| H E MURDER OF LEE TEEP
THE TRIAL AND AC QUITT AL OF
J O H N J COR COR A N
CHARGED WITH THE MURDER.
SUMMING UP OF
HORACE RUSSELL.
\\ | H A PREFATORY NOTE GIVING THE SUBSTANCE OF THE
TESTIMONY.





[muſt ºf Entral Sessiºns ºf the PEACE
FOR THE CITY AND COUNTY OF NEW YORK.
THE PEOPLE, &c.,
2)S.
\
Jon N J. Corcora N.
/
Before the Honorable FRED' K SMYTII, Recorder,
and a jury.
CHARLEs BARTHEN (clerk),
3.30 E. 14th St.
THEoporº. W. Lyon (produce dealer),
438 Washington Market.
PHILIP PHILLIPson (merchant),
353 Canal Street.
John H. GIFFIN, Jr. (insurance),
- 156 Broadway.
CHARLEs SEITz (brewer),
250 E. 60th Street.
CHARLEs E. BogºRT (stationer),
157 Pearl Street.
JAMEs M. JAQUEs (retired),
958 Fifth Ave.
BRADFord YALE (merchant),
75 Broad Street.
GEoRGE E. Hutchissos (patent med-
icines), 114 Nassau Street.
JULIUS LEvy (grocer),
11 Ave. D.
THoMAs S. BARNEs (gents’ furnishing
goods), 11 New Church Street.
AARon ELKIN (hatter),
45 Ave. A.
Counsel for the prosecution :
The Hon, WM. C. BEECHER,
Assistant District Attorney.
W.M. D. GUTHRIE, Esq.
Counsel for the defense:
PETER MITCHELL, Esq.,
HoRACE Russell, Esq.
The trial began Tuesday, June 28th, and ended
Thursday, July 7th, 1881.

2
PREFATORY NOTE.
Lee Teep was stabbed about twenty minutes past
nine o'clock on the night of Sunday, April 24th, 1881,
near the corner of Spring and Marion Streets, in the
14th ward. He was first taken home, and then to St.
Vincent's Hospital, where he died on the 3d of May.
Corcoran was arrested Friday night, April 29th;
was identified as the person who stabbed Lee Teep by
Ah Sin, that night, and the following morning was
identified by Kwong Tong at the Tombs, and by the
wounded man at the Hospital. He was temporarily
committed by Justice Wandell, and upon the inquest,
held after the death of Lee Teep, was fully committed
by the Coroner,
Frederick Haushalter was also arrested and iden-
tified as being one of the persons with the accused at
the time of the stabbing. He was subsequently dis-
charged.
Corcoran was indicted for murder in the first de-
gree. -
This was the first case in New York in which an
American was charged with the murder of a China-
man. It occasioned much excitement at the time, so
much that the accused was in danger of being con-
victed whether guilty or not.
The funeral of Ah Sin took place at the Twenty-
Third Street Presbyterian Church and was largely
attended. Many of the most prominent of the clergy
were present and made addresses, in some of which
the guilt of Corcoran, then recently arrested, was
taken for granted, and he was earnestly denounced,
The Chinese residents of the city raised a fund of
$2,000 to aid in prosecuting Corcoran, and the Chinese
Government, through its Minister, retained Messrs.
Blatchford, Seward, Griswold and Da Costa to assist
the District Attorney,

3
Detectives were employed, who took up their resi-
dence among the relatives and acquaintances of the
accused, and mingled with them freely, and unknown
as detectives, for the purpose of getting evidence to
convict.
After the jury were impanelled, the counsel for the
defense moved that the District Attorney be compelled
to furnish to them the names of the witnesses whom
he proposed to call. After argument the Court denied
the motion. -
Mr. Beecher opened the case for the People.
TESTIMONY FOR THE PEOPLE.
Except in special instances, only the summarized
substance of the direct testimony is given:
An Six testified (through a Chinese interpreter):
I live at 142 Spring street, this city; have been about six months in this
country; am in laundry business. I knew Lee Teep; was with him on Sun-
day, April 24th. Kwong Tong, Lee Teep and I were together; we went to
Sunday School that day on 23d Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues,
about two o'clock in the afternoon, and returned at four to my laundry and
got supper. After supper we went to a provision store down town, in Mott
Street. About a quarter past nine we returned from Mott Street; we took a
car corner of Chatham Street and Bowery and got out at Spring Street and
Bowery. Lee Teep, Kwong Tong and I then walked down Spring Street and
we met four young men coming up; one of them knocked Lee Teep's hat
down, at the corner of Marion and Spring Streets. He was going to pick his
hat up from the sidewalk when the prisoner struck him twice with a knife.
Lee Teep did not say a word before his hat was knocked off; when Lee Teep
was going to pick up his hat, he said, “Why do you hit me?” I saw the
knife in prisoner's hands; he struck Lee Teep in the breast the first time;
the second was about the same place, I think. There was a lamp light on the
corner of Marion and Spring; I could see the prisoner's face plainly; there
was a little red mark on the cheek; that was all the mark I noticed; noticed
nothing peculiar about his features; that red mark was all I noticed.
I first saw the knife in prisoner's hands after he struck Lee Teep, as he
was drawing it out; he then hid the knife inside his coat sleeve, and ran away
soon after. Then Kwong Tong and I went on each side of Lee Teep and
brought him to our laundry at 142 Spring Street; there we undressed him, and
finding he was badly cut, notified the Station house; we did not think the cut

4.
was serious until we got home; did not see any other mark on the body but
the one on the breast; I did not notify the police; it was another witness;
then when the police were notified the doctor came, and Lee Teep was taken
to the hospital.
On cross-examination the witness was asked among other things if he had
identified one Frederick Haushalter as one of the three persons present with
the accused when the stabbing took place. He said he had. Haushalter
(being in the Court room) was directed to stand up, and the witness was
asked if he was still sure he was present at the stabbing. He said he was.
The same questions were asked of and the same answers given by Kwong
Tong.
Kwong Tong testified (through an interpreter):
I live at 142 Spring Street, this city: have lived in this city about a year;
I knew Lee Teep three months in this country; I knew him in China; he was
my cousin; don't know how long Lee Teep was in this city; he worked in
laundry here, and attended Church School on 23d Street.
On Sunday, April 24th, Ah Sin and I were with Lee Teep from two
o'clock until after nine. We went to Sunday School on 23d Street at two o clock;
came home and had supper and then went down town to see some friends; at nine
o'clock we left down-town, got on a car and got off at Spring Street; walked
down to Marion, where we met four young men coming up; one of them —the
prisoner—knocked the hat off Lee Teep; Lee Teep said, “What did you hit
me for ** and then stooped down to pick up his hat from the sidewalk, when
the prisoner stabbed him with a knife, I saw the knife when he drew it out:
I saw the prisoner stab Lee Teep once, then he put the knife up his sleeve,
and they all ran away together. After the boys ran away, Ah Sin and myself
helped Lee Teep to 142 Spring Street, the laundry of his friends, which is
about four or five blocks from where the stabbing took place; we walked
slowly; we didn't call for the police until after we got home; we didn't know
how serious the stab was until them; I did not call for the police when the
first stabbing took place, because I had to help Lee Teep; I could not leave
him; I was helping him home and I could not call for an officer; when we got
to the laundry I began to undress Lee Teep to see where he was stabbed, and
immediately after seeing his wound, it was so bad, I went and notified the
Station House; I informed an officer and he notified the ambulance; the am-
bulance took him away; it was dark and I do not know where they took him.
I did not see Lee Teep again until I saw him in Twenty-Third Street Church,
after he died.
The stabbing was on Sunday evening: I do not remember when the
prisoner was arrested; before he was arrested, I went with a detective and two
Chinamen, named Sing Too and Lee Leep, to Spring Street; I do not remember
the day; I saw this young man at the corner of Spring Street, and I noticed
him ; when I was near him I pointed him out to the officer; the officer was
going to arrest him when the prisoner ran away; I was on one side of the
street with Ah Sin and Lee Leep, and the officer was on the other side; I saw
the prisoner sitting on the stoop , there was a crowd there; the prisoner was

5
sitting on the second step from the bottom; the steps go right up to the door;
this was about eight o'clock in the evening; I noticed there was a lamp there;
as soon as I went to he stoop I recognized the prisoner, and he got up and
ran towards the Bowery, and the officer followed him and arrested him; I re-
cognized the prisoner; he had a little pimple on his cheek and his lip is thick;
I could see the prisoner's face very plain at the time of the stabbing; saw the
prisoner after his arrest; I went with the officer to the Station House.
JAMEs J. HART testified :
I am a member of the municipal police and belong to the 14th Precinct;
was a member of that Precinct in April last; I arrested the prisoner on Fri-
day, April 29th; I was detailed to this case; on the evening of the arrest,
about a quarter of nine, Kwong Tong and two other Chinamen, whose names
I don't know, left 142 Spring Street and walked in the direction of the Bowery.
I walked on one side of the street and told the three Chinamen to walk on the
opposite side; I was in citizen's clothes; the Chinamen walked along Spring
Street until they came pretty near Elm there was a party there, may be 8 or
10, sitting on a stoop—some sitting and some standing these three Chinamen
stood in front of those men, in front of the stoop; while they stood there one
of the party got up off the stoop and ran down Spring to Crosby, up Cros-
by and into an alley; when the Chinamen stood there I was on the opposite
side of the street; the 8 or 10 boys were about the same age; I knew them all
by sight, being in the neighborhood; it was the prisoner that jumped off the
stoop. I did not see him until he arose from the steps. I knew him; when he
ran down the street I kept on the opposite side, walking in the same direc-
tion, while he was in sight, and when he cleared out of sight of me then Iran
to see what he would do; he ran into an alleyway; I ran to the alleyway and
stood at the side of it; there are three entrances to the alleyway; finally, I
saw the three Chinamen coming toward me: I told them to go to Broadway
and tell a policeman there that I wanted him; they were in coºversation; be-
fore they came back Corcoran came out of the alley; there was some man
standing in the centre of the alleyway; Corcoran asked this man, “Are there
any Chinese out there?” The man answered, “No.” Corcoran came out
and I then arrested him; I asked him what he was running for, and he said
that the Chinese were going to do something to him from the bottom of their
pants. The stoop is about two houses from Elm Street; prisoner had to run
from there to Crosby Street, about three quarters of a block, and one hundred
and fifty feet to Crosby Street; the block on Spring Street is a short one.
After arresting the prisoner, I brought him to the Chinamen, who were then
standing with the policeman talking to him, in Spring Street, near Broadway;
I asked them if this was the man that cut Lee Teep; the last witness here
kept looking at him a minute; I asked was that the man; he said yes, that is
him; I asked him if he was sure: he aaid “Yes.” I brought Corcoran to the
Station House; the Chinamen went back home across Broadway; I then got
the three Chinamen to come back with me to the Station House to see if he
was the right one; Kwong Tong came to the Station House with me, and the
6
-
prisoner was brought out from the cell to before the desk, in the office; he
stood about four or five feet from the Chinaman, when the Sergeant asked the
Chinaman if prisoner was the man that cut Lee Teep, and the Chinaman said
“Yes.” The Sergeant spoke in English and the Chinaman answered every
question in English; the Sergeant asked if he was sure he was the man, and
he said “Yes.” He told him the nature of the complaint and wanted him to
be very positive; he said, “Yes, this is the man.” Then in the morning I had
the other witnesses at the Tombs; when prisoner was arraigned at the Tombs
one was asked if he could point out the man the second time; he looked around
and pointed out Corcoran as the man; then the Judge called up Kwong Tong
and asked him if he could identify the man; he looked around and pointed
out to the same one; then the Judge told me to take him to the Hospital be-
fore the wounded man and hear what he had to say. In order to give prisoner
a good chance, at my suggestion, eight or ten boys were brought by prisoner's
friends to the Hospital to be present at the identification; among those was
one Wynberg, whom prisoner wanted present, as they resembled each other a
great deal. We went into the room in the Hospital; the Chinaman was lying
on a bed; there were two more Chinamen in the room before us, and the doc-
tor; he told the interpreter the questions to be asked: the men formed a line
two deep at the foot of the bed; the prisoner was in the rear line and stood
next to Wynberg; the doctor told this Chinaman to ask him if he could point
out the man who cut him; Lee Teep raised partly in the bed, looked around
for a while; he laid down on the bed and shook his head. The doctor asked,
“Do you see him º' he nodded his head and said “Yes; ” he raised back and
pointed to the prisoner ; then the prisoner stepped forward and asked, “Is it
me?” The Chinaman said “Yes,” I wanted to give him another chance and
mixed up the men; Lee Teep kept his face to the wall; prisoner was not in
the same place as he was before; I don't remember his position the second
time; the same thing was done again, and he pointed at Corcoran again; I
don't think Lee Teep understood English: the doctor did the talking the sec-
ond time; Dee Teep did not respond to any question in English.
SING Too testified:
I knew Lee Teep about three months; I live in Spring Street; have lived
in New York a year; business, laundry. -
- The night the prisoner was arrested I walked along Spring Street with
Kwong Tong and Lee Leep; the officer was across the street. Kwong Tong
took a good look in the face of prisoner, who was sitting down with a good
many others; prisoner then ran across the street; I saw him after the officer
took him; I went to the Hospital with Lee Teep's brother, and was there when
the officer came with the prisoner and the other boys to the sick man's room,
The officer told Lee Teep to state who the boy was who stabbed him ; Lee Teep
lay on the bed and looked; then the doctor put me out of the room, and also
Lee Leep went out; I moved Lee Teep and told him to look, and before he
told who it was the doctor put me out; Lee Leep and I were in the room about
seven or eight minutes before the officer came in with the boys.


Lee Lººp testified :
I live in Forsyth Street, this city; have been in New York one year, in
the country about four years; am a brother of Lee Teep's I did not know he
was stabbed until the day after the occurrence; I saw him first after he was
stabbed, at the hospital, at Sixth Avenue and Eleventh Street: I remember
going with Kwong Tong, sing Too and the officer to arrest the prisoner; it.
was after eight o'clock when we started; we walked along Spring Street as
far as the stoop; the officer walked on the opposite side; when we reached
the stoop where the prisoner was sitting with other boys, Kwong Tong stood
and looked at him; while looking at him, prisoner got up and ran across the
street; I did not know prisoner until he was arrested; when the officer arrest-
ed him I saw prisoner, but after that I did not see him.
DR. ALLEN STANTox testified:
Lee Teep's death resulted from the stab wound. He said he was present
at and saw the identification of the prisoner by Lee Teep at St. Vincent's
hospital; a second identification was had because the prisoner's sister claimed
the first was unfair; observed no pimple or red mark on Corcoran's face at
that time. The identification took ten minutes; he could not identify Corcoran
in the court room. -
PETER MITCHELL, Esq., opened for the defense.
-
TESTIMONY FOR THE DEFENSE.
Joseph Scott testified:
I live at 210 Mulberry Street with a family by the name of Devitt; Mrs.
Devitt adopted me. I am partly of French blood, and am sometimes called
“French Joe.” I work for the American Express Company, 48th Street and
Madison Avenue. I am an acquaintance of the prisoner's; have known him
five or six years; we live in the same neighborhood and are friends.
I met prisoner a little before seven o'clock on the morning of April 24th
last, and went with him to Mr. Martin's house, in Newark, New Jersey; Mr.
Martin employed us both at that time on his express, called Martin's Express,
from New York to Newark; we had dinner at Mr. Martin's house; we took the
six o'clock train for New York, and got here at half past seven o'clock; as
soon as we reached the corner, Corcoran and I separated; I went home; Cor-
coran also went home. -
After my supper, and about half-past eight the same evening. I met Co-
coran again, at the corner of Spring and Marion Streets; remained in his come
pany five or ten minutes; Egan, Gerrahty, Small and Cruger were there too;
I left them and went away; saw him next a little after ten at the corner of
Spring and Marion Streets with Cruger and John O'Neill; I cannot say how
long I remained in prisoner's society then; I don't know where he was from




