Jamestown weekly alert. [volume] (Jamestown, Stutsman County, D.T. [N.D.]) 1882-1925, 1891-09-17
lngersOll at Butte.

In his address to the jury in the Davis
will case last week, Col. Ingersoll made q
most forcible and winning argument. In
the course of his remarks be animad-
verted from the technical points in the
case. in the following fine observations:
Il don't want you, gentlemen, to pay
any attention to what say unless it ap-
peals to your reason and to your good
sense. Don't be afraid of me because
am sinner. admit that am. am
not like the other gentleman who thank
ed God that he was not as other men. J.
have the faults and frailties common to
the human race, but in spite of being
sinner 1 strive to be at least good
natured one and am such a sinner that
it there is any good in any other world
am willing to share it with all the child
rem of men. To that extent at least I am
sinner; and hope, gentlemen, that
you will not be prejudiced against me on
that account or decide for the propoaent
simply upon the perfections of Senator
Sanders.
We have heard a Rreatdeal, gentlemen,
OF the difference between fact and opin-
ion. There is difference between fact
and opinion, but sometimes when we
have to establish fact by persons we
are hardly as certain that the fact ever
existed as We are of the opinion, and al
though one swears that no saw a thing
or heard q thing We all know that the
accuracy of that statement must he de-
cided by something besides his word.
There is this beautiful pecullarlty in
nature-a lie never fits a fact, never.
You only fit lie with another lie, made
for the express purpose, because you can
change. lies, but you can't change a fact,
and after while the time comes when
the last lie you tell has to be fitted to
fact, and right there is bad joint; con-
sequently you must test the statements
Of people who say they saw. not by what
they saw, but by other facts, by the sur
roundings. by what are called probabili-
ties; by the naturalness of the statement.
II we only had to hear what witnesses
say, jurymen would need nothing but
ears, their brains could be dispensed
with; but after you hear what they have
to say you call council in your brain
and make up your mind whether the
statement, in view OF all the circum-
stances, is true or false.
Inever quarrel with anybody, my phil
osopy being that everybody does as he
must, and if he is in bad luck and does
wrong, why, let's pity him, and if we
happen to have good luck, and take the
path where roses bloom, why, let's be
joyful. That is my doctrine; no need
fighting about these little things. They
are all over in little while anyway.
Nature is substantially the same every
where, and I believe her laws are sub
stantially the same everywhere, from
grain Of sand. to the blazing Arcturus;
everywhere, the probabilities are the
same.
Thousands Of people imagine that de-
tail in memory is evidence of truth. I
don't think it; If there is something in
the details that is striking, then there is:
but naturalness, above all probability, is
the test of truth. Probability is the
torch that every juryman should hold,
and by the light Of that torch he should
march to his verdict. Probability. Now
let US take that for text. Probability
is the test Of truth. Let Us follow the
natural, let US follow the reasonable.
A. ]. Davis went on piling his money,