taken a step so far onward toward perfection, if it can ever reach that goal, as it will when it adopts the principles of Socialism. * * * To-day, as the beautiful autumn sun kisses with balmy breeze the cheek of every free man, I stand here never to bathe my head in its rays again. I have loved my fellow men as I have loved myself. I have hated trickery, dishonesty and injustice. The nineteenth century commits the crime of killing its best friend. It will live to repent of it. But, as I have said before, if it will do any good, I freely give myself up. I trust the time will come when there will be a better understanding, more intelligence, and above the mountains of iniquity, wrong and corruption, I hope the sun of righteousness and truth and justice will come to bathe in its balmy light an emancipated world. I thank your Honor for your attention." [Illustration: A. R. PARSONS.] A. R. PARSONS. Parsons made a speech addressed in the main to working men, starting out with the recital of a poem by George Heinig, entitled "Bread is Freedom." He continued: "Your Honor, if there is one distinguishing characteristic which has made itself prominent in the conduct of this trial it has been the passion, the heat, and the anger, the violence both to sentiment and to feeling, of everything connected with this case. You ask me why sentence of death should not be pronounced upon me, or, what is tantamount to the same thing, you ask me why you should give me a new trial in order that I might establish my innocence and the ends of justice be subserved. I answer you, your Honor, and say that this verdict is the verdict of passion, born in passion, nurtured in passion, and is the sum totality of the organized passion of the city of Chicago. For this reason I ask your suspension of the sentence, and a new trial. This is one among the many reasons which I hope to present to your Honor before I conclude. Now, your Honor, what is passion? Passion is the suspension of reason; in a mob upon the streets, in the broils of the saloon, in the quarrels on the sidewalk, where men throw aside their reason and resort to feelings of exasperation, we have passion. There is a suspension of the elements of judgment, of calmness, of discrimination requisite to arrive at the truth and the establishment of justice. I hold, your Honor, that you cannot dispute the proposition that I make that this trial has been submerged, immersed in passion from its inception to its close, and even at this hour, standing here upon the scaffold as I do with the hangman awaiting me with his halter, there are those who claim to represent public sentiment in the city, and I now speak of the capitalistic press--that vile and infamous organ and monopoly