Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations: The Veil Lifted, and Light Thrown on Crime and its Causes, and Criminals and their Haunts. Facts and Disclosures.Howe, William F.
History
Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations: The Veil Lifted, and Light Thrown on Crime and its Causes, and Criminals and their Haunts. Facts and Disclosures.
Howe, William F.
Crime -- New York (State) -- New York; Criminals -- New York (State) -- New York; New York (N.Y.) -- Social conditions
Good God, gentlemen, in a court of justice, where jurors are empanelled
to decide upon the future prospects and the life of this young man,
would your wife or mine refuse to answer such a question? Is it a
_shame_ for us to acknowledge that the holy bonds of matrimony have
united us with a being--the mother of our offspring? Would you deny that
you were the husband of a lady, placed upon the witness stand to support
a charge against a thief for having stolen your watch? Why, I think,
gentlemen, that honor, affection, duty and every obligation known to
society, demands, in imperious tones, that instead of denying the wife
of your bosom, you stand forward as her champion and say, "Thank God,
she is my wife and I am proud of it!" That is what you or I would have
answered. But the gauzy curtain that was covered over this foul tableau,
has been lifted up, and you see it in all it hideous deformity. As I
have before stated, you have seen, gentlemen, the flimsy evidence upon
which is attempted to predicate a conviction for grand larceny. I am
confident that in spite of all the attempts that have been made by a
shameless wanton and her pretended husband, to crush this man, despite
the meretricious trickery and villainous conspiracy which instigated,
concocted and carried out this _persecution_, relying as I do, on your
sense of justice, your strict integrity, and the independence of an
American jury, that you will not permit our temples erected to justice,
to be prostituted to the accomplishment of the designs of the polluted
and the infamous and that innocence will triumph, and your verdict be
"Not guilty."
At the conclusion of Mr. Howe's address, Mr. Hutchings summed up for the
people. Judge Russel proceeded to charge the jury. After recapitulating
very carefully the whole of the testimony, told them that if they were
satisfied that the prisoner Hemmings had taken these ear-rings from Mrs.
Bethune, and had pledged them without her consent, then they should
convict; but if they had any well-founded doubt arising from the
testimony itself, and not engendered by the eloquent speech of the
prisoner's counsel, then they should give the prisoner the benefit of
the doubt and acquit him.
The jury then retired, and after a quarter of an hour's absence returned
into court and rendered a verdict of NOT GUILTY.
Hemmings was accordingly discharged, and he quitted the court amidst the
congratulations of his friends.
Mrs. Bethune also brought a charge of theft against Kate Fisher, which
was heard at Essex Market Police Court. The New York _Herald_ reported
the proceedings next day as follows:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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