8
half-past eight until ten o'clock; when I met them the second time I took a
walk down Marion Street with them, and left prisoner on his way home.
I remember the night on the stoop ; Small, myself and about eight or ten
others were present. I was sitting down, Gallagher was next to me; Small
was standing up ; Corcoran was standing in front of me, his back toward the
street; two ladies came along and wanted to go up the stoop; as we were
about to get out of the way three Chinamen came along; I pushed Corcoran
and he bumped againstone of the Chinamen, at the same time the Chinese made
a suspicious movement, one of them putting his hand in his pocket, and Cor-
coran ran a few steps, the Chinese started toward him and he ran down Spring
Street and we all ran after him ; when they got to the corner I saw the officer
eome down; I saw him go up Spring Street with Corcoran to the Station
House; as he got to the corner of Spring and Márion, Corcoran holleged out
“Cruger, don't tell my folks.”
John MARTIN, of Newark, corrobrated Scott as to Scott's and Corcoran's
visit at his house on Sunday.
WILson E. SMALL, testified:
I am 19 years old; reside at 243 Centre Street, and have worked in Han-
nan & Reddish's shoe factory since February last; before that I worked three
months for Lyons & Company. I have known the prisoner seven months; he
is a friend of mine. The night he was arrested, I was on Spring Street
standing by the stoop of No. 66, about nine o'clock; Patrick Doyle, King,
Gallagher, Cruger and others were there; we were sitting talking about
twenty or twenty-five minutes; Corcoran was leaning against me; two ladies
came to go up stairs; we occupied the whole stoop; I said, “Corcoran, get
out of the way;” he did so; somebody pushed him and he got out of the way.
The Chinamen came up at the same moment; Corcoran ran down the street a
little way; he turned around and saw the Chinamen following him, and he run
down Crosby Street; we ran towards there too.
I saw Corcoran the previous Sunday night about half-past seven o'clock,
in Spring and Marion Streets, when we came from Hoboken; prisoner had
been to Newark that day with Joe Scott; we had been in Hoboken that day
playing ball; prisoner was not with us; he and Scott came up to the
crowd; Corcoran started up Marion, I suppose for home; it was then about
half-past seven. I saw prisoner again at half-past eight, at Spring and Marion
Streets; there were a number of us boys there when Corcoran came up; I
remained only till about a quarter to nine, and did not see Corcoran again
that night; I saw him next I guess on Monday, at the corner of Spring
and Marion, which was the place where we boys were in the habit of meeting.
Jacob Crug ER testified:
I was born in New York; am 17 years old ; my father's name is Henry
Cruger ; he is in the Post Ofice; I work with George Flint & Co., 19th Street
and 7th Avenue; have been there over a year; before that I worked at the
enameling business; have known prisoner four or five years; he is a friend
and companion of mine. The Sunday before prisoner was arrested, I left 211
9
Mulberry Street in the morning and went to Hoboken to play ball with Henry
King, Patrick Doyle, Joseph Bliss and others, and got home between seven
and 8 o'clock. I recollect, and have thought over, what took place that Sun-
day evening; I have been examined about it in the District Attorney's Office,
privately, my statement being taken down by some one else; no counsel for
Corcoran was present; my father only was with me; that examination was
about three weeks ago, and lasted for three-quarters of an hour. I was not
at the Coroner's inquest. -
That Sunday night I walked around from my house to the corner of Spring
and Elm; I stood on the corner and met Corcoran, Doyle, King, Scott and
Small; we stood there a while, then Scott and King went away : subsequently
Corcoran asked me to have a walk; we walked down Spring Street to the
Bowery; we went through Prince Street, if I don't make a mistake; we went
into a saloon there at the corner of Mulberry and Prince Streets: we came out
of there and went to Prince and Broadway; in Broadway, near Prince Street,
we met Ellen Corcoran and Kate, his cousin, and Alf Delmarsh; Corcoran
called out “hello;" they said “hello” when we came up with them ; we had
not walked ten steps when the girls came to us; we stood chattering a little
while and Ellen took my arm, and John took his cousin's arm; we walked
down Broadway to Spring Street, and on the corner of Spring Street and
Broadway Ellen hollered out to Pete Monahan; he hollered back; we walked
up Spring Street to Crosby, then we met a man named Anson House, and he
said “hello;” we went as far as Marion Street; we then left the girls and went
to Docher's corner and staid there a little while, where we met John King and
Joseph Scott; we stayed there a while; John O'Neill proposed to take a walk: we
walked down Marion to Broome, and from Broome to Mulberry, and left O’Neill;
O'Neill and King left me at my door, as well as John Scott; I went into my
house; it was then half-past ten; Corcoran was not out of my company at all
from half-past eight until half-past ten o’clock; we met no Chinamen while I
was with him; no other person than I have named was with us while we were
walking together; I did not see Haushalter that night; I did not see “Shorty”
or “Shilly” that night, to my remembrance; they were not with us. I swear
positively that I saw no assault of any character, by any one, that night, and
that Corcoran was with me from half-past eight till half-past ten. He assaulted
no one, and we met no Chinese at all that I remember.
The Friday evening following, I was on Spring Street, No. 66, between Elm
and Crosby Streets, sitting down on the stoop of a house, No. 66, with Cor-
coran, Scott, King, Doyle, Small, Dillon, and Dougherty; the stoop has about
five steps: Joe Scott sat next to me on one side, and some one else, whose
name I don't remember, on the other; we were having a sociable talk; Cor-
coran was standing up in front of Joe; there were two ladies wanting to go
up stairs; Joe wanted to make room for them to pass and pushed Corcoran;
that moment he fell against one of the Chinamen, who put his hand under his
apron ; when Corcoran saw this he ran ; the Chinamen ran after him; I ran
after the Chinese to the corner of Crosby Street. Corcoran was arrested by
Hart. After the arrest I was on the other side of the street, and Corcoran
hollered out, “Cruger, don't say anything up at the house.”


10
FREDERick HAustraitºr testified :
I live at 409 Fifth Street; am nineteen years old. My father works in
Jackson's Iron Foundry. Until recently I worked for George Raynor & Co., in
South Fifth Avenue, delivering goods. -
I was arrested in this case a few days after Corcoran was, by officer Hart,
at my home, after getting home from work; was taken to the Tombs, and the
next day to the Coroner's office, where the Chinaman indentified me as one of
the persons who was with Corcoran at the time of the stabbing. I was com-
mitted to the Tombs by the Coroner, and some time afterwards discharged by
a Judge of the Supreme Court.
On Sunday evening, April 24th, after half-past seven, I was walking about
the neighborhood in which I then lived, (Marion Street) with John Spillar;
We were subsequently joined by Frank Shorter. We went over to Broadway
and to Washington Square, where we sat some time. A little after eight we
returned to the vicinity of 40 Marion Street, and remained there till after ten
o'clock.
I know Corcoran. I did not see him that night; was not with him; did
not see any Chinese, nor any assault or fracas of any kind by anybody that
evening. I stated all this in the District Attorney's office on the day of my
discharge. Some one took my statement down.
John SPILLAR, painter by occupation, eighteen years old, and FRANK
Short ER, varnisher, employed at Hutchins & Son, 901 Fourth Avenue, twenty
years of age, corroborated Haushalter, as to his and their whereabouts on
Sunday evening, and that they did not see Corcoran that evening. -
PATRick Dwyer; HENRY EGAN, carriage painter, twenty years of age,
corroborated the testimony of Scott, Small and Cruger, as to what occurred on
Friday night.
Louis, Kussmant testified:
I live at 66 Spring Street, with my father, mother and younger sister. I
never knew the prisoner nor any of these other boys; I do not know them
now. I first learned last night that I was to be a witness. It was a common
thing for boys to congregate on our stoop. I remember an occasion, in the
evening, when another lady living in the house and I, came along to go up
the stoop, another boy got out of the way to let us pass. I looked neither to
the right nor left, but went straight in. I did not notice who were there, nor
who was behind me. If any Chinamen or other persons were behind me, I
should not have noticed them. I took no notice of what occurred, but went
straight in and shut the door. I have known other occasions when the boys
got up to let me pass. Sometimes my mother ordered the boys off, and they
ran away. The lady who was with me the night I have spoken of has removed
to Brooklyn; I don't know where in Brooklyn.




11
ELLEN Corcorax, the prisoner's sister, seventeen years of age, and KATIE
Corcorax, his cousin, nineteen years of age, testified:
That about twenty minutes past nine on the Sunday night in question,
they met the prisoner and Cruger in Broadway, near Spring Street; they were
talking with Delmarsh, when Corcoran and Cruger came along; left Delmarsh
and walked with Corcoran and Cruger to corner of Spring and Marion Streets,
where they left the boys and went indoors; met Anson House in front of his
door, corner of Crosby and Spring Streets, and spoke to him as they walked
along, about a quarter to ten. Also called out to Pete Monahan whom they
saw on the sidewalk in Broadway, in front of his cigar stand in the Prescott
House; they fixed the time by having seen a clock in a candy store at five
minutes before nine, and the clock in House's front room as they passed, by
which it was a quarter to ten; it was not quite ten when they got in the
house; chatted and chaffed as they walked leisurely along.
ALERED DELMARsm corroborated them, fixing the time when they left him
at half-past nine or a little before.
Anson House corroborated them, and fixed the time when they passed
him as between twenty minutes and a quarter before ten.
MARY MEAD testified :
I am the prisoner's sister; I reside at 350 East 15th Street; my husband,
Nash W. Mead, is a clerk in the Revenue Office in 14th Street; I am in the
habit of visiting my mother daily, and see my brother almost every day. He
had no pimple or mark on his cheek when he was arrested; one came on while
he was in the Tombs, on his right cheek; he had it at the time of the inquest;
it was quite bad; then we carried him his meals every day, and as he got bet-
ter the pimple disappeared. I was present at St. Vincent's Hospital when the
identification took place : I had been at the Tombs that morning when my
brother was brought out and the two Chinamen saw him; the same two China-
men were talking with the sick man when we got to the hospital; the boys
were stood in a row; the big Chinaman was beside the sick man, and said what-
ever was said to him; it was in Chinese and I could not understand ; then the
big Chinaman sort of lifted the sick man up with one arm and waved his other
hand around; he had his hat in that hand; when it came opposite my brother
he stopped it a moment; then the sick man said “Yam.” The boys all called
out, “That ain't fair or square.” I don't remember which word they used;
“the big one pointed him out.” Hart said, “What's the matter?" I said,
“Didn't you see it? You ought to.” Then the other two Chinamen were put
out of the room and another identification was had, but of course it was easy
enough for any one to pick Johnny out then for he had on his blue jumper, in
which he worked, while all the other boys had on dark clothes. The sickman
pointed to him and he was taken back to the Tombs, but he didn't do it.


12
TIMothy Corcoran testified:
I am the prisoner's father; am forty-seven years of age; have seven child-
ren; am a tailor; have worked the last twenty-six years for Devlin & Co., the
clothiers. My son had no pimple or mark on his face when arrested; such a
mark came on while he was in the Tombs; he had it at the Coroner's inquest;
after that we carried him food and the pimple on his cheek went away; my
wife knows the same fact. She is ill, not in bed, but too weak and nervous to
come here and hear this trial; she is very much broken down; very bad, in-
deed, since Johnny's arrest.
IREBUTTAL.
Officer HART, LEE LEEP, SING Too and Kwong Tong, called in rebuttal, testified:
That they saw no woman go up the stoop of the house on which the boys
were sitting on Friday night, nor did they see Corcoran pushed into any one of
themselves, nor did they see any Chinaman make any movement as if to draw
a knife before Corcoran ran.
ALFRED NENIGER, having affirmed, testified:
I live at 126 First Avenue, this city. I know Cooper; I met him on
Tuesday, 28th of June; I went with him that evening from corner of Fourth
Avenue and 12th Street to corner of 2 thStreet and Sixth Avenue; from
there to Empire Garden, and then went to Coonan's in Spring Street. Paddy
Gleason was with us. At Coonan's we met Alf Delmarsh; Gleason, bel-
marsh, Cooper and myself were sitting at a table, talking; Gleason spoke
about the case and Cooper spoke about it; a good many things were said;
they got settled down to an alibi. Delmarsh said he did not want to come
here and swear to an alibi; he showed us his subpoena and said, “I don't want
to go down and swear.” Cooper asked him, “When did you see the prisoner?”
He said, “I saw him between half-past nine and ten o’clock on Broadway.”
Gleason spoke about seeing him some time before nine o'clock; I can't say
whether Gleason made any reply to the remarks of Delmarsh.
The next evening after that, we met and went over to the Bowery to Mili-
tary Hall, where Gleason, Delmarsh, Reddy, Cooper and myself, sat at a table.
Delmarsh commenced speaking of the alibi; said he, “I am going to swear
that I met him between nine and half-past nine o'clock. Gleason said, “I will
swear I met him at a quarter of nine.” Delmarsh then said, “There's where
I can make a lar of you.” I think Cooper then said, “What time was it you
told me last night you met him º' Then said he, “I met him between nine
and half-past nine,” and then again he said, “It may have been nearer half-
past nine.”
The following night Cooper, Delmarsh and I were at Coonan's. Delmarsh
said the same thing over again: “I will swear I met him between nine and
half-past nine o'clock.” Cooper said, “You said you were going to swear the
other way.” “No,” said he, “that is what I am going to swear to.” Cooper
was a private detective after these boys I knew.
13
Cross-Examination :
I did not swear on the Bible because I don't believe in it; I believe in
doing right as far as I can I follow no occupation; I do almost anything for
a living ; I copy papers, run errands and copy political papers; have done so
for about three years; I did work in Pine Street; I have been employed by
the Committee of One Hundred, being partly in charge of their rooms up-town,
also giving information and sending out documents, and so on; that is the last
employment I had : I have some friends who put things in my way also, such
as copying, etc.
I got no pay on this business; was asked by Cooper to go with him; there
was nothing said about pay; I do not expect to be paid : I will take anything
Iget; I expect something, what I cannot say; this is the first time I assisted
Cooper; I don't know that I entered his employ; I wanted to assist him out
of good nature and a desire to assist him; have no expectation of advantage;
you may have it, that I was animated by a public spirit or personal affection.
When at the corner of 29th Street and Sixth Avenue, I was in a drinking
saloon with Gleason and Cooper; I drank four small glasses of beer before I
went to Coonan's; I drank one glass of beer at Coonan's, and two or
three at the other places; am of German nativity; I live with my family;
am twenty-two years of age and was born in New York City; I had
three glasses of beer and four ponies before I went to Coonan's and had
the conversation with Delmarsh ; I have stated the conversation there
accurately; I have not told it all; Cooper did not tell me at the time
for what purpose I was to go with him and hear what was said, if he
had told me I would not go, because I am not fond of being a witness. I made
no memorandum of the conversation; have testified from memory; three
glasses and five ponies of beer do not affect my intellectual capacity; I am an
old beer drinker, an accomplished one, and have drank a good deal,
John Cooper testified:
I am employed by Pinkerton's Detective Agency as a detective; was em-
ployed in Corcoran's case to look up evidence, was first employed and began
duty on June 17th ; have been rooming at 38 Marion Street, two doors from
the corner of Spring, taking my meals in restaurants. Have been in court
here during the trial partly; was here on the first, second and third days; was
here while Small was on the stand, and saw him afterwards with Paddy Glea-
son at the corner of Centre Street and Chambers. Paddy Gleason and myself
were together in the court room, and after court was over we met small in front
of the saloon, corner of Centre and Chambers Streets; Gleason asked him how
officer Hart got along; said Small, “The son of a bitch has gone back on the
*: I can make a liar out of him when I go on the stand.” Gleason then
said, * Stick to the one thing and you can get Johnny out of it.” Then pris-
oner's sister came up and called Small away. - -
I went to the corner of Spring and Mation Streets that night, and, about
halºs * 9 eight o'clock, I saw another sister of prisoner's there; she
was sitting on a lager beer keg–Mr. Nºniger, Pete Monahan, Austen House

14
and one or two others were standing with me there—and she was talking to
the other parties; she raised up her hand and said, “I swear to tell the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God,” then she commenced to
laugh; they all laughed; she was there perhaps four or five minutes while I
was there; six or seven boys were present at the time.
On the 23d of June I was in Coonan's saloon with Delmarsh, Gleason and
several others. Delmarsh said he saw Corcoran on Broadway, between half
past nine and ten o'clock; that he had been playing cards that night and was
taking a walk and had met him and the girls—his sister, cousin and Kruger;
he said he was a witness, but did not want to get into the case.
On Friday Gleason and myself were together in Military Hall, where we
conversed with Delmarsh: Gleason and I were together drinking a glass of
beer ; he said, “I don't want to get into this trouble over a God damned mur-
derer like Corcoran.” Gleason said, “All that you have got to say is that you
saw him on Broadway; then Delmarsh said, “I will swear to it, and that's all
I will say.” The conversation dropped at that time, and we went back to
Coonan's saloon and nothing further was said on the subject; when he said
“I will swear I saw him on Broadway,” Gleason said to him, “All you have
got to say is that you saw him on Broadway—stick to that and you will be all
right.” I said I don't want you to say anything that was not so.” He said,
“I don't intend to do so, I don’t want to get into trouble for him.” Then
Gleason said, “If they ask you what his character is say you know it to be
good.” He said he would.
Cross-Ezamination:
I was born in Seneca County in 1851; I attended school very little; first
went to work at fifteen at farming, for a year; next went to work a year after
that to H. Alexander, of Chicago, driving an express wagon; remained there
a year and then went to Allen Pinkerton's ; have been working on and off for
him for twelve years; my business is to procure information in cases, and I
mingle with and put questions to parties for the purpose of drawing answers
from them against whom we want to procure information; Gleason was the
only one of the boys I took to Empire Garden; I treated Gleason to whatever
he wanted; I told him where I was formerly employed; did not tell him I.
came from Hartford and did some crooked business; in the saloon in Spring
Street I only invited Gleason and Delmarsh to drink; I have loaned Gleason
no money; have invited him to supper once or twice; I have paid his car fare
and bought cigars for him; he spent some money with me. I made memoran-
dums of the conversations in a little book. -
I told Delmarsh that he had not ought to say anything that would get him
into trouble. He said he would testify that he met Corcoran between half-
past nine and ten.
“Q. Did you say you did not want him to testify to anything that was
not true, and didn't he say he did not intend to testify to anything that was not
true 2 "
“A. No, sir; he did not.”

