, and that he was murdered,
then the statute fixes the punishment, or leaves it to you to fix
the punishment. That is the law in the case, except what you may
get from his honor on the bench. I apprehend that the learned
counsel for the defense will not contest the fact, if it is proven
that Dr. Cronin was killed, as we have charged--that he was
stricken to death, as we can prove--I don't apprehend that they
will contend then it was any other homicide than that of murder. So
you will have that question to settle. If we prove that Dr. Cronin
was killed as we allege he was killed, there will be no question as
to whether it was murder or manslaughter; it will be admitted by
the learned counsel for the defense that it was murder or nothing.

THE EVIDENCE MAINLY CIRCUMSTANTIAL.

"Now, gentlemen, this is the issue that you are to try. His honor
from the bench has pronounced every one of you a qualified juror in
the case; and as now we approach the evidence, I desire to call
your attention to something that was talked of a great deal while
we were selecting this jury. You have by this time learned that
most of the evidence of the case will be that of a circumstantial
character. There are two kinds of evidence, as you have
learned--circumstantial and direct evidence--and yet, after all,
nearly all evidence is circumstantial. You may not have read it,
but any lawyer at the bar will remember reading of the incidents or
illustrations by Wharton and other writers, in which they say that
nearly all evidence is circumstantial. Even if you are looking at a
man holding a pistol, and see him fire it at another, and see the
man drop--that is all circumstantial. You see the man holding the
pistol; you hear the report; you see the other man drop, and you
are satisfied that he is shot, and yet you don't see what killed
him. The bullet is found in his brain; you saw