CHAPTER XXI.
Delmas Moves Jurors.
DECLARES HE BASES DEFENSE ON LAW—EXPRESSES SYMPATHY
FOR WHITE'S WIDOW—"SADDEST STORY EVER
HEARD IN A COURT OF JUSTICE"—"BETTER FOR STANFORD
WHITE HAD HE NEVER BEEN BORN"—SCORES
EVELYN THAW'S MOTHER WITHOUT MERCY.
"If your honor please, and you, gentlemen of the jury,
we have no more right, if the real facts were known, to be
here trying this prisoner at the bar than if it was prohibited
by statute," declared Mr. Delmas in opening his masterful
address.
"Had you heard these words from any irresponsible persons, instead of having heard them from an official charged with a public duty; had you heard them from a man given to irresponsible talk, instead of in this court of justice and solemnity; had the occasion on which they were uttered been some trivial discussion about an insignificant topic, instead of where the discussion is one of life or death—these words might not have filled you with amazement, but this was a statement made by the district attorney.
"To show the falsity of that, it will be necessary to call upon all the energy in my power to reach a conclusion. And to reverse, at least in a general way, the same points of the evidence which you have heard for so many days I shall make no attempt to inflame your passion, no appeal to make your feelings warp your judgment.
"I shall rely on no such unstable thing as the supposed unwritten law. I will base the fate of this defendant on the law of this state—the law of the books, the written law.
