Miner swears that he never signed a paper, never touched pen to paper on any of the Dorsey routes after the 5th day of May, 1879.
Now, gentlemen, after having made all these statements to you, and I have only taken up a few of them, these misstatements, these mistakes, Mr. Ker winds up by telling you it is the safer plan to find a verdict of guilty, because if you find them guilty wrongfully the Court will upset your verdict.
Gentlemen, you have sworn to try this case according to the law and the evidence. You are the supreme arbiters of this case. It is for you to decide upon this evidence, and for you alone. Yet you are told by Mr. Ker to shirk that responsibility. You are told by him to violate your oaths and find against these defendants, for the sake of certainty, and then turn them over to the mercy of the Court. That is not the law. These defendants are being tried before you. They have the right to your honest judgment. If you have any doubt as to their guilt you must find them not guilty or violate your oaths. You are told it is the safer way to find them guilty and then let them appeal to the Court for mercy! That doctrine is monstrous. It is deformed. Such a verdict would be the spawn of prejudice, and cowardice, and perjury. You cannot give such a verdict and retain your self-respect. You cannot give such a verdict and retain your manhood! If you have any doubt as to the guilt of these defendants you must say they are not guilty. You have no right to turn them over to the Court, no matter whether the Court is merciful or unmerciful. You must pass upon their guilt, and you must do it honestly.
I never heard so preposterous, so cruel a sentiment uttered in a court of justice. It amounts to this, gentlemen: If you have any doubt of guilt resolve the doubt against the defendant. If the evidence is not quite sufficient, find against the defendants and turn them over to the mercy of the Court. Why should we have a jury at all? Why should you sit here at all? Why should you hear this evidence, if after all you are to shirk the responsibility and turn the defendants over to the Court? You never will do it, gentlemen.
Now, gentlemen, I wish to call your attention to a few points made by Colonel Bliss. You must remember that Colonel Bliss has been very highly complimented by his associates as a kind of peripatetic index of this case, an encyclopedia of all the papers; that he never makes a mistake; that he recollects amounts with absolute certainty, and that he is infallible. Keeping all these things in your mind, I wish to call your attention to some statements that he has made. First of all, I will refer to a little of his philosophy, or law, and that is, that in every affidavit you should state not the number necessary on the then schedule, but the actual number, and that there could be no doubt about the number of men and horses used at the time when an affidavit was made, and that consequently anybody making an affidavit should put in the number then actually used.
Let us see how that will work. He says the oaths are false because they do not state the actual number of men and horses employed in carrying the mail at the time they were made. He says that the person making the affidavit swore to the number actually employed, and that where that number was not employed that fact of itself shows the affidavits to be false. I say that is not the law. The law calls for the number necessary, not the number actually employed. Let me show how easy it would be to cheat the Government on the principle laid down by the gentleman. I will show you how infinitely silly that is. Let me illustrate. Here is a route one hundred and fifty miles long, once a week. You know it is possible for one man and one horse for a little while to carry that mail and to go one hundred and fifty miles one way and one hundred and fifty miles the other, making three hundred miles in a week. You can take a magnificent horse and a good, stout, tough man, and you can do it.
The Court. Or a boy.
Mr. Ingersoll. Or a stout, tough boy.
The Court. A boy would be best.
Mr. Ingersoll. You do not need any boy. Just one man and one horse will answer. The man can ride the horse one hundred and fifty miles in three days, and then ride one hundred and fifty miles back in the next three days. All you have to swear to, according to Mr. Bliss, is the number actually used, and so you would come in and swear to two on this route. Now, when you are making an affidavit as to the number to be used on a schedule to be made, you cannot swear to the number actually in use, because they are not then in use. You have to swear to the number necessary. You have to swear to the number required.