St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-03-08
RESUMES HIS TALK.
MIR. Erwin Appalled, at the Testi-
mony to BE Travcrscd.

HOAy ~ Dt IEiNcFSSu.
Mr. Erwin resumed his address to the
jury as follows:
Gentlemen of the Jury: I am ap-
palled at the amount of testimony that
l have got to traverse this afternoon
L am perpleXed as to what to do
The court admonishes me very prop,
erly that the jury must not be kept
any longer than is absolutely neces>
Sary. And you have a variety of top
les which have been laid be-
fore you, and before this PEG,
pie, in order to vindicate your verdict,
and they ought to be exhaustively
treated, and very much of it L will
have to leave to you.
l have endeavored, and I will en-
deavor to stand right down close to
the analysis of the testimony making
just as little application of the testi,
mony to the rule of life. of the ordi-
nary conditions of life, as possible
Under these circumstances 1 shah
have to ask you to make applications
which are natural and inferential from
the testimony which l shall refer to
largely on your own part, without re.
curing me- to do it in the limit of time
that have got.
To begin, therefore. where we
stopped this morning in the discussion
of this testimony, 1 will preface fur
Their examination of the testimony by
saying that the contradictions and I'M
things that are connected with the
story told by Claus A Blixt have
never been equaled in the history of
any case in the books that my atten-
ton has been. called to; and 1 hold
that these evident contradictions in a
certain sense are due to the monstros-
lty and unnaturalnesS of the whole
theory of the prosecution and l
think that the theory on which this
prosecution rests does not rest In
ctcs tn NIAN
made and not properly adjusted, even
from criminal standpoint, made in
the exigency of a rest, and therefore
these unnatural phases crop out and
come out everywhere, SO that the
measurement of this beast, which has
appeared here in this forum, has by
the unnatural limbs and outputtings
ana contours that are around it;
BllXt stands contradicted over.
Wneimed by the condition in which
this body was found.
/ will not ask the clerk to hand me
out the skulls. You will be allowed to
take them, think in your Jury room
and you can there verify and criticise
Whatever opinion I may lay before
you. Those skulls are marked on both
sides of the plates of the skull where
the fracture was. You notice the ex-
IRENE length of them. You have card
tne testiInony as to how the skull is
constructed; two plates, and be-
. Soi liiS PidteS an intervening SUBJ
stance, also bone, in which the blood
circulates, green in lifetime, very elias,
TIC, made so by nature in order not to
preak and snap like an egg shell. hut
20 give like an elastic gristle. CON
structed IN two planes, with an inter.
Venlng substance, in order that thew
may not crack, the intervening suh.
stance being for the purpose of max
ing every bone elastic.
NOW, you have seen men fall and
women fall, and heard of men falling
and women falling all your life. You
must now use your common sense
You will call up to your own mind
When you come to consider the oues-
ton as to how this skull was fractured
all that you know in relation to falls :.
rails out of wagons, falls out of hav-
stacks, falls out of windows, falls at
night, falls in cellars all falls that Won
heard OF or know of; and you never
knew In your life a man to fall down
and break both sides of his skull four
or five inches long. Now, the doctors
are Nippert, and Hall and Dunn. and
these young men who came in here
they testify not from actual knowI-
edge, but they testify from their
knowledge of books. because their
early professional life has not given
them a personal experience in these
matters, and they have not a large.
extended, varied personal experience.
They testify from principles contained
in the idioms and words of books. and
Sans. Well, it is laid down in works
of Sans that the skull often is frac-
tured by the least possible violence APP
parently. Isolated cases of that kind
do occur, but those are the exceptions
and the anomalies, the improbable
things which occur in human life.
Therefore, DR.. Dunn and Dr. Nfppert
and DR.. Dunsmore and DR.. Hall, those
four gentlemen, testified from their
knowledge it would be possible that
these fractures should occur by fall
which was described by Blixt. Now,
you recollect the hypothetical ques-
ton put to the doctors was the worst
fall that was in this case; not the fall
which Blixt made in his first state
ment and second statement, where she
slipped out and struck upon her feet,
as she actually did do, but the fall
which he undertook to make as an adj
dition, an establishment under the ex-
igencies of the case, as l explained TO
you yesterday; that the hardest kind
of fall was after putting her. feet out
to keep her body from coming against
him, he pushed her over and she fell;
that was the fall described in the hypo-
thetical question; and these young doc