The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-12-31

1
patience will not have been taxed in
vain. The fate of this defendant.
self-wrought. may prove beacon light to
warn Others from the rocks where all his
hopes were shipwrecked, and where all his
virtues were stranded. Much will be said,
no doubt, Of the witnesses who have testi-
fed in tits case You need only remember
| that it is only tue officers OF the law who
pursue the guilty and bring them 60 trial
once esta dish the precedent that you will
not believe detectives and you license crime.
A WORD FOR FRAIL WOMAN.
"You will hear. too, many structures upon
the poor girl who has figured in this case.
am not her defender; she was the chosen
companion of the defendant / never see
one Of these unfortunate creatures, shame
less and degraded as they are. without
thinking that there is somewhere a hidden
hand which has lured her by the seducer's
arts from an honest home to
scenes Of promiscuous prostitution.
From these haunts of sin they in time be-
| come outcasts, to end their DAYS neglected
and despised even by those who have worked
their ruin. Poor, miserable Magdalens,
though no repentance may restore you here,
the time viii come in that great court
above the sun where the oppressor's rod is
broken, where the poor are rich and the fee-
! bic strong, that you can shrek into the
| shrinking ear OF your seducer, Base, false
and perjured villain
LAW MUST BE TAKEN FROM THE BENCH.
But I have trespassed upon your in
| diligence longer than 1 intended. have
called ate ton to the striking features Of
this case only for the pur pose of impressing
upon you the necessity of applying the full
measure Of the law. Beyond this 1 would
not ask or have you go. l only entreat you
| to apply to the uncontradicted facts the
| los NH ch fhn Oyr~f hall civ -,
charge, regardless Of the punishment which
! follows. For that the law is responsible,
not you. Ii is not to be supposed that
| those who follow other avocations should
| be learned In the law. 1t is a great and
abstruse science, and can be mastered only
! by years Of patient study. Recognizing
this, the law provides for you a guide, his
honor upon the bench, and it is as much
your sworn duty TO take the law from him
as it is your duty to take the evidence from
the witness stand.
THE LAW NOT FOR A SINGLE CASE.
''The judge is not infallible, he may err.
but the law provides a place where his
errors may be corrected, but il you err there
is no corrective and justice miscarries We
| all have our Ideas Of what the law should
be, but the law as it is written is far better
and wiser than the best thought Of the
wlsest of u.s. Upon its faith
full enforcement depends all the
interest Of the people, of the individual
and of the community at large. II we
abandon it we go adrift upon a notion of
chance and uncertainty, driven hither and
thither by the winds and waves of in
dlyidual prejudice and passion. The law
was not made for any single case, but for
all cases. We must not abandon 1t, for it is
our only bulwark against brute force and
violence. Let us see to it, therefore, that it
10 Eoy, CIR 14,Aa, - -
may 80 abide Tomorrow and forever
NOT A SOPHOMORE.
Gentlemen of the jury said Mr., Nor
gan, in opening his argument for the de-
Tense, 81 am not going into welI-rounded
words, or refer to five miles from Savannah
as a stones throw, or refer to the tribunal
above the sun, neither am going to seek to
go into the depths of a rhetorician's vocab..
ulary or reach the eloquence of an inspired
sophomore. | am not going to speak to you
Of the poor soiled dove referred to, for as
regards her know not, nor care not, whit
about her condition. But | am going to
present to you, hope plainly and effectu-
ally, the facts and law OF the case in your
hands"
Then MIR. Morgan read decision of Judge
Neshitt Of the s,-1feme court holding that
there must have been some personal outrage
on the body Of the person holding the prop
erty before case Of robbery by force can
be made out.
THE DETECTIVES CoMPLTlENTED.
Mr.. Morgan was at his best and he spoke
with a splendid eloquence and flow Of Ian
guage, which impressed the spectators most
favorably. He paid his respects to the
"fortunaten detectives, who secured a great
advertisement about their acuteness and
persistence in running down criminals by
the capture OF the express robbers, whose
crime the newspapers have heralded as the
most stupendous and gigantic ever com-
mitted within the boundaries Of Georgia.
While he cared not, he said, to go into the
character of Minnie Ward, Mr.. Morgan
hoped the jury would not convict on her
evidence.
In the name of God and the instincts of
humanity, Mr.. Morgan asked the jury not
to convict DeLaughter on Minnie Wards
evidence, which, il it did, would be doing
violence to that common brotherhood
which should exist between humans Wo-
men like MinRie Ward, the attorney said,
think Of no one but themselves.
JUSTICE SCORED.
Referring to Justice Naughtin's testi-
nony about the pleading Of the express
robbers to the warrant, when the Justice
asked them If they were guilty or not
guilty, Mr. Morgan was quite severe ASSERT
have acted as he did, and stamped it as a
fixed-up, devilish concocted scheme to ex-
tort from the prisoners a confession, con-
fession which DeLaughter never made until
a threat was made to arrest his poor old
mother. He appealed to the jury not to
stamp Its approval upon such methods of
securing evidence by a verdict of guilty.
AT times MIR. Morgan reached the Nights
of sympathetic eloluence, which had an
evident effect upon nearly every one in his
hearing.
THE PRESS NOT FORGOTTEN.
The young attorney paid his respects to
the enterprising.work of the newspapers In
issuing extra editions at the time Of the
robbery, by whose statement of facts the
community, he said, was prejudiced and
almost made to believe the alleged robbers
were equal to wild beasts.
In concluding his speech, which was more
than an hour in delivery, Mr.. Morgan feel
ingly alluded to the interest in the trial dis
played by Capt. Anon DeLaughter, the
father of the robber, as a man who had
sacrificed his limb on his countrY's altar al
Chickamauga, and depicted to the jury the
anxious feelings of a poor old mother il
Florida, who was waiting to hear what was
to be done with her son, VINO, if convicted
of the highest count in the indictment would
get a sentence equal to life Imprisonment
and taken out Of reach to a place God only
| knows where. iIla
TIE JUDGES CHARGE.
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