15
Answer on direct examination read by Stenographer as follows:
“I said I don’t want you to say anything that was not so, and he
said, ‘I don't intend to do so; I don't want to get into trouble for
him.’” -
I said that, and did not deny it; I had a room in Marion Street; left
there last Thursday; have been mingling in with these boys every day.
Re-direct :
I have been trying to get at the truth; the treating to drinks has been
mutual; when he lost a game he would pay for it.
The Court allowed the defense to send for PETER Mox AHAN, who testified:
I attend the cigar stand in the Prescott House. I remember the Sunday
night before Corcoran was arrested. Along in the evening, I can’t fix the time
with any certainty, I remember some one called out to me across the street;
I recognized Nellie Corcoran and her cousin; I can't say I recognized Johnny
and Cruger, as it was dark.
On cross-examination, he said: I am a friend of the prisoner; I remem-
ber the night he was arrested. I heard he was arrested, and ran up to Spring
Street. I walked along with prisoner and the officer; I asked him if he had
any tobacco; he said he had not; I gave him some. I asked what did he get
arrested for He said, “I got pushed into a Chinaman.


16
Mr. RUSSELL, for the defense, then addressed the
jury as follows:
GENTLEMEN of THE JURY:
At last this case comes to you. That it has not
come before this time is no fault of ours. It has
dragged its weary length through nearly two weeks.
It ought to have been tried in three days. That it
was not, you will agree, is not our fault. If time has
been wasted, I call you to witness, it has not been
by us.
As I dare say you know, for you were here when
we made our motion, we sought for the prisoner that
speedy trial guaranteed him by the Constitution. The
District Attorney, as you will remember, asked a
postponement to give him time to gather more evi-
dence. It was granted him. We could only acqui-
esce. Again, and yet a third time, the trial was post-
poned at the instance of the prosecution. These de-
lays have compelled you to serve not only the term
for which you were summoned, but part of another.
If they have excited your impatience, think, I beg,
how much harder they have been to this unfortunate
prisoner. Innocent of crime, the victim of a mistake,
he has been nine weeks in prison; he has been led up
and down through the streets, day after day, pointed
at as a murderer; condemned unheard by many; per-
mitted to look into the faces of his kindred only
through prison bars; denied the names of the wit-
nesses against him; his family and friends hounded
by detectives—all in the sacred name of justice and
law even that law which says a man shall be pre-
sumed innocent until proved guilty. The desire to
convict somebody has raised a howl against him, so
fierce and unthinking that his case has been pre-
judged and a great and actual peril now impends
over his young head.
You remember that at the opening of this trial I
requested the District Attorney to furnish us the

17
names of the witnesses against Corcoran. He refused
to furnish them; whereupon I moved the Court to
compel him to do so. It was a motion rarely, I might
say never heretofore, denied to a man to be tried for
his life. We wished the names in order to prepare
for trial. The District Attorney resisted our motion.
Acting on his official responsibility and sustained, it is
to be presumed, by his official conscience, he informed
the Court in a declamatory way, and in your hearing
—but of course not intended to influence your minds,
for did he not disavow any such purpose—that he
feared to disclose the names of his witnesses lest the
“organized gang” of ruflians, to which he asserted
my client belongs, should murder or intimidate them.
This he stated openly in your hearing and mine; other
things he whispered in the ear of the Court—what, I
do not know—and it seemed proper to his Honor to
deny our request.
Private counsel have sat by the side of the District
Attorney all through this trial, constantly prompting
him with suggestions. It is said other counsel were
engaged “on the outside’’ working up the case. The
Chinese government employs one, a subscribed fund
the other. I mention this fact not to complain of it.
Mr. Guthrie has conducted himself here with so much
dignity and courtesy that it has been agreeable rather
than otherwise to have him in the case.
Our witnesses have been summoned to the District
Attorney's office, and there subjected to a private ex-
amination, every word being taken down by a stenog-
rapher. Then they have been followed by private
detectives for a month, every word, at least every
slang or profane word they uttered, every action, at
least if there was any levity in it, detailed and made
much of to you. I am told that even the clergy, the
bearers of messages of peace and good will, have
thought it proper—probably with the best intention—
to try by public harangues to create a public senti-
ment which should conduce to Corcoran's conviction.
18
As Paul stoned the prophets, thinking that thereby he
did God's service, so they are willing to stone young
Corcoran, without waiting to find out whether he is
guilty or not mistakenly supposing they are thereby
helping the Twenty-Third street Sunday School, and
hastening the conversion of that third Chinaman, for
which they have wrought and prayed and taken up
contributions so long
I speak of all the disadvantages, the fearful odds,
the unfair treatment, the created atmosphere, which
have surrounded my client, not to complain of them.
If I chose, there is much that I might complain of most
bitterly, yet most justly, but I will not. He is so near
the end of his tribulations—at least I hope so—at any
rate we are so near the end of this protracted trial,
that I may more profitably spend my time and yours
in asking you to give the prisoner that fair play which
he has not yet received. -
At last the evidence is all in, that which was pro-
duced at the Coroner's inquest, and that the witnesses
to which we were not permitted to know the names of,
lest we should slay them before they could bear their
witness. Which of them was so imperiled, who men-
aced him, we have never been informed. Perhaps
their “conscience made cowards of them.” You
must excuse me from completing the quotation, gen-
tlemen. It is too funny—to imagine “the pale cast of
thought” engaged in the hopeless task of endeavoring
to remove the “native hue”—the beery hue—from
young Neniger's nose.
You have heard all the prosecution had to offer,
all they could rake and scrape against this boy.
You have heard, too, and with a patient attention
for which I feel most deeply grateful, the testimony
we have presented in the boy’s behalf.
And now, after I have submitted such observations
as occur to me upon the evidence, and the idistrict
Attorney has summed up for the prosecution, and his
Honor has delivered his charge against the prisoner,










19
upon you will devolve the issues of life and death to
a human being. Upon you will devolve the power,
the right and the duty to determine whether this
young life shall be cut of “dead ere his prime” or
—equally horrible fate—whether he shall pass all or
a large part of his remaining days in prison, to be foll-
lowed, as is the case with all convicts, by a life of
infamy and shame to him and to his kindred, to his
father and mother, to his young sisters, one the happy
wife of a reputable gentleman, the other a gay, bright,
light-hearted young innocent, who as yet knows no-
thing of death, nothing of shame or sorrow.
It is not strange that many gentlemen, when cºlled
to the book as jurors, were unwilling to take upon
themselves so great a responsibility. It is a fearful
responsibility. How irretrievable are the conse-
quences if we make a mistake. If this lad go inno-
cently to death or prison, all the good you can do in
all your remaining years cannot equal or recompense
the great wrong you will have done. Regrets will be
unavailing. They cannot give back life, liberty or
good name. It is no small thing to destroy or ruin a
human life. On the other hand, if from timidity or
cowardice or sympathy you fail to convict, in a clear
case, you will have offended not only against your
oath and your country, but against that sense of duty,
obedience or disobedience to which does more to make
us happy or unhappy than all the good or ill the
Gods bestow. Looked at from any point of view,
your duty is not a pleasant one. The fear of doing
wrong, whatever you decide, and the fear of criticism,
whether just or unjust, may well cause you to hesi-
tate.
It is usual for counsel to compliment jurors on
their intelligence, conscienciousness, etcetera. It is one
of the ways employed to win good will, I do not adopt
it. You may wonder why, Because, gentlemen, if
you will pardon my saying so, as yet I do not know.
We tried to select men of intelligence and character,

20
We wanted men who do their own thinking and are
not led by the nose. We challenged no one except
for apparent lack of intelligence and character.
Whether we rightly judged you whom we selected,
this is not the time to say. Compliments for the mere
sake of compliment, or with a selfish purpose, I am
not disposed to pay. They seem to me cheap, the
small devices of small minds, or weak attempts to get
from favor what may not be asked as a matter of
right. We only ask our rights. You will give them
to us, not for flattery, but because they are our rights,
will you not :
Blame will probably be uttered against you what-
ever you do. What is called public opinion or so-
ciety, which is ever hasty and unthinking, incapable
to judge and quick to condemn, will find fault if you
acquit. Those who know nothing of the case will
claim to know more than you who know all about
it, and they will be sure to ascribe your action to the
WTOng reason. - -
Not allmen are brave, not all have courage of their
convictions. Indeed few men do their own thinking,
Of your mental calibre and moral courage I have had
no opportunity to judge. There may be those among
you who can be whipped into a verdict by fear of
that unjust, cruel and unthinking tyrant called pub-
lic opinion. -
All these considerations, gentlemen, we court. Put
into the balance against the prisoner everything you
can. Bestow no compassion upon him. Show him
no mercy. He asks them not. I, his counsel, ask
them not. All I ask is fair play, only fair play, and
I scorn to beg from your mercy that to which I am
entitled from your justice.
Of the man who has brains, observation, experience,
conscienciousness, and fairness enough to put himself
in another's place, and do as he would be done by, I
have no fear, because my client need have none.
There is a phrase in the Bible—I know that book
21
has not the approval of Mr. Neniger, the people's
private detective, still you will permit me to quote it
—“Judge not that ye be not judged.” I do not know
whether the revisers have altered the passage. To
me it always meant, “Misjudge not that ye be not
misjudged,” “The measure wherewith ye mete the
same shall be meted to you again.” Notwithstanding
Mr. Neniger's disapproval, I venture to commend the
maxim to you as a wise and humane one.
As I ask no mercy or compassion for the accused, I
ask no subtle refinements, no strained reasoning in
his favor; only fair play, gentlemen. Try him on the
evidence; apply to it the well settled rules of law,
Convictor acquit him on the evidence, not upon sneers
or slurs or insinuations—even though they come from
official lips. Let justice be fair and even-handed; let
not his witnesses be judged by one rule, and those for
the prosecution by another; let not one rule of rea-
soning be applied to the facts which bear in his favor
and another to facts which bear against him ; let not
his witnesses be discredited for the same reason you
are asked to yield your unqualified credence to those
for the prosecution. If the prosecution establish a
standard or test, judge them by it as well as us.
It is not much to ask, is it, gentlemen—fair play?
And yet so little has been granted him thus far, that
it is with diffidence we dare to ask even that.
The District Attorney in opening the case, using
the editorial “we,” alluded to himself, the Court, and
you as the only factors in this moving scene. We
who defend were not honored with even passing men-
tion. Himself he treated as a sort of thirteenth juror
whose official and apostolical duty it was to steer the
other twelve. Gentlemen, the District Attorney is a
judicial officer; that fact gives him great influence
with the jury. They see him generally on the right
side of the cases he tries, generally fair, generally
careful, and are apt to think if he is generally so he
must be always so. They do not discriminate between


22
what he asserts and what he proves. He is on the
side of the people, against criminals; the jury are on
the same side; there is a sympathetic tie. He becomes
“guide, philosopher and friend” to them. In this
case I have not only this to contend against, but the
fact that you have been with the District Attorney a
month, have experienced his courtesy, have witnessed
his ability, and have come to be on agreeable terms
with him socially and officially. For these reasons, if
there were not others, what he says will be likely to
outweigh anything I can suggest, and if you are not
put on your guard you may mistake his utterances
for evidence in the case. There was once a supposition
that the District Attorney acted both for the people and
the accused. That supposition would, I submit, in view
of the manner in which this prosecution has been con-
ducted, be rather a strained one in this case, You
have had opportunity to observe how judicial and fair
the District Attorney has been. I shall take the lib-
erty to remark upon it because I do not desire a pre-
sumption of official fairness, which is more than
rebutted by facts, to be used to grind to sharpness the
knife which is to be plunged into my client’s heart.
I am not willing, when such is not the fact, that it
should be thought my adversary is most fair when he
is most fierce. -
You heard him challenge offiurors because oppos.
ed to the death penalty; you heard him open the case.
claiming a verdict of murder in the first or second
degree; you heard him recite the facts. I hazard no-
thing in asserting, as I do, that in no aspect of the
case could the facts as recited by him justify a verdict
of murder in the first degree, because the element of
deliberation was entirely wanting. Why then claim
iſ . The District Attorney knows the law and he
knows the facts of his case. His claim seemed to me
like that of a Bowery auctioneer or a horse dealer–
very unjudicial persons—demanding a high price in
the hope of more easily getting a small one. It

23
may be judicial and fair to ask for a high verdict in
the expectation that the jury may the less unwillingly
compromise on a little one. I do not think so. You
heard him announce that the prisoner belonged to “an
organized band of desperadoes.” Did he offer any
evidence to show that Was it judicial and fair to
assert what he did not expect to prove . I may be
wrong, but I do not think so.
You were told that the Chinese recognized the ac-
cused by a peculiar mark on his cheek, and that the
officer would show that while it is not present now, it
was when Corcoran was arrested. The officer, anxious
as he seemed to convict, not only did not so testify,
but said he saw nothing of any mark until the Coro-
ner's inquest. Dr. Allen saw no mark at the time of
the death-bed identification. It may have been judi-
cial to make such an assertion when the fact was
otherwise. I do not think so.
I leave it to you to say, without comment on my
part, whether the spun-out cross-examination of
every witness for the defense, upon immaterial mat-
ters, was or was not finical and frivolous. Was it
judicial and fair : You remember one sample—let me
advert to it. The witness, Small, had testified on cross-
examination that he first heard of the murder on the
following Wednesday. Now, let me read what foll
lows: -
“Q. Did you not swear at the inquest it was Mon-
day ! A. I don’t think I did; if I did I was mis-
taken. -
Q. Did you not remember better then than now &
A. Possibly. -
Q. Don't you know you did A. Well, yes.
Q. Now, sir; don't you know you testified at the
inquest it was Monday . A. I don’t think I did. "
Q. Is that your signature . (Handing him the in-
quest papers.) A. Yes.
Q, Was that deposition read over to you? A. I
think it was,
24
Q. Don't you know it was . A. Well, yes.
Q. Now, sir; don’t you know you then swore that
you heard of the murder on Monday . A. Possibly I
did ; if I did I was mistaken.”
A person of my mild temper and manner cannot
convey the tone of anger and contempt with which
the questions were hurled at the witness from the end
of a menancing forefinger. The District Attorney sat
down to read the deposition, with which, according
to the tenor of his questions, we expected him to
show Small to be a shameless perjurer. We saw him
read, we saw him bend over the paper. Finally
he tossed it aside with the remark, in an under-
tone, “Really, it is so badly written I can’t make
it out.” I reached over and got the paper and handed
it to you. “Wednesday” was as plain as day. You
could read it with no difficulty. Perhaps the District
Attorney was then acting judicially, for the prisoner
as well as the people! Perhaps it was fair and manly
to induce in your minds, by boldly charging it, an
impression that a witness was unworthy of be-
lief because he had elsewhere sworn differently, and
then when the prosecuting attorney found it a mis-
take, if indeed it was a mistake, refusing to admit that
he was wrong and the witness right. I do not think so.
Possibly he feared you might think other bluster
equally mistaken, and so it seemed to him, appar-
ently, that it wouldn't do to admit himself in the
wrong in a fair and manly fashion, after such an exhi-
bition. He will permit me to say, and I say it without
acerbity, that was a performance of which his vene-
rated father would not feel proud. It was not worthy
of the Sunday-School of which we have heard so
much. It did not flow from the teaching of Him who
said, “Whatsoever ye would that men should do un-
to you do ye even so unto them.”
Why, gentlemen, the deceased was not killed on
his way from Sunday School, as the District Attorney


