New-York tribune., 1905-01-22
Continued from fage n

criminal trial in America which, to one who ike InySei
has passed the ordeal of criminal trial IN England
is of over-powering significance can truly say that
of all words in the English language (or IN tins case
should not say American p those that have sounded
sweetest in my ears and most rejOced my soul heard
in a criminal court in my dear native land. 10 the
ordinary hearer they probably meant httle-here
being so much in the nature of a matter OF course
but they were of such transcendent import
that for time | had ears for no other sound wen
it might be So for could have heard them IN only
single instance uttered by my counsel at my trial,
beyond a shadow of doubt they would have saved
me from the verge of the scafOld less than from
the subsequent fifteen years OF soucrushlng priSo-
ment
These words were: I'VE take exception.
How simple how easily uttered yet their absence IN
English criminal procedure has filled that island with
untold undeserved suffering.
An objection" may be entered now and then,
but an exception" never Except from what,
and to what? When counsel objects to question
or answer the court rules its admsslOn-and that
ends the whole contention There be no reversal OF
the Judges finding in criminal cases, hence this august
person stands fear of reprOO therefore wholly
a law unto himself, and to his behests, though they
issue from the brain of one suffering from 1nc1pent
insanity no manner of exception can be taken
And what under his extraordinary powers may not
an English Judge presiding at criminal tr1aI dor
He not in America. referee, with reversing
of criminal appeal ever before his eyes NO. ne
in almost every instance is unhampered advocate,
either for the one side the other according his
sympathies, opinions preJud1ces may determine
He does not cOnine himself every judge must here,
or suffer reproof in the form of reversal, to giving
the jury the law, and nothing but the law; but he
gives them opinions the guilt innocence OF the
prisoner at the bar WE'LL in fact, tells them in so
many words what to accept and what to reject, and
thus all ntents and purposes instructs the jury
precisely as the kind of verdict it shall render.
And it is seldom indeed that English jury strays
from the line thus Enthusiastically marked out for It,
Therefore, jury at English criminal trial is often
judicial superuity, and frequently might be dispensed
with prohtably
1t hardly can fail be instructive for jurists to
compare the clearcut impartial charge of Judge Davis,
before whom tried the American case | heard,
with the dsjointed and prejudiced deliverances of
Justice Stephen What would strike one so engaged,
to start with would be the extraordinary difference
in their respective ength Judge Davis, according to
the reports, occupied somewhere hour in his
charge while Justice Stephen rambed on for twelve
mortal hours entire days of the courts sitting
In my book acknowledged authority points out
than a of gross instructions by Justice
Stephen, each of which, had there been court
of appeal, a reversal undoubtedly would have
followed.
The lack of space wilt permit than a casual
reference to differences in the charges of the two judges
their judicial conduct, to speak-and anyone
familiar with the inCisive English of Justice Stephens
addresses when he in his prime cannot fail of con-
vction that his dsjointed outgivngs at my trial
the product of darkened cropping mind
In comparing the judicial statements that follow,
ask the reader bear in mind that quote Justice
Stephen himself, THE argument that the prisoner adj
ministered the arsenic argument depending upon
the combination of great variety of circumstances of
Suspicion" only; for there was not sCntla of evil
denCe that arsenic administered to my husband
by any human being, beyond the small quantity con-
tanned in the prescriptions of the attending physician
and the prepOnderance of expert testimony
servedy to the effect that what traces of arsenic
found in the analysis NIGH readily be referred doses
self administered weeks if months before when
my husband, habitual arsenic-eater, proved to