ut, gentlemen, though I might appeal to your passions, I scorn to
do so. I urge you to weigh calmly, deliberately, as cool,
level-headed Canadians, the evidence produced by the prosecution.
A crime has been committed, a most revolting crime,--one man killed,
another seriously wounded. But what is the nature of this crime?
Has it been shown either to be murder or attempted murder? You must
have noticed, gentlemen, how utterly the prosecution has failed to
establish any such charge. The suggestion of murder comes solely
from the man who has so deeply wronged and has pursued with such
deadly venom the unfortunate prisoner at the bar. This man, after
betraying the cause of freedom, after wrecking the prisoner's home
and family, after proving traitor to every trust imposed in him,
now seeks to fasten upon his victim this horrid crime of murder.
His is the sole evidence. What sort of man is this upon whose
unsupported testimony you are asked to send a fellow human being to
the scaffold? Think calmly, gentlemen, is he such a man as you can
readily believe? Is his highly coloured story credible? Are you so
gullible as to be taken in with this melodrama? Gentlemen, I know
you, I know my fellow citizens too well to think that you will be
so deceived.

"Now what are the facts, the bare facts, the cold facts, gentlemen?
And we are here to deal with facts. Here they are. There is a wedding.
My learned friend is not interested in weddings, not perhaps as much
interested as he should be, and as such, apparently, he excites the
pity of his friends."

This sally turned all eyes towards Mrs. Fitzpatrick, and a broad
smile spread over the court.

"There is a wedding, as I was saying. Unhappily the wedding feast,
as is too often the case with our foreign citizens, degenerates into
a drunken brawl. It is a convenient occasion for paying off old
scores. There is general melee, a scrap, in short. Suddenly these
two men come face to face, their passions inflamed. On the one hand
there is a burning sense of wrong, on the other an unquenchable
hate. For, gentlemen, remember, the man that hates you most
venomously is the man who has wronged you most deeply. These two
meet. There is a fight. When all is over, one man is found dead,
another with a wound in his breast. But who struck the first blow?
None can tell. We are absolutely without evidence upon this point.
In regard to the Polak, all that can be said is this, that it was
a most unfortu