25
asserted in his opening; that was over at four. Lee
Teep was stabbed at half-past nine. He had not been
imbibing the blessed truths of a new religion, but the
inspiriting viands of a Mott street Chinese grocery.
That makes no difference, at any rate to you or to me.
To the District Attorney’s mind it does–the greatest
difference. He is bound to have that Sunday School
in his case. It would be so much more dramatic, so
much more impressive, to have had the murder occur
just as the Chinaman was putting his redeemed foot
on the safe and sacred ark of the Covenant.
Perhaps, by exaggerating the guilt of the person
who was really guilty he might supply the deficiency
in the proof that Corcoran was that person. He seems
to think so; I do not.
Why do I allude to these things? Do I wish the
District Attorney to try my side of the case for me !
No, gentlemen, I have the vanity to believe I can do
that myself. I do not even care whether or not he is
fair and judicial, though he ought to be so. I only
wish you to remember whether or not he is so in es-
timating what he may hereafter say. Of course his
intentions are all right; I don't doubt his sincerity.
He really thinks Corcoran guilty. These private de-
tectives have poured his brain full of rumors and
clues, which he has taken for gospel truth. His hon-
ored chief could have told him that such reports are
rarely reliable; that they are the ignes /a/vi con-
jured up by men who have a job which pays, and
which therefore they do not wish to relinquish. My
friend here swallows it tºl, and it inflames his zeal to
white heat. Of course he is not animated by any
desire to win his case at the expense of justice; that
cannot be possible. It would argue an unjust mind,
and so, unfitness for a most responsible place. I
make no such argument or charge. No ; nor have I
any personal quarrel; I only quarrel with my friend's
methods. Iſe believes he is right, and so “trifles
light as air are to his mind confirmation strong as

26
proofs of Holy Writ.” The trifling discrepancies of
witnesses in describing a moving scene are to him evi-
dence that they are perjured villains. If he were in a
candid frame of mind they would be to him the best
evidence in the world that the witnesses were telling
the truth with as much accuracy, even as to immaterial
detail, as is possible.
I don't care, gentlemen, what the District Attor-
ney's frame of mind is, beyond wishing that you
should know what it is. When he begins to make
assertions in his final speech as he did in his opening,
I want you to consider how much is assertion and how
much is fact ; how much is evidence and how much
is imagination. When he brings in an immense infer-
ence I want you to examine the size of the fact which
he will tell you is its legitimate parent.
We are not at liberty to imagine this case was
opened without a knowledge of the facts. Each one
must have been examined, weighed, inspected and
marched in review, even before he sent out Cooper and
Neniger to try and muster in recruits.
If so many errors, so many misapprehensions of
fact, so many unsupported assertions could occur in
a short opening, what may we not expect in the sum-
ming up . I shall have no opportunity to reply,
therefore I take this time (my only opportunity) to
put you on your guard against exaggeration, against
misstatement, against suggestion unsupported by evi-
dence, againstinnuendo, against shakings of the head,
and all this “I-could-if-I-would' sort of business.
How much there will be I can only infer from what
there has been. It will all be quite innocuous if you
will only watch and see to it that nothing but the evi-
dence and fair reasoning upon it are permitted to in-
fluence your minds. -
I just now alluded to the fact that the District At-
torney, in opening the case, using the editorial “we,”
excluded, by ignoring, us who defend. Perhaps to
his mind it is an impertinence for anybody to defend.

27
Possibly he looked upon me as an intermeddler. In
a certain sense he is right. I am certainly a volunteer,
but not a mercenary. You have seen enough of the
prisoner, his family and friends to know they have
not the means to pay me for the labor and anxiety of
this trial, My interest in the case is not pecuniary.
I was told this boy was innocent. I saw a decent
though poor family plunged in the deepest distress.
I saw a mother, young and comely, though she has
grown up children, whose hair has whitened with
grief at the arrest of her son. I saw this little family,
and this little lad, pressed to the wall, without the
means to pay counsel.
I hope you will not impute it to me for a fault that
I was moved by their distress.
Most, nearly all, of the men arraigned at this bar
are guilty. And yet I have seen men as innocent as
any one of you walk out of that door to a felon’s
doom, because they were not half defended and did
not get fair play. No matter why, the fact was so.
The memory of one case in which I was concerned
comes to me now. With your permission I will re-
late it to you:
Some years ago an English brig, The Maſano, lay
in our harbor. She had discharged her cargo and was
ready to return home. Her captain was her owner.
His family, a wife and several little children, were
with him. He had on board the freight money re-
ceived for his outward trip. In the dead of night the
vessel was boarded by a band of masked ruffians and
robbed. The captain was shot through the leg. His
little children were held head downwards over the side
of the vessel, with a threat to drop them into the
Water unless the captain delivered up his money. It
Was a horrible, blood-curdling case, The public were
much excited. Two men, Carroll and Dugan, river
thieves by occupation, were arrested. I conducted
the trial of Carroll. His identity was sworn to by
the captain's wife and one other person. Yet
28
the faces of the robbers had been masked, and
the only light on board the ship was a single kerosene
lamp. Carroll proved an alibi by three or four wit-
nesses. But it was a grog shop alibi, and the wit-
messes were persons of low character. The Judge who
presided was prone to believe everybody guilty. I
more than doubted the guilt of the accused, and re-
fused to sum up the case. I ought to have protested
against a conviction; but I permitted myself to be
overruled by the Judge, who charged the prisoner into
the states prison. The doctrine of reasonable doubt
was only mentioned to be sneered at. The jury at
once convicted ; the prisoner was promptly sentenced
to twenty years in the states prison. The next morn-
ing he sent a note asking me to come and see him in
the Tombs. I went, heard what he had to say, and
observed his manner of saying it. He convinced me
that he was innocently convicted. You may imagine
my feelings; I had failed in my duty the day before;
I had by such failure permitted an innocent man to be
convicted. It seemed to me as if twenty years in the
state prison were fitter, because juster, for me than
for him. If you have human hearts which would be
heavy if you felt that you had helped to put a terri-
ble wrong upon a fellow man, you can imagine what
was the condition of mine. The authorities kept the
man here out of deference to my feelings, and finally,
after many months, at my earnest entreaty, Gov. Dix
pardoned both Carroll and Dugan. It was subse-
quently ascertained, and by their own confession,
that the masked men who robbed Mr. Soutter on
Staten Island, and Mr. Emmet in Westchester County
were the persons who committed the robbery for which
Carroll and Dugan were tried, convicted and con-
demned. I need not say to you that experience made
me careful ever afterwards. When I resigned the
office of Assistant District Attorney, one critic was
good enough to say of me, “He was always just and
fair, and never tried to win a case which he ought not


















29
to win.” Something else as well as my vanity makes
me wish to believe the writer was correct. He had no
knowledge, however, of that terrible experience which
made me careful to be fair, to see that the full legal
rights of every man were given to him, and that I did
not do or permit to be done a greater wrong than the
one I tried to punish.
Gentlemen, it was in part the recollection of that
case which made me willing to come here in this hot
Summer weather, and, without fee or reward, stand
by the side of this lad through his trial, strive to
secure fair play for him, and urge such arguments as
the evidence should permit, why he ought not to be
convicted.
I would like to offset some humane deed against
the moral cowardice of which I have always felt I was
then guilty. -
I said “without fee or reward.” I ought not to
have said so; I am not so unselfish ; I do expect a
reward. Unlike Mr. Neniger, the people's detective,
I have been reared to believe in the Bible. I am not
pious—far from it, but still I hope that in the judg-
ment day, when we are all before the great Allseeing
Judge, and my record is read, full of sin and wicked-
ness, until I would fain hide my face for very shane,
I hope, I hope—I know not why—but I hope I may
hear the voice of the Master, saying, “Sick and in
prison and you visited me,” and then I shall look up, if
I dare, into his face and say, “When saw I you sick
and in prison and visited you?” And He will say “In-
asmuch as you did unto the least of these, my chil-
dren, you did it unto Me.”
I neither ask nor expect that my name may, like
Abou Ben Adam's, lead all the rest, “ because he
loved his fellow men;' but I shall at least have the
satisfaction of thinking that I did not refuse to hu-
man sorrow human sympathy; that I did not withhold
my hand when another's was outstretched to me for
help; that I did not forget the days of my own youth and


30
poverly because a little good fortune had come to me;
that I had not lost my compassion for the poor, nor
my resentment against an injustice when done to an-
other as well as to myself; that I could still repeat,
without a feeling of self-condemnation, those words
of Pope's Universal Prayer:
“Teach me to feel another's woe,
To hide the fault I see;
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.”
It may be in bad taste to say so much of myself.
It would be unquestionably so if I had no other pur-
pose than to make a boast of charity. She vaunteth
not herself. I have another purpose. Ifrankly avow
it. I wish to secure for the argument I am about to
make your best attention and most favorable conside
eration; and I imagine, perhaps wrongly, that if you
know the reasons why I am here, and my relations to
the case, you will give to what I may say a weight
which it might of itself want, for no one can know
better than I do my lack of ability. Others are able
to adorn and embellish their speech by beautiful
figures of rhetoric. What I have to say will have
only the truth to commend it to your consideration.
I venture, too, to hope that when you see agentle-
man of fair position, willing to desert his ease in these
sultry, lazy days, to fight for fair play to this little
lad, you may not think it too great a contribution on
your part to be human, and just, and fair to him,
when you yourselves come to deal with the case.
It is an unfortunate time for any man charged with
murder to be tried. Since this trial began the Presi-
dent has been shot down by a cowardly tramp. If we
could we would like to do immediate execution upon
the assassin. In the freshness and heat of our indig-
nation we are hardly in a proper frame of mind to ac-
quit any one charged with murder, no matter how
innocent. I will find such consolation against this

31
misfortune—greater to my client than to us, for he
not only shares the public calamity, but it increases
the likelihood of stern, harsh and violent judgment
against him, I will find, I say, such consolation as I
may, in the fact that the President's assassin was not
a bad boy, as my client is represented to be, but a
good boy, the son of a bank cashier, a Sunday School
pupil and teacher; even an exhorter, and in Brooklyn,
yea, in Plymouth Church he lifted up his voice. I
mention this not to reproach the church, for he was
not its product; but simply to remind you that it is
not always the boys who play in the streets, skylark
and talk slang that turn out to be the criminals, tramps,
villains and assassins of the world.
The District Attorney has conducted this case as if
it were Sunday School and anti-Sunday School. It is
not ; but since he has chosen so to treat it, you will
pardon me if I take the liberty to insist that Guiteau
belongs entirely to him, and has no fellowship what-
ever with us.
This is not, let me say, a case of the Irish against
the Chinese. I have no doubt it is so regarded by the
Chinese. It seems also to be so treated by the District
Attorney. They are both mistaken. I don’t believe
one of you is an Irishman; I am glad of it. I wished
it so, because I do not wish to owe the verdict of
acquittal, which I expect, to any race prejudice. I
desire it, to be one which will protect the boy’s good
name in the future.
We may have our individual views on the subject
of Chinese emigration. I confess, as a question of
national policy, I am opposed to giving our heritage
over to the heathen ; but they are lawfully here, and
are entitled to the protection of our laws, the same as
anyone else. I neither ask nor expect any different
treatment for my client than if the deceased were of
our own people and a personage of great importance.
This is not a question of race, but of fact and law.
Whatever his race, if Corcoran is guilty, he must

32
suffer condemnation ; and so, whatever his race, if he
is not guilty, not a hair of his head must be harmed.
I have said we ask no mercy, no compassion; so we
ask nothing from race prejudice. All we wantis fair-
ness, humanity and common sense. The law and the
common rules of judgment, long and well established,
let them be applied to this case—that is all.
This case is of great importance. All homicide
cases are. Whoever did this deed ought to be pun-
ished. No one shall exceed me in earnestness in say-
ing that. It will be unfortunate if he be not found.
It will be almost a reproach upon our laws and their
administration; at any rate it will be so regarded by
the Chinese. I feel how that consideration is fraught
with danger to the man on trial. But, gentlemen, it
is not so important that somebody should be punished
as to make it desirable to hang an innocent man. Let
us not do a greater wrong than the one we seek to
punish. Let us not ourselves murder the innocent
because we don’t just at present know who is the
guilty. I know there are those who, like the “debil-
tated relative” in Bleak House, think it “better to
hang the wrong 'fler than no 'fler.” Let me hope that
no man mentally akin to the debilitated relative sits
in the panel before me.
I should feel it my duty to apologize for taking up
so much time in preliminary discussion were it not
that I think it in strictly accurate proportion. The
incidents, surroundings, inuendos and created atmos-
phere about this case are its chiefest parts. The facts
are very few, the evidence is very meagre. The woods
need underbrushing. We want sunlight and fresh
air. The malaria which pervades this room has de-
stroyed lives in more ways than one.
Do not then, I pray, think I waste the time which I
spend in trying to eliminate those things which I fear
may wrongly participate in and influence your judg-
ment.
Now, gentlemen, I must ask your attention to a few

33
common place rules of law by which your deliber-
ations ought to be conducted. I have submitted them
to the Court, and am permitted to say that they meet
with its approval. It will not therefore be necessary
to do more than state them.
In the first place, in all criminal trials, the accused
is presumed to be innocent; that is to say, you are not
to start in with the assumption that a man is guilty
because he is held, indicted and on trial. To some
that is quite enough to warrant conviction. They may
want a little evidence, but a very little will do. An
oath to render a true verdict, according to the evi-
dence, is an unmeaning formality to them.
Not until the evidence rebuts and overcomes the
presumption of innocence can you justly dismiss it
from your minds. It won’t do to say, Chinamen have
been abused by boys; this prisoner is a boy, there-
fore he probably killed the Chinaman. That would
be somewhat violent logic without this presumption
of law. But when, if it shall be the case, any one of
your number employs reasoning, of which I have
given a sample, I beg him who attends to what I have
said, and to what the Court will charge, to remind
him and his fellows of this rule of law.
Then the burden of proof is upon the prosecution.
By that is meant that it is the business of the prose-
cution to prove the accused guilty, not the prisoner's
business to prove himself innocent.
Many jurors reverse the rule practically. You must
not. It is for the District Attorney to make out his
case; not, let me say, by sneers, by insinuations, by
big inferences from little facts, but by evidence which
satisfies of guilt.
He must satisfy you beyond reasonable doubt.
What is meant by that . I have heard it stated
many times, and, saving his Honor's presence, never
well. What is reasonable doubt? Not timidity; not
Cowardice. It is a conviction so clear as to be without
serious misgivings, so clear that a prudent man would

34
be willing to act with firm confidence when interests of
his own were to be hazarded. It is said to be wonderful
with what equanimity we bear the misfortunes of oth-
ers. It is almost as wonderful how little doubt of the
correctness of their human and fallible judgment some
men have, when another, and not themselves, is to be
the sufferer. Are you clearly of opinion, on the evi-
dence, that the prisoner is guilty When you say so,
does not the instinct of justice in your nature seize
your tongue and try to recall the judgment . If it
does, you have reasonable doubt; if it does not, let
the axe fall on this young head.
In the consideration of ascertained facts, where
they are capable of two interpretations, one consistent
with innocence, the other with guilt, it is the duty of the
jury, and they are bound, to accept that consistent
with innocence rather than the other. This rule I
shall invoke in the consideration of the prisoner's
flight on the Friday night following the homicide.
Now, however, I am concerned only to state the rule,
not to make the application.
Every hypothesis but that of guilt must be ex-
cluded, That is to say, in order to convict you must
be able to say the evidence does not leave room to
suppose the prisoner innocent. Can you say that .
Does this proof mount to such certainty that you can
say: No, this man can’t be innocent ; he must be
guilty. Away with him.
You are bound as a matter of law to presume that
this boy has a fair character, and there has been no
evidence tending in the slightest degree to disturb that
presumption. You have heard that he is honestly
and regularly employed. You have seen him here
day after day. You have not conversed with him as
I have, and yet you can scarcely have failed to see
that he is mild mannered and good natured. Malig-
nant murder does not look out of those gentle eyes.
They brim with fun and frolic, not with hatred, ma-
lignity and murder. It is a frank, open, amiable, I

