An American Suffragette

by Isaac Newton Stevens

"In every consideration of crime, its cause should be of interest to those who represent the State. I am not seeking to minimize or palliate or excuse whatever crime may have been committed in this case, but that society which is seeking its own safety and perpetuity cannot too strongly be urged to beware of the universal menace to its existence, as well as to guard against those individuals that war only against individuals. So I appeal to you in this case, if crime there be, to deal with the perpetrator of such crime with all due justice, but with that mercy and consideration which these thoughts may suggest, and which we owe to the weaker members of society.

"Whatever crime was committed in this case sprang from the old order of our existence, which is rapidly passing away; it was nurtured in that soil which most of us cultivate too much, and which produces envy, malice, hatred, uncharitableness and other destructive and despoiling human traits. I have no quarrel with the character of the testimony with which it is sought to convict the defendant, for circumstantial evidence is the most reliable, the most convincing, the least subject to perjury of any evidence recognized by the law, and, as I shall undertake to demonstrate to you, it is absolutely unassailable when each link of the chain fits perfectly in every other one. I am not unmindful of the very strong case which the district attorney has made against the defendant, and it may be that his contention is the correct one. That is a matter for you to determine."

There was a little stir in the courtroom at this extraordinary statement, and Hilda looked at her husband and then at her brother and the hot flush of resentment dyed her white face to the hair.

"The motive of malpractice on the child," Silvia went on evenly, "and a troublesome liaison with the mother do, indeed, seem to be powerful, but what can be said for those motives when I prove to your entire satisfaction that the setting of this fracture and the subsequent treatment and final results are among some of the best ever attending such cases in this large city; that the tuberculosis of the knee is the recurrence of a disease which had attacked the child five years before in the glands of the neck and which broke forth afresh in the knee because of her low physical condition and the immediate injury to the knee; that what I shall present will so conclusively prove the impossibility of a liaison between Dr. Earl and Mrs. Bell that there cannot even remain the suspicion of such a thing?

"The mystery of her support since last April I alone can clear up with checks and other evidence so convincing in character as to leave no doubt. It is embarrassing but necessary to bring myself as a witness into this trial. I found this poor woman with a great and secret sorrow, not knowing how to earn a living and by industrial independence develop the best qualities of her nature, and I undertook to teach her self-reliance and to lead her into the new life of social and economic freedom. Had she been thus trained from girlhood this tragedy would have been impossible, and her life would have been full of beauty, for I have never known a sweeter character. In the meantime I loaned—not gave, but loaned her the money to live upon. She would have resented a gift. She was making splendid progress with her fine sewing, and would soon have been independent of any financial aid. But the sorrow which hung over her, and which all this time was and still is a mystery to me, seemed to dominate her life, as I will presently show you.

"It was the ghost of the old environment, of the old parasitical age, when women were so easily enslaved with the promise of idle luxury and transient caresses, stalking into the midst of a nobler effort and beckoning her backward while yet the understanding and courage were not sufficiently seasoned. Later I shall go into these things more fully.

"I will prove to you by the proper Federal officials that, owing to a change of design by the government, the ten-cent stamps on this package, bearing this particular vignette, could only be purchased in three or four post-offices in the United States for several months before and at the time the package was mailed, and the only place east of the post-office at St. Louis was in Providence, Rhode Island, and I shall also prove that the defendant has not been in Providence in four years. You will notice that stamps to the value of sixty cents were placed on the parcel, when half that amount would have been sufficient, showing that whoever mailed it did not care to have it officially weighed.

"Another circumstance worthy your attention is that poisoning by hydrocyanic acid is so easily recognized that it has seldom been used for purposes of murder, except in cases where the person committing the crime felt safe as to his own identity, and desired to make it appear that some one else had done the deed."

She paused in her recital and cast a glance at a large, muscular man, seated among a group of witnesses for the defense. He gave her an almost imperceptible nod in the affirmative, and she went on slowly and impressively:

"What is more, gentlemen of the jury, this candied fruit was not purchased in Boston, but in Providence, and the person buying it insisted on a perfectly plain box, without any name upon it; he also bought several separate pieces of similar fruit."