evidence in this case that the first shots were fired from the barges and not by the people on shore. We will show you that preparations had been made for this trouble one month before it occurred. We will show that a stockade or high fence had been built around the works, a fence like that built in the west to repel Indian attacks. This fence was full of portholes, and resembled the outer wall of a fort. There is no evidence that the people who were on the banks on the morning of the invasion were strikers. They were peaceable citizens of Homestead. Every man in that crowd had a right to defend himself with arms; the law gives to every man the right to defend himself, to defend his family; to defend his neighbors and his friends; this right is given every man by a power higher than the law of man. The people were attacked by an armed foe and they had the right to use weapons in self-defense. The evidence shows that the men on the barges were in command of officers whose names are known, who have testified in this case, yet your honorable district attorney has made no effort to bring these men to justice. Thus he becomes a defender of these armed invaders of your county." Mr. Argo further outlined the plan of defense as showing that the Critchlow who was seen behind the barricades was another Critchlow and that the prisoner was not present when Connors met his death. W. M. Erwin followed with a spirited address in which he said that the prosecution rested entirely on the theory that there had been a riot, which he characterized as a "doubly damned fiction." "Is there," he asked, "another such hard-hearted, villainous man within the limits of the land as this man Frick, whom we find hob-nobbing with the leaders of the Republic. This man Frick, whose name will be more notorious than that of the man who fired the Ephesian dome, did not apply to your courts or your legislature, but violated the agreement with his men, and assumed, like a tyrant, to act as arbiter; this most brutal tyrant of all tyrants tried to force his men to bow to his will by an armed force of invaders. Thus have these scoundrels defied the laws of the commonwealth. Carnegie bent the eternal laws of God and the poorer imitations by man. We will show that the defendants only tried to straighten these laws. If there is no Judas Iscariot among you, gentlemen of the jury, you will plant the flag of independence on your hills." Captain O. C. Coon, of Homestead, was the first witness called by the defense. He testified that he was at the mill landing when the Pinkerton barges arrived, and described the opening of the battle as follows: