As this injunction in each case reached Thady's ear, he moved his
eyes upon the man who was then being sworn, as if demanding from him
that true deliverance to which he felt himself entitled. And now the
prisoner having pleaded, the indictments read, and the jury armed
with pen, ink, and paper, Mr. Allewinde, full of legal dignity
and intellectual warmth, rises to his subject. We will not follow
him through the whole of the long narrative which he, with great
practised perspicuity, and in the clearest language, laid before the
jury, for we already know the facts which he had to detail. He first
of all described the death of Ussher; then stated that he could
prove that the prisoner had killed him, and having informed the jury
that doubtless the prisoner's sister was in the act of eloping with
the deceased when he met his death, launched out into a powerful
description of the present dreadful state of the country. He told the
jury that it was in his power to prove to them that the prisoner was
one of an illegal society who had often threatened Ussher, and that
he had but a day or two previous to the affray met a sworn portion of
his own tenants for the purpose of planning the murder. He went on to
tell the jury that they were not to allow themselves to be deceived
by the idea that the murder could not have been premeditated, because
there existed a presumption that the prisoner was not aware of
Ussher's expected presence in the avenue; for that the fact of the
murder having been talked over deliberately, and then executed,
afforded the strongest evidence that the prisoner was at the time
lying in wait for the deceased; and that, through the servants, or
from other means, he had made himself cognisant of the projected
elopement. He then, preparatory to examining the witnesses, concluded
in the following words,--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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