The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1920-07-09
By Thane Miller Jones

before gone TO western city and
looked her up. Found her, as he re-
counted to his wife, doing very nicely.
Had gone into journalism. Was quite
hand to write for the papers. Smart
as a steel trap! Had been a little
foolish, but-he had great hopes that
she would make them proud of their
child yet.
In his Office as he sat thinking over
what he had told the little woman he
remembered her tears and her smile
1t repaid him for an enforced absence
of four days. He had then suddenly
remembered something, seized his hat
and gone down to that part of the city
that he hated. There was rent to pay
and-the daughter must be physically
comfortable.
She greeted him with noisy joviality
He had gone home and silently
smoothed her mothers gray hair as he
kissed her. At any rate she did not
know-that! Thus he gained from
month to month pale happiness in
shielding the mother.
And now an ambition to win this
Whalen case to which he had beer
sardonically assigned filled McCol-
lough's thoughts. Office work would
follow an exhibition of foensic acumen
And money was badly needed. Through
the haze of his beclouded powers he
struggled for two women, one who
kept him alive and one who kept him
dead.
AS he bent over his law books he
suddenly realized that he had meant
to go down-there She might be in
sore need again. He glanced sharply
at his quiet wife. She smiled mildly
and gently patted his arm.
Don't you think you had better
come to bed now, Newell? Get a
good nights sleep, for you will be oc-
cupied in court tomorrow think you
said?"
This simple subtlety soothed the old
lawyer to sad benignity. Yesl
Court work was to be more and more
an everyday affair.
He placed a careful mark in his law
book and went to bed.
The evidence of the prosecution on
the trial of James Whalen was wholly
circumstantial; but Whalen had bad
record-two convictions for house
breaking and one for aggravated as
sault.
The prosecuting attorney closed the
States case with quiet confidence and
turned his attention furtively to the
brief in the next case
McCollough's opening for the de-
tense brought his attention back with
la jerk. What? Was that old hick go
ing to call the prisoner to testify on
his own behalf? 1t was a dangerous
practice, and doubly dangerous I'M
less guiding counsel were skillful to
forefend the accused from grilling
cross-examination. Many man had
been convicted out of his own mouth,
after an exhausting half-day's bopl-
bardment had beaten his defense to a
pulp.
! McCollough's style of advocacy was
of a decade past. His thin voice was
thigh pitched, his gestures elocution-
larry; his sentences carefully rounded,
his English chaste Futility doomed
large in his vague congratulations.
| Clever court lawyers do not, in these
matter-of-fact days, indulge in con-
Iscious eloquence. Trial by Oratory is
as dead as trial by Ordeal. They con-
verse, they chat They buttonhole the
Jury as man to man, and without driv-
ling their contentious home with worry
sledges, they subtly suggest, assist d
|half-formed thought, insinuate doubt;
damn with faint praise, assent with
civil leer, and without sneering, teach
the Jury to sheer Listen to rafting
good criminal lawyer on his next muir
der case.
So the court smiled-a little pity
Iingly-at McCollough's grand periods
The whole performance was as out OF
place as a learned medical lecture in q
sick ROOM
Mccullough sat down, feeling some
of the vigor of the old, unbroken days
when his twelve-year-old preoccupa-
ton had not came to harass him.
A moment later he rose and called
an unimportant witness. With pain.
full conscientiousness he conducted the
Examination in chief, then as carefully
sought to clean up the wreckage re-
sulting from the hurricane of the cross
examination. Another minor witness
having been examined, Mccullough
Importantly announced: Il will call
the prisoner, James Whalen."
The underworld's silent attorney
IManoyitch, intent near the end of the
attorneys table, snarled a noiseless
menace at the sullen, pallid Whalen
as the latter raised his arm to take
the oath. A defiant, desperate glare
answered him.
Then Whalen was going to talk, was
lhe? Would he dare? Manovitch must
prevent that at any cost.
The examination had reached the
point as to the entrance effected
through the east dining room window.
we have the advantage of the stenog-