(Mr.Braham paused as if overcome by his emotions. Mrs. Hawkins and
Washington were in tears, as were many of the spectators also. The jury
looked scared.)
“Gentlemen, in this condition of affairs it needed but a spark–I do not
say a suggestion, I do not say a hint–from this butterfly Brierly; this
rejected rival, to cause the explosion. I make no charges, but if this
woman was in her right mind when she fled from Washington and reached
this city in company–with Brierly, then I do not know what insanity is.”
When Mr. Braham sat down, he felt that he had the jury with him. A burst
of applause followed, which the officer promptly, suppressed. Laura,
with tears in her eyes, turned a grateful look upon her counsel. All the
women among the spectators saw the tears and wept also. They thought as
they also looked at Mr. Braham; how handsome he is!
Mrs. Hawkins took the stand. She was somewhat confused to be the target
of so many, eyes, but her honest and good face at once told in Laura’s)
favor.
“Mrs. Hawkins,” said Mr. Braham, “will you’ be kind enough to state the
circumstances of your finding Laura?”
“I object,” said Mr. McFlinn; rising to his feet. “This has nothing
whatever to do with the case, your honor. I am surprised at it, even
after the extraordinary speech of my learned friend.”
“How do you propose to connect it, Mr. Braham?” asked the judge.
“If it please the court,” said Mr. Braham, rising impressively, “your
Honor has permitted the prosecution, and I have submitted without a word;
to go into the most extraordinary testimony to establish a motive. Are
we to be shut out from showing that the motive attributed to us could not
by reason of certain mental conditions exist? I purpose, may, it please
your Honor, to show the cause and the origin of an aberration of mind,
to follow it up, with other like evidence, connecting it with the very
moment of the homicide, showing a condition of the intellect, of the
prisoner that precludes responsibility.”
“The State must insist upon its objections,” said the District Attorney.
“The purpose evidently is to open the door to a mass of irrelevant
testimony, the object of which is to produce an effect upon the jury your
Honor well understands.”
“Perhaps,” suggested the judge, “the court ought to hear the testimony,
and exclude it afterwards, if it is irrelevant.”
“Will your honor hear argument on that!”
“Certainly.”
And argument his honor did hear, or pretend to, for two whole days,
from all the counsel in turn, in the course of which the lawyers read
contradictory decisions enough to perfectly establish both sides, from
volume after volume, whole libraries in fact, until no mortal man could
say what the rules were. The question of insanity in all its legal
aspects was of course drawn into the discussion, and its application
affirmed and denied. The case was felt to turn upon the admission or
rejection of this evidence. It was a sort of test trial of strength
between the lawyers. At the end the judge decided to admit the
testimony, as the judge usually does in such cases, after a sufficient
waste of time in what are called arguments.
Mrs. Hawkins was allowed to go on.
CHAPTER LVI.
Mrs. Hawkins slowly and conscientiously, as if every detail of her family
history was important, told the story of the steamboat explosion, of the
finding and adoption of Laura. Silas, that its Mr. Hawkins, and she
always loved Laura, as if she had been their own, child.
She then narrated the circumstances of Laura’s supposed marriage, her
abandonment and long illness, in a manner that touched all hearts. Laura
had been a different woman since then.
Cross-examined. At the time of first finding Laura on the steamboat,
did she notice that Laura’s mind was at all deranged? She couldn’t say
that she did. After the recovery of Laura from her long illness, did
Mrs. Hawkins think there, were any signs of insanity about her? Witness
confessed that she did not think of it then.
Re-Direct examination. “But she was different after that?”
“O, yes, sir.”