The prisoner made a mistake--which however, he submitted, was the
mistake which we might naturally have expected from a constitutionally
nervous man--in not giving the alarm immediately the accident took
place. He ought to have spoken when they reached Victoria. He ought not
to have allowed himself to be frightened by the blackmailing Taunton.
But, after all, these were all mistakes which a perfectly innocent man,
of his constitution, in his position, might have made. We none of us
could absolutely rely upon having our wits about us when we most wanted
them.
The prisoner had made mistakes. He owned it. But he begged the jury to
consider that the law did not permit him to put the prisoner into the
witness-box, and that the prisoner was convinced that, if he only might
be suffered to tell his tale his innocence would be established. Above
all, he entreated them not to send a fellow-creature to an ignominious
death because he had yielded to the promptings of a timorous
constitution and had not played the man.
When Mr. Bates sat down the judge summed up.
And he did it very briefly.
He pooh-poohed Mr. Bates's story altogether. He told the jury that they
were at liberty to believe it, if they could. But it was not supported
by a shred of evidence. It was disproved in several essential
particulars, and it was his duty to inform them that it was contrary to
every principle of English law that an _ex parte_ statement which was
without any sort of corroboration should be allowed to weigh, for an
instant, against a large and authenticated body of evidence which had
been sworn to by credible and impartial witnesses. At the same time, if
there was any doubt in their minds, let the prisoner have the benefit
of it; though, so far as he was concerned, he had not the least doubt
in his own mind that the man was guilty, and, if they did their duty,
they would say so.
Of course this was not exactly what he did say, and of course he said a
good deal more than this, but this is the gist of what his saying
amounted to. Certainly the judge's summing-up was every whit as damning
as Sir Haselton's speech had been. Mr. Justice Hunter had evidently
himself no doubt upon the matter, and, by inference, he took it for
granted that no one else could have any either.
The jury followed the judge's lead. They never left their places. They
whispered together for a few moments. Then one of them announced that
they were prepared with their verdict.
"Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?"
"Guilty."
Some one told the prisoner to stand up. He stood up.
"Have you anything to say, prisoner, why sentence should not be
pronounced against you?"
The prisoner had something to say--just a word or two.
He was very white. He was clinging to the rail in front of him. His
throat seemed parched. It seemed all that he could do to speak.
I noticed that his wife was looking at him with upturned face, and that
her eyes were streaming with tears.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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