35
might almost say, handsome face. To one at least, his
poor Irish mother, there is not a handsomer among
all the sons of men. You have seen his father, a re-
spectable man, for twenty-seven years employed in
Devlin's, decent, intelligent, honest. He looks not
like the sire of a race of murderers. His sisters have
been here. I will not remark upon them. The Dis-
trict Attorney thought it of importance to prove that
the younger was guilty of what, at the very most, was
a little harmless levity; whaf, I insist, was the natural
conduct of a nervous, inexperienced, excitable girl,
about to be called as a witness.
“What,” says the District Attorney, “throw up
her hands and go through the pantomime of an oath,
and then laugh!”
How awful! How very awful! How quite too far
beyond most awfully awful!
Can’t and bosh! Suppose she did! What of it?
And the more his giant intellect struggles to make
you condemn this nervous and excitable young girl
because of a very natural act, the more ready, I ven-
ture to say, will you be to condemn him for thinking
it a matter to be lugged into this case, exaggerated
and made much of by him. You have seen Corcoran’s
father, his sisters, and if you looked over into the far
corner of the room you might have seen his bright
eyed little brother. His mother you have not seen.
She is too much overcome with grief and anxiety to
be here. I feared if she came, bringing her anxious,
loving, mother's heart, her head whitened with sorrow
because of her boy’s arrest, her agonized face and
streaming eyes, it might be said I brought her here to
elicit your sympathy. She might make a scene. I
hope I am above the vulgarity of parading a broken-
hearted woman to make capital of her anguish.
Gentlemen, I practice no such arts. We do not ask
sympathy. This boy will be acquitted justly and on
the merits, or not at all. And so I sent word to his
mother: “Be of good cheer, poor woman, God will

36
not desert you; I will stand by your boy, and see
that no injustice is done him ; you stay at home.”
And there she is, gentlemen, walking up and down
the floor, clasping her whitened and fevered head in
her hands, lifting her eyes in prayer to God and the
Holy Mother in whom she trusts, hoping, fearing,
trembling, thinking one moment she hears her boy’s
footsteps on the stairs, and the next that she hears the
clank of a prison chain,
But I must beg your pardon, Iought not to digress.
I was stating a cold rule of law, the legal presumption
of good character. Without such a presumption.
what do you see in this boy's surroundings, his fam-
ily, himself, his conduct or his face, which leads you
to think that without provocation, or even acquaint-
ance, he is of a character quick to do wanton murder.
It is the custom of an eminent and most eloquent
lawyer, of my acquaintance, to speak of these common-
place rules which I have been stating as the “benig-
nant principles of the law.” I do not regard them as
especially benignant. They spring from a common
sense of justice, of fairness and of decency. What a
cruel and wicked monster would the law be without
them. Civilization would be worse than barbarism,
order worse than anarchy, human liberty a mockery
and sham.
The rules I have stated are not refined and subtle.
They do not partake of what is called legal technical-
ity. They are plain, commonplace, simple; yet when
their mild, clear rays have beamed for ever so short a
time on the little mists which prejudice, mistake and
over-zeal have created, how do those mists fade away
into thin air. The malaria is dispelled. We breathe
the free, pure air again.
I do not discuss degrees of murder and manslaugh
ter. I have been made acquainted with the views of
the Court on that subject and do not differ from them.
If I did it would make no difference, as you are bound
to take the law from the Court.

37
Besides, I do not ask a refinement about degrees.
I am not in the auction business or horse trade, and I
decline to follow a bad example.
If you can convict this lad at all on this evidence,
I see no likelihood of your pausing to consider such
trifles as degrees. An argument might be made that
whoever killed the deceased meant only to injure, not
to kill, but I shall not make it. I am not willing to .
confound my client with the wanton ruffian who did
the deed by making any argument or suggestion on
behalf of the latter. When he is caught I shall not
be sorry if you hang him, for he has taken one life
and now another is in peril for his crime.
If you convict Corcoran at all, it makes little differ-
ence of what you convict him. The gibbet has for
him no greater terrors than the prison. The word
“guilty” falling from the lips of your foreman, what-
ever words follow it, means to him a blighted, ruined,
miserable life. The iron will have entered his soul,
and no hand can pluck it out.
In one thing a convict is like the Son of Man; he
has not thenceforth where to lay his head.
We ask no compromise verdict, gentlemen. Our
struggle is not to reduce degrees. We say this boy
did not do this murder. That is the issue. I am un-
willing it should be obscured by any other. On that
one issue we make our fight.
What is the evidence from which the prosecution
claim your verdict, saying that beyond all reasonable
doubt Corcoran was the slayer of Lee Teep The
identification of the three Chinamen, under circum-
stances which I shall presently discuss, and the fact
that Corcoran ran on the following Friday night at
the same time three Chinamen happened to come
along.
Distort and contort the evidence as much as you
please, Mr. District Attorney, that is all there is of it.
Blow it up until it seems like a big balloon obscuring
the heavens. We shall prick that balloon and show it

38
to be a bubble. You may be able to make one bit of
evidence, or one fact, do duty in a variety of places,
as in a badly equipped theatre one actor fills many
parts, but we shall recognize it every time, and you
can’t count it but once.
If the evidence you have furnished is enough to
convict, you will win your case; if it is not, this other
business—all these arts and tactics—shall not win,
shall not take away from this boy his liberty, and
ruin his young life, if we can get anything like fair
play from an American jury.
It was not difficult, gentlemen, to present this evi-
dence to you. It was all before the Coroner's jury.
This array of private counsel, a Chinese ambassador,
the clergy, this army of private detectives, have not
added one jot or tittle to it. -
If all these supernumeraries had devoted a small
part of the time and energy which, they have spent
in gathering the fag ends of rumors, and the
street slang of a lot of boys with which to try and
insinuate a conviction of Corcoran, in trying to find
out and track the real murderer, they would, I think,
have been better employed. That sort of thing may
do for the District Attorney. Rumors and clues he
thinks quite enough. A jury requires something
more substantial.
No motive, general or special was shown for Cor-
coran to do this murder. Men rarely do desperate
deeds without a motive, Stokes killed Fisk because
they quarreled over their money and their harlots.
Dolan killed Mr. Noe because Mr. Noe sought to
apprehend him while stealing. Chastine Cox killed
Mrs. Hull because he feared she would make an out-
cry and cause his arrest. When the really guilty are
found their motive is always proved directly or indi-
rectly. Corcoran had no motive at all to kill Lee
Teep. None is shown, and you are not at liberty to
find a fact of which there is no evidence. It appears
that Corcoran never knew Lee Teep at all, nor any of

39
these Chinese witnesses, his companions. It is not
shown that Corcoran had any prejudice against the
Chinese. He is not in a business to be injured by
them. He drives an express wagon. They wash dirty
clothes. These private detectives with all their mis-
directed energy, are not able to bring to you even the
rumor of one act or word on the part of Corcoran
indicating that he bore the slightest hostility, either
race or individual; towards the deceased.
But it will be said, whoever did the deed had no
motive. That is just what we don’t know.
Perhaps he was one of those “workingmen” who
do no work, whose wives support them by taking in
washing. The rivalries of business sometimes create
enmity. Perhaps he was a Denis Kearney, and had
extreme and pronounced views on the subject of Chi-
nese emigration. Perhaps he was a theologian and
theorist, like the pious Mr. Guiteau. Who can say
he was not . The most you can say is you don’t know
whether he was or not. Possibly, full of missionary
zeal and memories, he wished to slip the Chinaman
into heaven before he should have time to backslide.
Perhaps he was the personal enemy of the deceased,
or mistook Lee Teep for an enemy. Possibly some
Chinese washerman had torn his shirts and he had
sworn a dire revenge. It is said a torn or buttonless
shirt has introduced discord into many families, where
all was love and sweetness before. I once knew a
gentleman who behaved with great rudeness to an el-
egant lady for no other reason than that she bore the
same name as a washerwoman who had torn his shirts.
But supposewego the full length of assuming what
we do not know, and say, whoever stabbed Lee Teep
had no motive. Canit then, with good reason, be said
it may as well have been the prisoner as any one else.
He might as justly say it may as well have been you.
Let us not flounder in a sea of possibilities. Ab-
sence of motive is always a circumstance strongly
tending to show an accused person innocent. It is
40
not fair to say, the prisoner had no motive to kill Lee
Teep; we don’t know whether any one else had or
not; we haven't found out who did it; it may have been
Corcoran, and for fear we may not discover who it was,
we will punish Corcoran. That is the way they doin
China. I have somewhere read that it is the law and
custom in China, when an offense is committed, to ar-
rest some one in the neighborhood and inflict punish-
ment on him, if the guilty person is not discovered.
We are not yet ready to introduce that law and cus-
tom here. The most enthusiastic advocate of emigra-
tion, of Chinese cheap labor, however anxious he may
be to have his shirts cheaply washed, even if they
have to be spat upon to make them clean, is not de-
sirous of importing Chinese laws, morals or ethics.
Whoever killed Lee Teep without a motive must have
been a man of bad character—a wanton ruffian. Is
not that so . Corcoran you are bound to presume a
man of good character. Whence then comes the like-
lihood that he would do a deed which only a man of
bad character is likely to do.
Do I then claim more than I am of right entitled to
when I say that the failure of proof of any motive in
this prisoner is a failure on a most important point,
and helps to sustain the probability that not he, but
some other person did the deed whereof he is accused?
You, gentlemen, are to judge. -
Let me state it again. To do such a horrible deed
as murder must have a motive; or, when done without
motive, its perpetrator must be a man of bad charac-
ter. The accused had no motive. He is a man of
good character.
Some one else then, probably, did this murder. Is
there anything strained or sophistical in my reason-
ingº Is it not simple, fair and yet conclusive . It is
a plain proposition. The law requires that the evi-
dence shall exclude every hypothesis but that of guilt
before any man can be convicted. I invite the Dis-




41
trict Attorney’s attention to this proposition when he
comes to sum up. -
In asking you to convict the District Attorney is
compelled to ask you to say these Chinamen could not
be mistaken in their identification of a stranger, whom
they saw only a moment, in the darkness, on the street,
two months ago, and that when a boy runs in a
crowded thoroughfare, in the Chinese quarter, at the
same time that three Chinamen happen to be going
by, the only possible reason is that he had murdered
a Chinaman the week before. To simply state the
proposition is to let you see how weak are the tim-
bers of which they would construct a gallows for this
poor lad. Does it need that I should argue against
it Does it need that I should suggest that China-
men, like the rest of mankind, may be mistaken &
Why, the people's witness, Dr. Allen, who conducted
the identification at St. Vincent's hospital, in whose
presence and view Corcoran was at least ten minutes,
in daylight, could not identify him here in this court
room. He is a man of education, of intelligence
and character. But he is only an American. He
isn’t a Chinaman, and cannot perform their feats of
memory. What if I should say, gentlemen, that the
difference between him and Ah Sin is that the Doctor
is careful and conscientious, while Ah Sin, like a cer-
tain other Ah Sin, may be up to “ways that are dark
and tricks that are vain’’ in the eagerness of his de-
sire to have a Melican man hanged because a China-
man was stabbed by some Melican man or other.
May I not say, without your feeling that I have
done violence to your reasoning faculties, that there
might be many reasons why a boy should run in the
street, besides that he had committed murder a week
before.
The facts in evidence, taken singly or bound to-
gether, are not very powerful, They scarcely do more
than excite a strong suspicion. They certainly do
42
not carry such conviction as to exclude every hypoth-
esis of innocence beyond all reasonable doubt.
Let me discuss a little more analytically this busi-
ness of identification.
Suppose the witnesses were our own people, whom
we could understand, gauge and measure. In the
first place I more than doubt whether they would be
willing to swear to identity so positively. As ground
for my doubt, I beg to remind you of Dr. Allen's tes-
timony, to which I have already alluded.
But suppose these witnesses were Americans, and
did swear to identity, would we stake a human life on
the certainty of their correctness? We should first
wish to know all about their character, their honesty,
their conscientiousness, their memory, their power, op-
portunity and habits of observation. If quite satisfied
of their intelligence and honesty, we should still re-
member the hundreds of instances in which wit-
nesses as honest and intelligent were mistaken.
Many such instances are within our own experience
and observation. It won’t do. It won’t do. The wit-
nesses may be right, but the hazard is too great. He
would, indeed, be a reckless man who would risk the
life or happiness of another on such slender testimony.
Let me recall the circumstances. The stabbing
took place at nearly half-past nine o'clock, on the night
of April 24th. At that time of the year it was fully
dark at eight o'clock. The assault occurred not under
the gas light, but at least fifty feet away from it.
You know how many illusions of vision artificial
lights produce. The time of observation was but a
“moment,” according to Kwong Tong; “fifteen
seconds,” according to Ah Sin, There was a sudden
meeting, a blow, a remonstrance, a stab, and the stab-
ber ran away. The attention of the witnesses must
necessarily have been directed more to the action than
to the actors in such a scene, more to the moving arm
and hand than to the face. The assailant probably
had on a hat concealing part of his face. Four per-



















43
sons were present. The witnesses must have met
others as they walked along, both before and after
the assault, so that the impressions of one face was
chased away by that of another before it became fixed,
as in the case with you when you walk abroad. Peo-
ple in cities are not in the habit of remembering and
discriminating the faces they meet. Country people
do somewhat more, because they see few strangers,
and them at long intervals.
Now, how much confidence would you have in
an identification made by three Americans under such
circumstances? Do I go too far when I say you would
not, after your own experience and observation, not to
mention the mistakes you have read of by honest wit-
nesses, be willing to hazard money, much less a hu-
man being's life on it, however sincere; and certainly
not, without being absolutely certain, the witnesses
were conscientious. It has happened to every one of
you to be mistaken for some one else whose resem-
blance to you seemed to you very slight. Even near
friends have been sure they saw you at a time and
place where you were not. To how many have you
said, “Sir, you have the advantage of me.” How
many have said the same thing to you. To how many
have you said, “Your face is familiar, but I can’t
quite place you,” when the first part of your state-
ment was—a piece of politeness. These mistakes con-
stantly happen as to persons whom you know, or
ought to know. How many more as to the strangers
you meet and pass in this bustling, crowding, work-
a-day world !
Apply your observation and experience in deter-
mining whether or not, because witnesses say they
identify, you can feel sush certainty that there is no
mistake as to crush out this young life, without a
doubt or misgiving.
I do not cite the cases of mistaken identity of
which you have read; they may be more or less
apochryphal. I aim to avoid everything doubtful, or
44
far fetched, and will not ask you to go beyond your
own observation and experience.
Try, if you please, to recall the faces of the
strangers whom you met at night a week ago, or even
last night, and then say how far this identification,
looked at most favorably, is reliable.
It is less reliable because these witnesses are of
another race. As we have great difficulty and require
some time of observation to distinguish one Chinaman
from another, so they must have the same difficulty
as to us. They all look alike to us. Is it not so 4.
We observe at first only race peculiarities. Individual
characteristics we are not prepared to remark till we
have known them some time. - -
Some of you on the jury are Germans. Were
you not in this country some years before you could
tell one negro from another Are any of you bach-
elors? Do not all babies look alike to you? To us who
are Benedicts, and doing something for our country,
babies are distinct and individual, and, of course,
mine is handsomer and finer than any of yours.
The difficulties we have with them, the Chinese
have with us. This is not a matter of conjecture with
me. A lady of my acquaintance recently told me of
a conversation with the wife of the Japanese Minister.
My friend said, “I can’t distinguish people of your
race from each other; they all seem to have little al-
mond eyes.” Mrs. Yoshida replied, “I have the
same trouble as to your people; they all seem to have
great big eyes and I see nothing else.” -
One of these witnesses, Ah Sin, had been in this
country only three months; the other, Kwong Tong,
less than a year. -
I have thus far discussed only in a general way
the objections to an identification of this kind. Let
us now consider the individuals on whose testimony
it rests. These Chinamen have a strong desire to
find a victim: they bring with them the ideas of law
and justice which prevai in their own country: they















