The San Francisco call., 1895-11-02

duty of counsel to call the attention OF the
court TO it at the time The court is not
now aware that the District Attorney over
stepped the bounds in any sense, and at all
events this objection comes at rather late
hour"
Nevertheless, your Honor, we desire"
persisted Mr. Dickinson, in a voice scarcely
audible.
THE court has heard enough on the sub
lect, said the court. And then the court
replaced its spectacles and turned to the
folios.
Il desire to take exception to the re-
marks OF the court, if it please your
Honor" This from Dickinson, still per-
ting-having the last word, as the rec
ord will show hundred years hence.
Now the court takes up the first folio
The courts chair is pulled forward trifle
and the court itself leans partly over on
the bench and begins to read the courts
charge to the jury. There are forty-three
of these folios IN front of the court, and
there are nearly or quite 200 words on each
page. 1t is now seven minutes past
o'clock.
The reporters figure out with their pc n
ellis how long 1t will take for the court to
reach that last page. They allow him 180
words a minute, and they send copy"
down to the evening papers that "the jury
retired at 3:15 oclock" which, of course,
it didn't.
Now Durrant turns to the jury and tried
to read his fate in their set, determined,
attentive faces. The father also looks at
the jury. The mother-she looks at her
boy. She will read in his eyes the mean
ing that he may find in the jurors faces.
Judge Murphy is at disadvantage when
reading, especially now when the light is
bad and the tension of all strained. He is
used to these scenes, hardened in way
and secured against the grip they have on
laymen's hearts and sympathies. Yet
man cannot be very different from his en-
vironment, and if the whole truth could
be told there is probably an increased
humping of the judicial heart at this criti-
cal hour, and may be that is why he some
times lost his place in the manuscript,
and must repeat word here and there to
give 1t the infection it deserves.
Then the judicial lips grew parched at
times. Once there was an unseemly noise
in the rear end of the room and once
baby cried outright. All these things the
afternoon newspaper men could not fore
see when they wrote at 2 o'clock that "the
jury retired at 3:15," and they all caused
delays. The last one--the incident of the
| crying babe-caused the longest delay.
People were astonished when they heard
that strangely homogeneous sound in this
solemn assemblage. There's a mother
that ought to have better sense" people
| w h israra6 m ho AZ
reading halted and the judicial eyebrows
were elevated.
And they said a good many harsher
| things than that about this foolish woman
who brought a babe in arms into the
denouement Of a murder trial. And the
bailiffs and Under Sheriffs who admitted
woman with babe in her arms were also
roundly criticized. The atmosphere was
sitting within the room. So much was a
physical fact. 1t was also reeking with the
air of tragedy and sensationalism but this
was psychological, and the mother and the
bailiff could be excused for ignorance on
this score. But what an atmosphere for
an innocent mite Of humanity to breathe /!
Here is contrast enough for Zolas pen.
The voice of q child crying out at the
phantom of the hangman! Maybe those
tiny, bright eyes just over from the neither
world could see palmer the grim wrath
! lowering over the prisoners chair-or was
1t the fetid air that made the babe whine :?
Some Of the women that always sit near
Mrs. Durrant are reading the afternoon
papers-reading how the jury retired at
3:15.
Mrs. Noble and Maud Lamont listen at
tentively to the courts reading, though in
the nature OF things they do not under
stand it. On the same row is woman
! with yellow chrysanthemum screaming
from the background of shiny black silk
gown. She is looking the other way
toward those well-dressed young ladies
! diagonally opposite, who are chatting.
! probably about the next theater party.
| By far the mems faces are the most seri-
| Gus IN the room, as they are also in the
minority.
Captain Lees drinks in every word that
| falls from the judicial mustache Now
| the Judge reads that Durrant's testimony
must not be discredited simply because he
| is the defendant. Captain Lees looks
nervous now. He leans forward keenlv
| and a shade OF annoyance is on his face
| plainly.
| By and by the mother is shamed into
| leaving the court. OF course, her leaving
| caused another futter in the crowded
room.
Gentlemen, do not leave your minds be
distracted from this solemn duty by any
exterior circumstance" says the court.
Then the court proceeds with the reading.
He reads clearly. You can hear every
word. Lawyers in the room look wise
and whisper that it is an admirable docu-
ment.
1t is now o'clock. The court has
reached that point of his charge where he
deals with oircumstantial evidence. He
says that footprints in the snow would be
circumstantial evidence, and yet better
evidence that some one had walked there
than would be the oaths of dozen men
who saw the person walking. A man at
the reporters table leans over to say that
the same illustration was used by Judge
Mcconnell when he charged the Cronin
Jury in Chicago five years ago, and then
another man adds that from time i'm
memorial all Judges have used this illus
tration because of its aptness.