“Yes.�
“That is sufficient, then. Serve them now.�
CHAPTER XIV.
THE END OF A TRIAL.
Juries are not inclined to convict a beautiful woman unless the evidence offered against her is entirely convincing; and, even then, it is done with reluctance, and usually with a strong recommendation to the judge for mercy and leniency.
The testimony against her must be of the best, and it must be direct, for the germ of chivalry dwells in the soul of every man, and there is always present in his conscience that instinctive reluctance to condemn any woman, whatever her crimes may have been, to the utmost penalty of the law. Circumstantial evidence has sent many a man to the death penalty, but where will you find that it has done so in the case of a woman—and particularly a beautiful woman who still possesses that greatest of all attractions—youth?
It was so in the Babbington case—in that great case which attracted such world-wide notice at the time of the trial—the prosecution of Madge Hurd-Babbington for murder in the first degree, in that she was charged—so the indictment read—with having instigated, aided, and abetted one Thomas Lynne, who posed for the time under the name of his cousin, J. Cephas Lynne, in committing the deliberate and premeditated murder of Edythe Lynne, only daughter and heiress of the said J. Cephas Lynne.
The jury had been out barely half an hour when it returned to ask a question of the presiding judge. The foreman asked:
“Your honor, we wish to know if this defendant could be convicted of any crime less than that which is charged in the indictment?�
The judge replied instantly:
“No. This is an extraordinary case, gentlemen. The indictment charges explicitly that the defendant ‘instigated, aided, and abetted’ another in the commission of a crime; it does not charge that she had any hand in the actual commission of that crime. If you find that she ‘instigated, aided, and abetted’ the man who actually committed the crime, and who has already been convicted in this court for that offense, she is as guilty as he; but, unless you do so find, she is not guilty. You may retire now for further deliberation.