J. N. (Aside: I don’t like it: I’m afraid there is something going to happen.) (To Court) Mr. Hungary.
Mr. H. My lord and gentlemen of the Jury, the prisoner’s mingled levity and bitterness leaves me little to answer to. I can only say, gentlemen of the Jury, that I am convinced that you will do your duty. As to the evidence, I need make no lengthened comments on it, because I am sure his lordship will save me the trouble. (Aside: Trust him!) It is his habit—his laudable habit—to lead juries through the intricacies which beset unprofessional minds in dealing with evidence. For the rest, there is little need to point out the weight of the irrefragible testimony of the sergeant and constable,—men trained to bring forward those portions of the facts which come under their notice which are weighty. I will not insult you, my lord, by pointing out to intelligent gentlemen in your presence how the evidence of the distinguished and illustrious personages so vexatiously called by the prisoner, so far from shaking the official evidence, really confirms it. (Aside: I wonder what all that row is about? I wish I were out of this and at home.) Gentlemen of the Jury, I repeat that I expect you to do your duty and defend yourselves from the bloodthirsty designs of the dangerous revolutionist now before you. (Aside: Well, now I’m off, and the sooner the better; there’s a row on somewhere.) [Exit.
J. N. Gentlemen of the Jury, I need not expatiate to you on the importance of the case before you. There are two charges brought against the prisoner, but one so transcends the other in importance—nay, I may say swallows it up—that I imagine your attention will be almost wholly fixed on that—the charge of conspiring and inciting to riot. Besides, on the lesser charge the evidence is so simple and crystal-clear that I need but allude to it. I will only remark on the law of the case, that committing an obstruction is a peculiar offence, since it is committed by everyone who, being in a public thoroughfare, does not walk briskly through the streets from his starting-place to his goal.
There is no need to show that some other person is hindered by him in his loitering, since obviously that might be the case; and besides, his loitering might hinder another from forming in his mind a legitimate wish to be there, and so might do him a very special and peculiar injury. In fact, gentlemen, it has been doubted whether this grave offence of obstruction is not always being committed by everybody, as a corollary to the well-known axiom in physics that two bodies cannot occupy the same space at one and the same time. So much, gentlemen, for the lesser accusation. As to the far more serious one, I scarcely know in what words to impress upon you the gravity of the accusation. The crime is an attack on the public safety, gentlemen; if it has been committed, gentlemen—if it has been committed. On that point you are bound by your oaths to decide according to the evidence; and I must tell you that the learned counsel was in error when he told you that I should direct your views as to that evidence. It is for you to say whether you believe that the witnesses were speaking what was consonant with truth. But I am bound to point out to you that whereas the evidence for the prosecution was clear, definite, and consecutive, that for the defence had no such pretensions. Indeed, gentlemen, I am at a loss to discover why the prisoner put those illustrious and respectable personages to so much trouble and inconvenience merely to confirm in a remarkable way the evidence of the sergeant and the constable. His Grace the Archbishop said that there were but three persons present when the prisoner began speaking; but he has told us very clearly that before the end of the discourse there were ten, or more. You must look at those latter words, or more, as a key to reconcile the apparent discrepancy between his Grace’s evidence and that of constable Potlegoff. This, however, is a matter of little importance, after what I have told you about the law in the case of obstruction. His Grace’s clear remembrance of the horrible language of the prisoner, and the shuddering disgust that it produced on him, is a very different matter. Although his remembrance of the ipsissima verba does not quite tally with that of the constable, it is clear that both the Archbishop and the policeman have noted the real significance of what was said: The owners of this capital, said the prisoner—
J. F. I said nothing of the kind.
J. N. Yes you did, sir. Those were the very words you said: I have got it down in my notes of his Grace’s evidence. What is the use of your denying it, when your own witness gives evidence of it? Hold your tongue, sir.—And the workingmen, says the prisoner, must take the matter into their own hands. Take it
into their own hands, gentlemen, and take the matter into their hands. What matter are they to take into their hands? Are we justified in thinking that the prisoner was speaking metaphorically? Gentlemen, I must tell you that the maxim that in weighing evidence you need not go beyond the most direct explanation guides us here; forbids us to think that the prisoner was speaking metaphorically, and compels us to suppose that the matter which is to be in the hands of the workmen, their very hands, gentlemen, is—what? Why, (in an awe-struck whisper) the bowels of the owners of the capital, that is of this metropolis—London! Nor, gentlemen, are the means whereby those respectable persons, the owners of house property in London, to be disembowelled left doubtful: the raising of armed men by the million, concealed weapons, and an organisation capable of frustrating the search for them. Nay, an article in the paper which impudently calls itself (reading the “Commonweal”) the official journal of the Socialist League, written by one Bax, who ought to be standing in the same dock with the prisoner—an article in which he attacks the sacredness of civilisation—is murky with the word dynamic or dynamite. And you must not forget, gentlemen, that the prisoner accepts his responsibility for all these words and deeds. With the utmost effrontery having pleaded “Not Guilty,” he says, “I am a Socialist and a Revolutionist”!—Thus much, gentlemen, my duty compels me to lay before you as to the legal character of the evidence. But you must clearly understand that it rests with you and not with me to decide as to whether the evidence shows this man to be guilty. It is you, gentlemen of the Jury, who are responsible for the verdict, whatever it may be; and I must be permitted to add that letting this man loose upon society will be a very heavy responsibility for you to accept.
[The Jury consult: the noise outside increases.
J. F. (Aside; Hilloa! what is going on? I begin to think there’s a row up!)
Foreman of the Jury. My lord, we are agreed upon our verdict.