45
think Lee Teep was foully murdered because he was
a Chinaman. They wish revenge, not unnaturally.
They think it is a war of races. A “Melican º' man has
killed a Chinaman; a Melican man should hang for
it—they don't much care who, Haushalter or Corcoran,
both or either. They think the safety of their race,
and their individual safety, depends on somebody’s
being hung for Lee Teep's murder. So they went
near where he was stabbed, saw a lot of boys, some of
whom, perhaps, had at some time or other toyed with
their sacred pigtails. They picked out one. Really
they didn't care which one. They said “Yam, yam. ”
to the officer, and Johnny Corcoran was led like a lamb
to the slaughter. Afterwards, having asserted an im-
pression, they felt bound to reassert and stick to it.
They have been asked so many times if they are
“sure” that now they feel as if they were putting an
imputation on their own intelligence not to be “sure.”
They imagine it must be something to the discredit of
a Chinaman not to be “sure.” So every time they
are asked they are surer than they ever were before.
What was it in their manner, what hesitation, what
doubtful expression which led every one to ask them
again and again, as the testimony shows they did, if
they were “sure ?' Why should the question be so
many times repeated if there was not something which
indicated to the questioners that there was a doubt,
that they were not “sure ?” Can you be quite sure
they are “sure,” in the best sense, when every one
who conversed with them then seems to have been so
doubtful? -
What was there about these men personally, which
would lead you to put a confidence in their identifica-
tion which you would deny to your own countrymen
What do you know about their morals . Nothing.
Yes, one is about to desert the religion of his fathers
and is “not quite converted '' to another. At this
unsatisfactory point my inquiry was stopped, as you
Will remember, by the Court. What is his present
46
moral state : Can you tell? How . Can you tell well
enough to say that he would be conscientiously scru-
pulous about a matter of this jºind . How do you
know that they would have any scruples at all .
What do you know about their intelligence which
induces you to bestow on them extraordinary powers
of observation and a phenomenal memory of strangers,
whom they see but an instant, on dark nights? You
heard them say through the interpreter—one that he
was a farmer in China, the other that he was a tea,
merchant. Here they are laundrymen. These are not
brain sharpening occupations, Was there something
in their manner which makes you think them persons
of surpassing natural endowment . You could not
understand a word they said. They got our questions
filtered through an interpreter; we their answers fil-
tered in the same way. After a long jabber, in which
the interpreter seemed to have great difficulty, evenia
their own language, to make them understand, he gave
us their reply as “yes” or “no.” How do you know
to a certainty that they even correctly understood our
questions and we their answers? -
They tell us they identified Corcoran by a red
mark on his cheek. That mark was a pimple. They
placed it first on one cheek and then the other. When
Corcoran was arrested nothing was said about any
pimple. The officer swears he saw no pimple. Dr.
Allen swears he saw none the next day. The fact
turns out to be that the pimple was the product of
Tombs' fare. It came after Corcoran was imprisoned.
He had it at the Coroner's inquest. These Chinamen.
pressed there to say by what they identified Corcoran,
looked at him as he sat before them, saw the pimple, and
said, “by thered mark on his cheek.” We have proved
to you not only by Corcoran's family, but by officer
Hart and Dr. Allen, the prosecution's witnesses, who
certainly manifested no friendship to us, that when
Corcoran was arrested he didn't have the pimple or
any other mark on his cheek. Were these “not quite


47
converted * Celestials mistaken, or was this bit of tes-
timony an exhibition of one of the little peculiarities
of those whose “smile it is childlike and bland.”
The first one examined, Ah Sin, pinned his identi-
fication to the pimple alone, so far as any distinc-
tive mark was concerned. The District Attorney
had opened on another mark, the prisoner's thick
lips. He led Ah Sin up to that subject four several
times, each time directing him to look at the prisoner.
The witness balked every time. There was nothing
about Corcoran's lips to attract his attention there or
here. Neither the halter nor the corkscrew could
make him say there was. One pimple was enough
for him to swear away a man’s life on, Whoever
would ask more was a doubting Thomas, not willing
to do justice to a Chinaman. -
Kwong Tong, when called, included the lips with
the pimple as his means of identification. Kwong
Tong had been sitting in this room and heard his com-
panion examined. He saw what he was wanted to
swear to. So he did not balk at so small a thing as a
pair of lips. But, gentlemen, when his attention was
called to his deposition at the Coroner's inquest, and
to the fact that he said nothing there as to the pris-
oner's lips; but, like his companion, Ah Sin, pinned
the faith of his identification to the pimple, he was
compelled to admit that here, for the first time, had
he said anything about Corcoran's lips. And his
smile, too, was childlike and bland,
Ah Sin swore he saw Corcoran stab Lee Teep
twice. All the evidence shows that there was only
one stab. Kwong Tong saw only one. There was
only one cut, not a scratch anywhere else. Ah! Ah
Sin, you were mistaken about this. But the District
Attorney will argue to you, gentlemen, that he can’t
be mistaken about anything else. The necessities of
his case demand that he should. -
They could not describe how Corcoran was dressed,
nor even what was the general color of his clothes,
48
nor what kind of a hat he had on. They said they
“ didn't notice,” I don’t suppose they did. Let me
remind you, gentlemen, that I didn't sneer at them be-
cause they so testified, as our witnesses were sneered
at, and not alone by the District Attorney, because
they could not describe the dress of the two females
who passed up the stoop on Friday night. The effort
was to make you think the boys were shameless per-
jurers in saying there were any women at all, since
they could not tell how they were dressed, Yet you
will be asked to believe these Chinamen credible be-
yond reasonable doubt or the possibility of mistake,
when they tell you that Corcoran was the man who
killed Lee Teep, but can give no better account of his
dress than the boys give of the womens'.
One rule for the boys, another for the Chinamen.
The same thing which makes the boys liars makes the
Chinamen worthy of belief. This is, indeed, even-
handed justice, with a vengeance.
True, the women were not important actors in the
scene of Friday night, whereas it is alleged Corcoran
was in that of Sunday. All the more reason why the
Chinese should remember how Corcoran was dressed,
and why the boys should not remember how the ladies
were dressed. Is it not :
Treat the prosecution as it treats us. Treat their
witnesses as they treat ours. Use against them the
same reasoning they use against ours. A little even-
handed justice and fair play ! If, then, there were no
women on Friday night, because the boys can’t de-
scribe their dress, how can the prosecution claim
they have established that it was Corcoran whom their
witnesses saw on Sunday night, when they can give
no description whatever of his dress. In view of what
transpired here, I beg to be permitted to commend the
consideration of this suggestion to the Court. I invite
the District Attorney to discuss it in his summing up.
Iimagine I shall be able to listen to him without losing
my composure. -















49
I have purposely abstained, up to this time, from
speaking of one matter, because I wish to consider it
by itself. It, alone, is able to break and destroy the
force of this prosecution. It, alone, will open the prison
doors, and bid young Corcoran walk out and go home
to the fond and anxious mother waiting so impatiently
to fold him to her heart and cover him with her kisses
and her tears. I allude to the arrest, identification and
imprisonment of young Fritz Haushalter. He, too,
was arrested. He, too, was identified by the two Chi-
namen as one of the four persons present at the stab-
bing. They swore to him at the inquest. We brought
him here. They swore to him here. They were still
“sure” when he stood up before them here. You
saw them. You heard them. On their identificatiou
he spent a month in the Tombs, charged with murder.
He was finally discharged by a Judge of the Supreme
Court. -
We have proved by him and by the two persons
who were with him on the night of Sunday, the 24th
of April, that he was not with Corcoran at all, and
that no stabbing or assault of any kind, by anybody,
occurred in his presence that night. The District At-
torney is compelled to concede that, as to him, the
Chinese were and are mistaken. He does practically
concede it by charging that three persons, whom he
names, among whom he does not include Haushalter,
were present at the stabbing. It is then established,
and not now disputed, that Haushalter was not
present and had nothing to do with it. Yet he spent a
month in jail. He was dragged back and forth; he suf-
ered all the indignities of an arrested murderer; on the
identification of these same Chinamen. The law and its
officers make him no apology; on the contrary, the
District Attorney, while compelled to concede Hau-
shalter innocent, cross-examined him as if he lied
when he himself asserted it. Perhaps you think this
a trifling thing, Let it happen to you and you will
feel otherwise.
50
But these Chinese cannot be mistaken now ! Can
that be said . Little Fritz, it was a cruel indignity
that was put upon you; but it will not be altogether
in vain that you have suffered, if your experience shall
be the means of letting a Court and jury know what
can happen to an innocent man through a mistaken,
false and reckless identification, and it may help to
stop a greater wrong, sought to be done to another as
innocent as you were. It won’t do, gentlemen; it
won't do, thus recklessly to deal with human life and
liberty. -
It comes to this: We have proved these witnesses
false or mistaken as to Haushalter, whom they iden-
tify, false or mistaken as to the mark by which they
identify Corcoran, false or mistaken as to the number
of stabs, unable to state how Corcoran was dressed or
anything about it, false or mistaken in everything ma-
terial to the case or their own credibility. Now we
prove them false or mistaken as to the main fact by
proving, by persons who knew Corcoran, that they
were with him elsewhere at the time these witnesses
say he stabbed Lee Teep.
I do not ask the application of the rule, “false in
one, false in all;'' I say we have proved them false or
mistaken in all. They are clearly so in all things but
one. It is probable that they are in that. It certainly
cannot be claimed that they are persons who cannot
be mistaken as to that. -
It is the duty of the prosecution to make out a
clear case of guilt beyond all reasonable doubt, by re-
liable witnesses. Are the witnesses reliable . If they
are not, a District Attorney’s certificate cannot make
them so.
How did Corcoran come to be identified First,
let me remind you that only one of the Chinamen
who were with Lee Teep when he was stabbed was
present when Corcoran was arrested. That was Kwong
Tong. He says that in pursuance of the officer's di-
rection he walked along Spring Street with two friends

















51
to see if he could pick out the man who stabbed Lee
Teep; that when he came to the stoop on which the
prisoner with other boys was sitting he at once recog-
nized Corcoran as his man, and that though he did
nothing but look, and said nothing at all, Corcoran,
who was seated, jumped up and immediately ran
a Way.
We say that these boys were seated on the stoop
talking and skylarking; that two ladies came along to
go up the stoop at the same time the Chinese were
passing; that, half in fun, half in earnest, Scott, after
telling Corcoran to get out of the way to let the ladies
pass up, pushed him out of the way; he “bunked into
one of the Chinamen,” who jumped back and made
what Corcoran thought a suspicious motion, as if to
draw a knife; that Corcoran ran a few steps and
stopped; then, seeing he was pursued by the Chi-
naman, he ran across the street and into an alleyway;
that other boys ran, too, most of them after Corcoran
and the Chinamen.
I have already argued to you that if we made no
explanation it would be a most violent inference to
say because Corcoran ran, there could, in the wide
range of human possibilities, be no other reason than
that he had murdered a Chinaman on the previous
Sunday night. There might have been a hundred rea-
sons. Boys often run for no reason at all. Miss
Kussmahl says the boys often ran when her mother
ordered them away. It may have been a mere coin-
cidence. You can’t look into his mind and say, you
ran on Friday night, you must therefore have killed a
Chinaman on Sunday night. That wouldn’t do,
would it 2
You will remember Corcoran had been out and
about this locality all the week, meeting his com-
panions, as was his habit. He did not go out of the
city or hide away. It was in the Chinese quarter. It
is fair to presume that Chinese were passing and re-
passing frequently, if not constantly. Corcoran had
52
no information that the Chinese were locking for Lee
Teep's assailant. That was a secret piece of detective
work. Ah Sin said nothing to Corcoran—did noth-
ing. Am I wrong in saying that the inference the
prosecution seek to draw is far fetched—very far
fetched; while it may be right, that is the most that
can be said of it. It certainly is not beyond all doubt
the only inference that can be drawn. And you will
remember that when a fact is susceptible of two infer-
ences, one consistent with innocence the other with
guilt, it is your bounden duty to adopt the former.
While you are considering the prisoner's run-
ning, and its tendency to show his conscious guilt, I
beg you also to consider what he said to Kruger as he
was being led away to the station house: “Don’t
tell the folks up at home.” Did that indicate that he
thought he was being arrested for murder . Or that
he thought he was being arrested for the trifling of-
fence of bunking into a man, for which he would be
so soon released that his family need not know any-
thing about it ! Remember also what he said to Peter
Monahan, who asked him what the trouble was, and
he replied, “I got pushed into a Chinaman,” I may
ask your attention to these things again, but if I should
overlook them I hope you will not. -
If Corcoran had such fear of his face being seen
and identified, as is alleged, he would not have been
about at all in the immediate vicinity of the spot where
Lee Teep was stabbed. He would have gone out of
the city, or kept out of the way for a time. That is
what the real culprit probably did.
I insist the explanation given is satisfactory, be-
cause true. It requires no straining, as does the rea-
soning of the prosecution, to make it comport with the
surrounding facts. -
Grant that the Chinese mean to tell the truth
about the events of Friday night—it is difficult to
believe they do—and that they are very careful not to
misstate. For me it is difficult to accept as a scrupu-




53
lous and conscientious witness that one who, because
he wished to convey the impression that no woman
went up the stoop at No. 66 or 68 (whichever it was),
on Friday night, was willing to go the length of swear-
ing that he met no females at all in the street that
night. Spring street is a thoroughfare; it is paraded
every night by females, who go about seeking whom
they may, I will not say devour, but pick up. The
night was warm. It was before nine o'clock. Per-
haps the street was deserted, but the perhaps is a lit-
tle too big for my credulity. It seems to me rather
that the heathen Chinee—I beg his pardon, the not-
quite-converted Chinee – was shooting with a long
bow, was swearing a little too hard. But I must not
say so. Of course he has not been advised to “stick
to one thing.” He is not a witness for the defense.
He is a witness for the prosecution. Witnesses for
the prosecution cannot lie. They go to Sunday School.
The true test of credibility apparently is, which side
is a witness called on. -
Suppose then, for the sake of the argument (though
I hate to suppose what isn’t true for any sake), these
men meant to tell the truth, in stating what they did
not see; or, seeing, did not notice. They were intent
on one thing—to find Lee Teep’s murderer. May they
not have disregarded other things, which were only
incidental : Men busy in Wall Street do not hear
Trinity clock, yet it strikes every hour. They are
otherwise occupied. Perhaps they thought when Cor-
coran bunked into them it was only a misstep in his
flight. It may be they didn't see Scott push him. It
is very difficult for any man, even the most intelligent,
to tell another's intentions and so explain his acts.
Each of us has to give frequent assurance that we did
not mean what some one thought we meant. Suppose
Corcoran was misstaken in his impression that the
Chinaman made a suspicious movement as if to draw
a knife. Shall such a mistake hang him . Have you
never seen a movement on the part of a person which
54
you misconstrued . Have you never made such a
movement 4 Did you never draw back your hand
quickly so that the person near you expected a blow
when you had no idea of giving one Did you never
make a feint or see one made 2 Did you never, when
barked at by a dog, stoop and pretend to pick up a
stone, when, in fact, there was no stone to pick up,
and you knew it?
It is not by the fact, but by what he thought in
the haste of the moment, that Corcoran’s running is
to be judged. Selfridge killed Allen in Boston, in the
street, many years ago. He was acquitted because it
was shown he did it in fear of a threatened assault.
At the time Allen did not intend, in fact, to make an
assault. Selfridge, it was held, must be judged not
by what Allen really intended, but by what Selfridge
thought he intended. This rule was a justification for
one man's killing another. You will not think I am
stretching it when I seek by it only to justify one
man's running away from another.
If Corcoran was the hardened villain to stab Lee
Teep, without provocation, why shouldn't he have
killed this other Chinaman for looking at him? That
is what we would expect. His friends were around
him, even the same persons, says the District Attor-
ney, who were with him on Sunday. The hour of the
night was about the same. The man who could wan-
tonly stab on Sunday could as well have done the
same thing on Friday.
But what is probably the truth as to the China-
men & Lee Teep had been causelessly stabbed on Sun-
day night. Perhaps these three went among persons
whom they thought his assailants and equally likely
to stab them, unarmed, as they testify, carrying only a
smile. Perhaps they left the knife they usually carry
at home, purposely. So do the “not quite converted ''
surpass Christians in forbearance. Perhaps all China-
men die of old age in China—never by violence. Per-
haps they never run a muck and end in disembowel-




