Nick Carter Stories No. 123, January 16, 1915: Half a million ransom; or, Nick Carter and the needy nine. — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Nick Carter Stories No. 123, January 16, 1915: Half a million ransom; or, Nick Carter and the needy nine.
John Stuart Mill · en
“I’ve known many a case to be talked to death after it had been won,” he
said. “What is the use of wasting time and breath after the jury is
converted to your way of thinking? I believe I can tell when I have my
jury well in hand. At that point I stop, no matter in what shape it
leaves my speech. I take it that a client employs a lawyer to win his
case, and not to display his oratorical abilities.”
The peculiarity of the great criminal lawyer was well known at a murder
trial in Montreal a few years ago. Mr. McSweeny appeared for the
defendant. The state had apparently made out a very clear case against
the prisoner. When Mr. McSweeny arose to make his address to the jury,
he carefully avoided any reference to the facts set forth in the
evidence or the laws governing them. He pointed out the terrible
responsibility resting upon the twelve men who were sitting in judgment
upon the life of one of their fellow citizens. He added that the verdict
of guilty would not fall heaviest upon the prisoner, but upon his
family. He asked the jury to think for a moment of the effect of an
adverse verdict upon the wife and little ones of the prisoner.
Then the lawyer drew a word picture which was a marvel of artistic
rhetorical work. He brought before the eyes of the jurymen the home of
the accused man. He showed the patient and loving wife leaving her work
to cast many an anxious glance down the road to see if her husband was
yet in sight, eager to be the first to catch a glimpse of his figure in
the distance, that a steaming supper might await him upon his arrival.
He pictured these ruddy-faced children swinging upon the old gate
waiting till papa should come home to them.
At this point the lawyer noticed that one of the jurymen had
considerable difficulty in swallowing a large lump which choked him, and
that there was a suspicious moisture in his eye.
The speaker paused. Turning toward that juror, he held out both hands as
a little child might have done to its father, and said, in a tone that
was scarcely audible:
“Gentlemen, you must send him home to them.”
Shifting uneasily in his seat, the juror blurted out:
“Yes, we’ll do it, too.”
McSweeny instantly sat down. The case was won. His client was acquitted.
But the most interesting point in this case, perhaps, was the fact,
which the lawyer afterward learned, that the prisoner at the bar was an
unmarried man.
THE NEWS OF ALL NATIONS.
City Bars Noisy Weddings.
Hereafter wedding celebrations in Cambridge, Mass., must be brief and
noiseless by order of the Cambridge aldermen. The board also has voted
to ask Harvard to appoint a watchman to chaperon Jarvis Street, known as
“Lovers’ Lane.”
Mystery of Missing Money.