Hynes' Great Effort.
The announcement that Mr. W. J. Hynes would commence his argument at the opening of court, upon the day following the conclusion of Mr. Donahoe's address, had the effect of attracting an immense throng to the Temple of Justice. Hundreds were admitted, while thousands were unable to gain entrance to the court-room. Judge McConnell took his seat on the bench at ten o'clock, and Mr. Hynes immediately commenced his address. He said that in what he had to say he would endeavor to be fair. He knew the importance of the great proceeding of the character under consideration. He knew that, no matter how guilty men might be, under the civilization of a century, punishment was to be visited only under due process of law. For three months or more the public time had been occupied in hearing the accusations, trying the accused, considering the evidence, listening to the arguments, through that protection of the law for which lives have been sacrificed and rivers of blood have been spilled, to secure to those charged with crime the protection of the law. That protection of the law had been thrown around the men on trial to see that they should have a fair hearing, and that the jury should render a fair verdict. All evidence that was not competent had been excluded, and, wherever a question of doubt had arisen, His Honor, the judge, exercising his natural instincts of mercy, had solved that doubt for the benefit of the accused. Hearsay evidence had been excluded; the defendants had been confronted by the witnesses who testified against them, and all these forms of law, of civilization and justice had been extended in the trial of men accused of charging a man behind his back, of killing him behind his back, of killing him first and accusing him afterward. Even such men as these, however, were entitled to all the protection of courts of law, and to all the safeguards which the law threw around them, because no human life could be taken, no human liberty or freedom could be abridged by a day or an hour, until the court of justice, the accusation against the accused had been judicially ascertained and determined by twelve fair-minded men beyond a reasonable doubt.
W. J. HYNES. ONE OF COUNSEL FOR PROSECUTION.
With this introduction, the learned counsel proceeded to review the case from the day of the disappearance of Dr. Cronin. He declared that the dispatches received at Chicago, from Canada, shortly after the disappearance of the physician, and to the effect that he was alive and in the flesh in the dominion, demonstrated beyond a doubt that the defense was organized before the crime was committed. It demonstrated, moreover, the existence of a wide-spread conspiracy, the conspiracy of intelligence and brains, as well as of experience in handling the telegraph and the press. John F. Beggs had said that Cronin was not dead and would turn up all right, and if the scheme of disposing of Dr. Cronin's body on the night of May 4th had not been frought with some misadventure, some miscarriage of judgment, the public, not understanding the motive which underlied the occasion, would probably have believed that what Beggs said was correct. If all the marks of the crime had been obliterated, if the body had not been found, if it had been disposed of, the murderers, and those behind the murderers would have continued to charge that Dr. Patrick H. Cronin was a British spy, and that his disappearance was to be accounted for upon the hypothesis that he had gone to England to testify against Parnell. This would have been the claim. It was to confirm the impression made upon the minds of some of the "dupes" of the triangle, that the disappearance, as well as all traces of the crime were to be wiped out, so that the story would be accepted that Cronin was a spy, and a traitor to the cause to which he had always allied himself and which he had sworn to defend, and that he had violated his oath and crossed the broad Atlantic in order to testify against his own country and in behalf of England.
The speaker proceeded to dissect the evidence at length. He paid particular attention to the testimony of the medical witnesses for the State, urging that it was entitled to full credence, and that the prosecution received all the aid of science that was possible. Continuing, Mr. Hynes said:
THE DEFENSE OF THE PRISONERS.
"Now what sort of a defense—because I propose to deal with that first—what kind of a defense is made by these five prisoners? A defense that is not a defense is worse than no defense at all. A defense that utterly fails, as this defense in my judgment has utterly failed, leaves the case of the prisoners stronger against them than it was when the State rested. You expect some defense when an accusation of this kind is brought against men. You are looking for explanations. You are hoping, like merciful men, that every circumstance and every word will find an explanation consistent with innocence, and when the defense fails to meet the accusation and to furnish an explanation, then it is disastrous to the defendants. The only defense that is set up here is the common defense that is set up for the commonest criminal—the favorite defense of an alibi. I am not here to abuse all the witnesses that appeared to prove alibis for these defendants. I remember that on the evening of the 4th of May Mrs. Whalen and Miss McCormick say they went out of the house and were out until after 10 o'clock. I do know that Miss McCormick said they went out about the time the boys were getting ready to go away to the saloon. These boys that went to the saloon fix the hour of supper all the way from 7 to half-past 8 o'clock, fluctuating between 7 and half-past 8 o'clock; that is the value of an alibi. In fixing the time, the human mind does not go back, unless there is something special about it—unless there is something at the time of the act to associate the time with the act. That makes them a part of each other and relating to each other at the time of the act; not by mere recollection afterward.