“It is as the inheritors, gentlemen, of an inimitable tradition, not as administrators of a penal code, that I venture to address to you these words. And let me tell you why I venture to address you in this fashion. It is because the life of a fellow creature is at stake; it is because sitting here in conclave in this place you are enmeshed in the most grievous ordeal that the fruit of human imperfection is able, at this time of day, to impose upon you. For that reason, gentlemen, I conceive that you are entitled to take your stand upon a lofty and secure platform to survey this issue, a platform which has been raised for the oppressed, the unhappy, and those who are doubtful of their way, by the travail of the choicest spirit in the annals of human nature. “Gentlemen, you are called upon to adjudicate upon the life of a woman. You are called upon to do so at the bidding of a formula, whose hideous and obsolete enactments are the fruit of an imperfect culture of a partial and unsympathetic interpretation of those laws to which every civilized community owes its name. Gentlemen, you are called upon to adjudicate upon the life of a woman; you rate-payers of London, you gentle and devout citizens, you to whom life has given as the crown of your endeavor, as the consecration of your painful daily labor, mothers, wives, and daughters of your own. “Yes, gentlemen, we must indeed ascend the loftiest and most secure platform known to us, to survey the ordeal that our own imperfection has presented to us. “You have heard the words that have fallen from the lips of my learned friend, the counsel for the Crown. You have examined the facts which he has marshalled before you. You have noted the inferences which he has not been afraid to draw. You have been thrilled by the union of a consummate skill with a consummate learning. All that is base, sordid, and unworthy in the human heart has been stripped naked before your eyes. The smallest acts of this unfortunate woman have been shown to you as vile; even the aspirations which are allowed to ennoble her sex have been rendered abominable. Every kind of mental and moral degradation has been made to defile before you; for verily there is no limit to the talent of this accomplished gentleman.