is disastrous to
the defendants. The only defense that is set up here is the common
defense that is set up for the commonest criminal--the favorite
defense of an alibi. I am not here to abuse all the witnesses that
appeared to prove alibis for these defendants. I remember that on
the evening of the 4th of May Mrs. Whalen and Miss McCormick say
they went out of the house and were out until after 10 o'clock. I
do know that Miss McCormick said they went out about the time the
boys were getting ready to go away to the saloon. These boys that
went to the saloon fix the hour of supper all the way from 7 to
half-past 8 o'clock, fluctuating between 7 and half-past 8 o'clock;
that is the value of an alibi. In fixing the time, the human mind
does not go back, unless there is something special about
it--unless there is something at the time of the act to associate
the time with the act. That makes them a part of each other and
relating to each other at the time of the act; not by mere
recollection afterward.

"All these witnesses testify that Patrick O'Sullivan got home on
the evening of the 4th of May between half-past 5 and 6 o'clock. We
had the statement of Mr. O'Sullivan himself, made to Captain
Schaack--and he ought to know better than they--that he got home at
half-past 7 o'clock, a difference of an hour and a half or nearly
two hours in Patrick O'Sullivan's own statement when he talked with
Captain Schaack. He said he arrived home at half-past 7, and that
he was not out of his house that evening after he got home. They
all say he got home about half-past 5 or 6 o'clock--every witness
here. Who knows best, and what is the value of recollection as to
the hour when the thing occurred? They all, with the exception of
Mulcahey, swear that he was not out of his house after that
time--after supper; that he sat down for a time in the house and
then went to bed with Mulcahey. He, himself, feeling that he had
been seen out of the house that night, at least back in the alley
near the Carlson cottage, sent for Captain Schaack while he was
still a prisoner in the jail, and said he wanted to make a
correction of his former statement. He was out of the house that
night, he said, but only out to the alley in the rear of his barn."

"That is not the testimony,"