55
ing themselves; perhaps they love forbearance, hate
resentment and yearn to be persecuted. Perhaps
Quimbo Appo and his son, Chinese, were not two of
the worst desperadoes New York ever saw. They
have been convicted of murder and felonious assault
several times, but it must have been because of race
prejudice.
Swallow all these perhapses and you will then be
prepared to believe that when Corcoran was pushed
against him, Kwong Tong did nothing whatever which
Corcoran could justly regard as menacing, and there-
fore his running must be like that of the wicked, who
flee when no man pursueth ; and, of course, he had
committed murder on Sunday night. But consider, I
beg, what a vast amount of supposing you have to do.
No, gentlemen, when Corcoran was pushed into
the Chinaman, the latter, angry and excited, either
reached for his knife or pretended to do so. Seeing
Corcoran run, he not unlikely reasoned that if Corco-
ran would insult him, he perhaps killed Lee Teep and
was just the man he was looking for. At any rate he
would do quite as well. You remember Solon Shin-
gle's reasoning when he saw the young men being led
away for stealing a watch: “Well, neow, if they
stole a watch, perhaps they stole my barl of apple
sass; it isn’t a question of morals with them fellers,
but one of main strength.” The Chinese farmer rea-
soned like the Jersey farmer. It was a sort of chop
logic just suited to his faculties; and so, when Corco-
ran was brought up, he identified him as Lee Teep's
murderer, just as he also identified Haushalter, as one
of his companions, when he was brought up.
Kwong Tong saw his companion of Sunday, Ah
Sin, before going to the Tombs the next day. They
live together. They were sitting together at the Court
when Corcoran was taken there. We do not know
what they said to each other. The identification by
Ah Sin I need not therefore detain you to remark up-
56
on. He merely said ditto to Kwong Tong, how and
under what circumstances we are not informed by
evidence. -
I come now to the consideration of the identifica-
tion at St. Vincent's Hospital, as to which officer Hart,
Kwong Tong, Ah Sin and Lee Leep substantially agree.
If we had heard their testimony without any cross-ex-
amination, or further testimony from other witnesses,
we should have been much impressed by it. I fancy it.
lost much of its impressiveness when we threw back
the curtains and the full light of day was let in on the
melodramatic scene. -
Before I consider that scene, perhaps, as he was
the main witness to it, I had better make some obser-
vations which I desire to make concerning officer Hart.
His testimony was quite impressively given, especially
that in which he stated how fair he himself was. It
produced a decided effect. That was a dark day for
the prisoner. Those who wished him well were gloomy
with foreboding. A dying man had said, according to
Hart, unaided and twice, ‘‘ thou art the man!” If
this trial had stopped then, and you had been called
upon to render your verdict at once, I greatly fear
Johnny Corcoran's mother would be a broken hearted
woman to-day, and Nellie Corcoran's bright face
would never again be visited by a smile. It was indeed
a dark day for my lad here, until a little cross examin-
ation let in the daylight and expelled the gloom.
I have no wish to believe, much less to charge,
harsh things against officer Hart. At the beginning,
it would seem, he thought this an unimportant case,
from which no glory was to be gained, and in such a
case he was willing to be fair. At any rate, he so im-
pressed Mrs. Mead, the prisoner's sister. Was he de-
ceiving her, as he sought to deceive us, by fair profes-
sions . He certainly was not a fair witness. He cer-
tainly suppressed what Corcoran said to Kruger after
being arrested: “Don’t tell the folks at home.” It



57.
-
-
was of importance—great importance—when you were
asked to determine the prisoner's mind from what he
did and said on that occasion, Little things are some-
times great things.
I claim that request to his friend showed the ac-
cused had no idea whatever that he was being arrested
for murder or felony, but thought he was being ar-
rested for a trifling matter and would soon be home.
Why couldn't officer Hart have stated it willingly
and fairly without compelling me to drag it from his
unwilling lips. He told the story of the identification.
at the hospital as if the wounded man picked out Cor-
coran unaided, and a second time did the same thing,
when he, Hart, at no one’s solicitation, had “mixed.
those children up,” solely from a desire, on his own
part, to give the prisoner every chance. It turned out,
and he was compelled to admit it, that the first iden-
tification was suspicious, that every one present called
out “that ain't fair or square, the big Chinaman
pointed him out;'' and that then a second identifica-
tion was had, easy enough, because Corcoran had on
his jumper and the other boys their dark clothes.
That put a very different complexion on the matter,
did it not : Why should this officer suppress it? I
asked him, you will remember. His reply was, he
“didn’t think it any of his business to state such,
things.” They belonged to the defense, That's it,
gentlemen. He really thinks that as a policeman he
is on one side of this case, and it would be unprofes-
sional to tell anything which might help the other
side. He feels that he is employed by the prosecu-
tion, or rather that he employs the prosecution. It is
his case. If he wins to him will belong the glory.
When he and his companions gather round the station
house stove and boast of their achievments, and one
tells how great a man he is, because he once “gave a
man twenty years,” and another brags how the sen-
tences he has given aggregate “two hundred and forty
58
years,” Hart will be able, if you shall so decide, to out-
shine them all in police glory, by bragging how he
“gave young Corcoran life,” on a case weak and
doubtful at best, because he “didn’t give anything
away to the defense.”
The District Attorney may think that to him
would belong the glory of winning. Hart would be
sure it belonged to him. In that controversy I am for
Hart. The District Attorney’s far-fetched reasoning,
his mighty inferences from trifling facts, his innuen-
does, his insinuations against the ‘‘ organized gang,”
indeed, all his arts and tactics can do the accused no
such harm as the suppression of the truth by a wit-
ness who ought to be, and who pretends to be, indif-
ferent and fair, but is not.
It was not enough for Hart to tell us what he
chose of what he knows about this case, and to sup-
press what he chose. When we had rested for the de-
fense, he had himself recalled and again he tried to
startle and impress us by a repetition of his testimony.
Some of the most impressive passages in that piece of
his had been spoiled. We declined to hear him speak
it again. We felt its repetition would be a bore and
stopped it. -
Hart then, flushed with his former dramatic suc-
cess, tried to impress us by informing us what he
did not know. He saw no pushing on Friday night.
He saw no ladies. He saw no boys, other than Cor-
coran, run. Gentlemen, it was about nine at night,
it was dark. Hart was on the other side of the street,
at least fifty feet back, one hundred feet away. The
street was full of passers by. There were at least nine
boys on and about the stoop and sidewalk. There
were three Chinamen. The sidewalk was narrow, not
over six feet wide.
If, in the darkness of night, at that distance, under
these circumstances, officer Hart did not see one boy
in the crowd push another against a Chinaman, or, if















59
he says he didn’t, of course you must feel quite satis-
fied that it did not occur, even when half a dozen wit=
nesses, who were right there, testify that it did.
If such a veracious and observant witness as officer
Hart saw no stars, no moon last night, no sun to day,
there were no stars, no moon, no sun. They had
“paled their ineffectual fires.”
Officer Hart thinks it none of his business to men-
tion things which tend to help the prisoner. Is it un-
just to him to say, perhaps he thinks it none of his
business to see things that tend to help the prisoner?
Let me not forget to pay my respects to these
other professional witnesses, at least to one of them,
Cooper, and lest I may elsewhere forget it I will do it
now. The other one, whose name I have at this mo-
ment forgotten, and whose infamous face I hope soon
to forget, I decline to discuss. He is one of those per-
sons whose moral chart is spread upon their faces.
You want no guide to point it out. You are not likely
to make any mistake about him. -
I will only say I am glad the credibility of our
defense does not rest upon any such witnesses as he is.
But Cooper, he of the fiery red mustache and pale
blue eye, who has been engaged a month in gathering
evidence for this prosecution—evidence which I shall
shortly discuss, and claim that, fairly considered, it
harms us not a bit. Now I discuss Cooper, as a wit:
ness. He is a private detective, has been one twelve or
fifteen years. He has found a lull in the divorce busi-
ness. Courts are unwilling to grant divorces, “with ''
or “without publicity,” on the testimony of such wit-
nesses as he is, so he gets into this case. I do not object
to that. I do say he was an unfair and untruthful wit-
ness, and therefore unreliable. And I base the charge
on what you yourselves saw and heard. If assertions
are to be made without evidence, I prefer to let them
continue, as heretofore, to be made by the District At-
torney. Mine I will prove. -

60
You heard Cooper say, the second time he was
reciting the interview with our witness Delmarsh, “I
said to him you had better not say anything that is
not so.” He replied, “I don’t intend to.” You saw
by his face at once that he regretted testifying to that.
He had meant to suppress it. He looked first at me to
see if I noticed it, and then at private counsel, in a
feeble, appealing way, as if he would say, “Forgive
me, I didn't mean to. You employed me, and I have
been chasing up these witnesses to try and get them to
say something that would tend to discredit them, and
now, in an unguarded moment, I have let the truth
drop; it shows that there was no intention on the part
of Delmarsh to tell anything but the truth. All my
well-laid plans go for nothing. The fat is all in the
fire. How could I have been so stupid!” All this
you saw in his face, did you not . The District Attor-
ney, with a nimbleness acquired in skipping about the
corners of Spring, Marion, Elm and Crosby Streets, in
the cross-examination of our witnesses, darted to an-
other branch of the case and another interview. The
color came back to Cooper's face. He was relieved. He
thought no one had observed how near he came to tell-
ing the truth and so spoiling the expected result of all
his labors. He thought no eye had seen him, no ear
heard him. His reputation as a private detective was
safe. - -
I will not say it was “a dreadful mistake.” I.
may say, without exaggeration, that he found it a
troublesome one. I had seen and heard him; so had
you. I had made a note of his testimony. When he
had peddled out all the slang he had been able to col-
lect in a month, in the 14th ward—a bright boy would
have gathered it in one day—he was turned over to
my associate for cross-examination. After some ques-
tions upon other topics, Mr. Mitchell returned to this
matter. Cooper in the meantime had regained cour-
age and composure. He had struck his swearing gait.

61
So when asked if he had not said what I have but now
repeated, he promptly denied it. Again questioned
he repeated his denial, and claimed he had said, “You
had better not swear to anything that will get you into
trouble.” To which Delmarsh had replied, “I don’t
intend to.” -
Blessed be Stenographers; they sometimes con-
found liars. There were his very words. They were
read to you,
And it is with such evidence, from such witnesses,
strained, discolored, distorted, that it is sought to
take away this little lad's good name, his liberty,
aye, his life I say it shall not be done. -
I will return now to the identification of the pris-
oner at the hospital, by the wounded man. You will
remember the testimony. I shall only call attention
to particular things, not repeat all. Suppose that iden-
tification were as fair and free from suspicion, at the
moment, as we were first led to imagine. You will not
forget that the two Chinamen had reached the hospi-
tal some time before the officer with Corcoran and the
other boys did. They had seen Corcoran the night be-
fore at the Station House, and again that morning at
the Tombs. Indeed they went directly to the hospital
from the Tombs. They say they said not a word to Lee
Teep about Corcoran, in fact did not tell him any one
had been arrested. Do you believe them : What
thing was it about that time that filled them with ex-
citement . Here was their wounded friend. They
just came from seeing his assailant, as they believed.
But they said not a word to him on the subject which
most deeply interested both ! Oh, no, not one word.
The “heathen Chinee” is indeed peculiar. “Out of
the heart the mouth speaketh '' does not apply to
them. The thing about which they are interested and
excited is the one about which they do not talk. They
didn't tell him a person had been arrested, that heran,
that Kwong Tong identified him, that he was a boy,



62
that he had bright black eyes, &c., &c. Oh, no.
They are so peculiar, so very childlike and bland.
Well suppose, if you can, they did not, Lee Teep's
identification may have been a mere coincidence. It
would be, I concede, an extraordinary coincidence,
still who can say it was not one . He was as liable to
mistake as a man who is well and clear headed. You
know little of Lee Teep, not having seen him. What
he said was not said in contemplation of death, for he
then expected to recover. His anſe morſem statement
could not be put in evidence for that reason. I have
claimed that, for that reason, proof by other witnesses
of what he said should not have been received. The
Court has ruled against me, and for present purposes
I must treat the evidence as properly before you. I
am not unwilling to do so. I can still say, what Lee
Teep said was not said under the sanction of an oath,
which you require before accepting a witness here, nor
was it said in contemplation of death. It was then
the mere hear-say statement of a person of whom you
know absolutely nothing, so far as intelligence and
truthfulness are concerned, without any of those sanc-
tions required in court before a witness can be be-
lieved.
I have argued to you that the other Chinamen had
probably already described Corcoran to him.
Mrs. Mead says the big Chinaman talked with Lee
Teep, then waved his hat around, and stopped it when
it pointed to Corcoran, whereºpon Lee Teep said
“Yam.” All present shouted, “That ain’t square.”
Officer Hart said, “What's the matter.” She replied,
“Didn't you see it, you ought to.” Then the second
identification was arranged, but it was not thereafter
difficult to distinguish Corcoran, for he had on a light
blue jumper, which has been exhibited to you, while
the other boys were dressed in dark suits.
Dr. Allen, the surgeon at the hospital, so far con-
firms Mrs. Mead as to say that when he went into the


63
room the first thing he heard was Mrs. Mead protest-
ing to the officer against what had happened.
She is further confirmed by one other witness.
And while officer Hart, on my cross examination,
couldn’t remember–presumably because he thought
it none of his business—when recalled in rebuttal to
testify to what he does not know, what he did not see
or hear, he does not deny that Mrs. Mead's version of
what occurred was true, nor did he say he did not see
and hear what she said occurred. So that it comes
only to this: A sick man nodded his head when his
friend pointed out a man. And this is all there is of
this dramatically-described identification.
Do you still think it sountainted with suspicion
and so reliable that upon the strength of its truth
you can have no misgivings in condemning this young
man . If so, he must go to his doom; and Nellie must
take to her mother to-night the news that will break
her heart.
I have thus far, gentlemen, dealt mainly with the
case for the prosecution. Has my reasoning been
strained or far-fetched . Do I go too far when I say
that, if we had offered no testimony whatever for the
prisoner, under the rule which requires you to acquit
if there remains a reasonable doubt, you would have
been bound to roll away the stone from Corcoran’s
prison door, and from his mother's heart,
Recall, I beg, the rules of law to which I asked
your attention some time ago. Let their iight shine
through the lens of common sense on this evidence–
the prisoner's good character, presumed innocence,
burden of proof, reasonable doubt. How quickly do
their mild beams disperse the little cloud which gath-
ered and lowered over this little family. Don't you
think you ought to say to John Corcoran, as was said
to Fritz Haushalter, the other victim of these China-
men’s “sure,” but none the less mistaken identifica-


64
tion, “Boy, it is time you were home attending to
your business.” -
If there be one among you who mistakes suspi-
ciousness for cleverness, and is determined to be
thought smart, he might possibly say, “I rather think
he is guilty, but,” he would be compelled to add,
“I have a great deal more than a reasonable-doubt.”
I now invite your attention, gentlemen, to the evi-
dence for the defense. I shall comment on it much
more briefly than I should if I had not already de-
tained you so long. I shall not recapitulate the evi-
dence, but assume that you remember it. My obser-
vations will relate to its credibility and its force.
We have proved an alibi, that is, that Corcoran
was not present when Lee Teep was stabbed, but was
elsewhere. The stabbing occurred at about twenty
minutes past nine on Sunday evening. We have
proved by Kruger that he was with Corcoran the
whole evening; that Corcoran was engaged in no af-
fray and assaulted no one during the evening; that at
about twenty minutes past nine he and Corcoran met
Corcoran's sister and cousin in Broadway and walked
with them till near ten o’clock. Kruger is confirmed
by the Corcoran girls, and by others whom they met
and spoke to as they walked along, - -
A most complete, yet a most dangerous defense.
Why dangerous . Because it is said alib is are easily
manufactured. It is well known that many are man-
ufactured by shyster lawyers. Genuine ones are apt
to be tainted by the general suspicion. Witnesses are
sometimes discredited for absurd reasons or no reason
at all. If such a defense fails its failure becomes an
evidence of guilt, because a man who has a good de-
fense has no need to fabricate a false one. Besides,
every one has read Pickwick, and remembers the
breach of promise trial, in which the elder Weller
said, “Why don’t you put in a haliby, Sammy *** {{
was very funny. Most persons unconsciously smile
65
whenever they see or hear the word alibi—I observed
you did but now—because it has only a funny and ab-
surd association in their minds. It is difficult for men
to be serious, much more to be just, in a matter they
have once laughed about. And so it is easy to whis-
tle an alibi down the wind, to sneer it out of court.
Why, gentlemen, with his natural gifts at sneer-
ing, and the talent he has developed by practicing on
my witnesses, the District Attorney ought to convulse
you with laughter and disbelief when he comes to dis-
cuss the defense. He will have one quality of human
nature to help him—the vanity of men who wish to
be thought “smart.” That man has a very level head
who, in his anxiety to be thought smart, does not
mistake distrust for insight, and imagine that to
be suspicious is to be deep. It is easy to persuade
a suspicious, “smart,” man that anything is a sham.
To him a sly hint is a thousand times better than pos-
itive proof. His vanity makes him see things which
nobody else sees, or before anybody else sees them.
It makes him say he sees when he knows he lies in so
saying. Just faintly and deftly hint to him that there
is a “nigger in the woodpile,” and he will see him
right away; at least he will say he does, and perhaps
think he does. Such dull things as good common
sense reasons he despises. Full of silly and absurd
prejudices, his conceit makes him believe himself the
very ideal of clear and candid judgment. Whatever
he sees is to him a conclusive reason for thinking what-
ever he wants to think. I observed that the District
Attorney asked of some witness the question whether
Corcoran’s face did not change color when he was
identified at the hospital. I suppose the District At-
torney asked the question because informed by some
one that such was the fact, The witness, if I remem-
ber rightly, said he didn't notice any change. It
would make little difference to the man I have been
describing what the answer was. Once let him get

66
what he calls his mind made up to believe a man guilty,
and whatever occurred is to him a convincing proof of
guilt. If the prisoner turned pale it was the paleness
of guilt; if he turned red it was the blush of guilt; if
he did not change at all, what a cool rascal! If he
trembled it was from fear of a just retribution; if he
didn’t, he is a hardened offender. Such a man would
not believe though one rose from the dead. Just pro-
nounce alibi “halibi,’’ and it is enough for him. He
will have none of it. He thinks his disbelief evidence
of his superior discernment. His Vanity is far above
his sense of justice; indeed it may be doubted whether
he has any such human weakness as a sense of justice.
Against such a judge or juror we are helpless.
The truth cannot find root in such stony ground. To
him a friend who is a witness is a willing perjurer, a
stranger a paid perjurer. What to him are the rules
of law, established by the wisdom and experience of
centuries. Nothing but legal technicalities. What
to him is presumption of innocence, what, presumption
of good character, what, reasonable doubt, what, even
the oath he has taken to decide a case according to
the evidence. Mere unmeaning phrases of legal pro-
ceedings. He don’t care what the defense is. He has
made up his mind not to believe it, and he wont.
It is of no use to tell him that “the measure where-
with he metes, the same shall be measured to him
again.” The judgments of Heaven are for others.
His adversities are only trials, or come from the faults
of others. Against his conceited and perverse stupid-
ity Gods and men are alike powerless. From him and
from his judgments I can only pray the God of Justice
to deliver us. -
The defense we have presented—the only one we
could have presented, because it is the truth—de-
pends, like any other, upon the credibility of the wit-
nesses who testify to it. If they are telling a manu-
factured and false story, not only must the defense


67
fail, but the fact that the defense is a fabricated one
must be regarded as some evidence of guilt.
The first question, as to all these young men and
maidens whom we have called is, have they the abil-
ity to tell the truth? The second is, do they mean
to do so . It will not, I apprehend, be claimed that
the witnesses do not know whether the account they
give of themselves and Corcoran Sunday night, the
24th of April, is true or not. Their attention was
drawn to the events of that night soon enough after-
wards, by the arrest of their friend on a terrible
charge, to enable them to recall and so preserve them.
clearly and distinctly. They were asked, when on
the stand, if they remembered the events of evenings
before and after. Of course they did not, because
their attention had not been drawn to them. Had it
been they would have remembered them equally well.
But I will not discuss the question of memory. Noth-
ing has occurred which leads me to think it neces-
sary. The witnesses are not mistaken. They either
tell the truth or are wilfully false. This prosecution
makes the charge of wilful falsehood against them.
I accept the issue and will address myself to it.
What was there, gentlemen, about these witnesses
which justifies the charge that they are unworthy of
belief Slurs won't do, sneers won’t do. They
shall not be whistled down the wind in that way.
Nor shall the District Attorney’s familiarity in
calling them, on no acquaintance at all, by nick-
names – either their own or names invented by
him, an ill-bred familiarity, I say—be permitted to
breed contempt. Such familiarity, having such a pur-
pose, we have a right to repel and resent, and we do.
Why, suppose he whom the District Attorney con-
stantly addressed and alluded to as “French Joe”
had replied, “Brooklyn Bill,” what ruffled feathers,
what offended dignity we should have seen. He had
just as good a right, had he not Joe did not do
68
it. Joe has French blood. Joe is well mannered.
Joe is a gentleman. He declines to be familiar on
short acquaintance. He don’t like, nor do I, this
Brooklyn habit of calling a man on first acquaintance
by his “front name,” whether he is invited to prayer,
to Sunday School or to his own execution.
What was there about their faces or their man-
ner, what about the statement they made, which jus-
tifies disbelief ? To be sure they were not as hand-
some as young Nemiger, the peoples witness. Such
noble, manly beauty is given to but few; and they, at
least in this case, are monopolized by the prosecution.
They did not sharpen their faculties, as did young
Neniger, by drinking nine glasses of beer to help them
remember what transpired, and perhaps for that rea-
son are less worthy of belief than he.
Cross examination is a great test of truthfulness.
Lying witnesses can be caught and tripped up. Cooper
and Neniger and Hart, witnesses for the prosecution,
are trained and experienced. There is nothing like
the business of a divorce detective to train a man to
dodge sharp corners and questions. How do you
think Cooper and Neniger and Hart stood the brief
cross-examination we were permitted to make 2 I wont
express my opinion. I only ask yours.
Our witnesses were boys and girls—all under
twenty. They are persons of limited education. They
had never been witnesses before. They were excluded
from the court room, and called in one by one to be
examined. No one of them heard another’s testi-
mony. Each one was cross-examined at great length.
Some of them had been examined before, and if they
were false, the District Attorney had the material
to tear them all to pieces, All the arts of a cross-
examiner were exhausted upon them. The Dis-
trict Attorney wrestled with them at every hold,
collar and elbow, back, and side hold, and rough and
tumble. He tried some trips and tricks which I insist

69
are barred by the rules of fair play. I called your
attention to some of them at the time. The boys were
not permitted to trip back at all, but only to remain
passive, Gentlemen, who was thrown—the boys or
the District Attorney . He assailed them at every
quarter—front, rear, flank and oblique. To every
lance, coming from whatever quarter, they presented
a calm and fearless front. Were they overthrown?
I say not. If any one lost either his footing or his
temper, I insist it was not the boys.
Gentlemen, you will not do the District Attorney
such injustice as to imagine these ignorant boys—never
witnesses before, all this scene strange to them, no
one permitted to hear another's testimony, with no
knowledge as to what is material and what is not—are
so smart that they, a half-dozen of them, can tella long
and circumstantial story, covering the events of two
evenings, that is a lie, and that he can’t trip them.
What is the most which it can be truly said was
accomplished by those long cross-examinations? The
witnesses did not agree as to some of the minute de-
tails in describing a moving scene. Such discrepan-
cies honest witnesses always make, dishonest ones
do not. Had they agreed as to such minute details
it would, indeed, have been ground for suspicion. One
witness did not see all that another did, or saw it
from a different point of view. One thought he
was standing at a particular moment, another that
he was sitting then, One thought he was alone as he
ran to a certain corner. Another says he ran just be-
hind him. All these discrepancies amount to is this,
each witness happened to observe or remember some
incidents which others did not. That is always the
case. Do you, when you retire, ask one of your num-
ber to state the events of any day of this trial, with
absolute accuracy of detail, and see in what a wordy
war you will soon be involved.
The boys kept pace with the District Attorney, as

70
he skurried from corner to corner, much better than I
did. Two-thirds of the time I did not know what cor-
ner he was asking about. Did you . He seemed to
be playing a sort of game of “I spy,” and after a few
hours I, being a mere looker-on, lost interest in it. I
observed some of you did also.
These young gentlemen here, who are reporters
for the newspapers, whose business it is to see and re-
port facts and events, who see for the express purpose
of describing, and are trained to the business, would
have made as many and as great discrepancies as these
uneducated boys did. If you think I am mistaken,
read a report of some local event seen by different
eyes and described by different pens. Read even two
different reports—say the Sun and Times—of this trial;
and here, remember, please, the reporters have to re-
port only words as they fall from others, not to de-
scribe a scene of which they were eye witnesses.
- It will require more than the eloquence of the Dis-
trict Attorney, and he should have much eloquence,
by inheritance, to convert these trifling discrepancies
into evidences that the witnesses are untruthful.
While my boys were under the rattling fire of a
fast and furious cross-examination, how did they bear
it Did they seem to you to be testifying out of their
memory or otherwise? What was their manner. Are
these little lads such consummate actors that they can
deceive you, when you are watching and suspecting
them : Are they so clever that the transcendent skill of
a District Attorney, with all his associate counsel, his
private detectives and his other unlimited resources,
can’t trip them if they lie : Would it not be as just to
assume, when they stood so firm and serene in the
storm that blew about them, that their feet were planted
on the rock of truth :
But they are most of them friends and com-
panions of Corcoran. Much is made of that. Is
that a sufficient reason to brand them as perjurers *


71
When a man is charged with murder must he be con-
victed unless he proves where he was by persons who
are enemies or strangers : Would you like such a rule
to be employed if you were on trial?
Ah Sin and Kwong Tong were friends (partners)
of Lee Teep. Lee Leep is his brother. Must they be
disbelieved for that reason : Oh! no. It is only wit-
nesses for the defense as to whom friendship is syn-
onymous with perjury. That is even-handed justice,
isn’t it, gentlemen . None but Chinese need apply to
be credited in Part Two of the General Sessions. No
Irish, no Germans, no French, no Americans need ap-
ply. They cannot produce a District Attorney’s cer-
tificate, at least not now. None but Chinese this
week.
The boys didn’t want to come here. They expressed
to Mr. Cooper, so he says, a fear to come. The prose-
cution has proved that one, if not two, of the boys said
to Cooper that though he was a witness he didn't want
to get mixed up in this case. Well, what of it !
What is your innuendo, Mr. District Attorney 2
Do you claim the witnesses were afraid only be:
eause they proposed to give false testimony . Cooper
doesn’t say that. It is only said by way of innuendo.
You, gentlemen, are expected to draw such an infer-
ence, or it will be done for you. I say the inference is
too big and too crooked. As you know, gentlemen,
nobody likes to be mixed up in any case as a witness.
It is very annoying. The law's delays are proverbial.
No manlikes to leave his business or his work. His pay
stops when he does. You know, without my enumerat-
ing them, the reasons why we all dislike to be witnesses.
These boys had even more reasons, They saw Cor-
coran and Haushalter, whom they knew to be inno-
cent, arrested. When such things could happen what
might they not expect . Were they not enough to ex-
cite anybody’s fears, and to make him wish not to be
mixed up in this case. Who would like to be mixed

72
up as Haushalter was or Corcoran is, or assailed as
they are . If you were in search of a pleasant occu-
pation and a quiet life, would you select the racket
they have been put through here :
They are “a bad crowd,” says the District Attor-
ney, “an organized band.” That was his assertion.
How does he prove it ! Not at all. Lest your imag-
ination should be misled by mere assertions, I called
all the boys as witnesses. Some of them were unim-
portant witnesses. In view of the assertion I have
quoted, I thought it important you should see
them. Are they thieves Are they tramps? Are
they loafers . Every one of them works every day.
Several, like Kruger, have continued in their present
employer's service five or six years. Some, like Joe,
are in places of trust and responsibility. He is with
the American Express Company. What was the pro-
secution, with all its police and private detectives, able
to show against them . Honest, decent, hard-working
boys, all of them.
When I say that, gentlemen, I do not forget Joe,
“French Joe.” It may indicate a perversity of sen-
timent, but I confess to you I like him best of all.
Joe admitted to the District Attorney that he had
once been in the House of Refuge, some years ago,
for a year. He had told me of it before. And
for what % Stealing a pocket handkerchief. Yes,
gentlemen, a year ! How proud justice must be, if
she ever takes off her bandage to look at the wrongs
done in her name, to know that Joe, handsome, bright-
eyed, well-mannered Joe, a fatherless and mother-
less little child then, was cast into prison for a year
for stealing a pocket handkerchief, while the
sons of the rich, Who embezzle from their employers
and pawn their mother's jewelry—not to buy bread,
but to riot with harlots and in gaming houses—are let
off, because their rich fathers can settle and hush it
up. And when, years afterwards, having expiated
73
his offense by a year's imprisonment, and redeemed
his good name by years of honest toil in most exacting
employment, Joe comes into a Court of Justice to tell
the little he knows about a case in which he happens
to be a witness, his boyish peccadillo is flung in his
face, his boyish nickname is paraded as a badge of
infamy, and you are asked to discredit him as a wit-
ness because some Court or other once did him one
wrong and now the District Attorney another. Is that
fair, is it decent, is it human . Something like this
must have been in the mind of him who coined the
phrase, -
“Man’s inhumanity to man.”
You saw, gentlemen, with what apparent delight
Joe was taunted with his early fault. Joe admitted
it with much more readiness and candor than a certain
gentleman did that he had mistaken Wednesday for
Monday. When a witness is frank to admit a disa-
greeable fact against himself, is it not good reason for
believing him when he testifies as to matters wherein
he has much less inducement to be false . But, gentle-
men, if you are disposed to join in this hue and cry
against Joe, to say that one year's imprisonment to a
twelve year old boy, for taking a pocket handkerchief,
is not enough, but that he shall never have a fair
chance in life again, then I ask you to bear in mind
that no such taint attaches to any other witness. No
stolen handkerchief can be flung in their faces; no in-
human judge has given them a year for that or for any
offense, The only thing against them is that they are
witnesses for the defense, and their indecorum of
language and manner, by which the prosecution seek
to sustain the charge that they are what my friend
calls “a bad crowd.”
In the first place, they have nicknames. One is
called “Alf” Delmarsh, another “Paddy Dwyer,”
another “Fatty” something or other, and my Joe is
called “French Joe.” The District Attorney says

74
“he was probably never called Joseph in his life.”
Great Heavens! How awful! And to think that Mrs.
Potiphar never knew him! Alas! there are no Josephs
in New York, it is a wicked city; they all reside
across the East River.
Gentlemen, I put it to each of you, did you not
have a nickname when you were a boy . Do not some
of your early friends call you by it even now . Mine
do me, and I like it. Somehow, I know not why, it
seems to blow into blaze and warmth the waning fires
of early friendship. A nickname is not a badge of
infamy. All boys have them, in all grades of society.
The Jameses are Jims, the Williams are Bills, the
Johns are Jacks, and the Josephs are Joes, except
the one who incurred Mrs. Potiphar’s contempt, and
the Brooklyn Josephs. Nor are descriptive nicknames
confined to street gamins or the criminal classes.
Summon up your recollection of early days and
boyish companions, and say if I am not right.
“These boys play in the streets and sit on stoops,”
it is said. Yes, and skylark and give each other what
they call “guff.” Well, suppose they do. What of
it Boys will be boys. They have no other place to
meet for social intercourse, after their day’s work is
done. The initiation fee at the Union League Club is
two hundred and fifty dollars. Corcoran has not that
sum about his person. If he had, I dare say Mr. Mit-
chell would have some of it. All boys play in the
street. I know you gentlemen all live in aristocratic
localities. I don’t know it, but I take it for granted.
Do not the boys of the neighborhood, none the less,
play in the street and sit on your stoop. They do on
mine, and I never drive them off either, My memory
is not so bad that it makes me miserable to see boys
having a good time in their own boyish way. They
are sometimes a little rough, and use language not
prescribed in Blair's Rhetoric, but that is because


75
they are boys. By and by they will pass the plate
in church, and be “pillars of society’’ all the same.
These boys do not go to Sunday School. That is
bad, very bad. A boy that doesn’t just dote ongoing to
Sunday School must have something very wrong about
him. Of course he would murder for the mere amuse-
ment of the thing, and commit perjury with a fiendish
delight. That is the innuendo, conveyed both by
looks and by words. Gentlemen, I would not say one
word to lessen any one’s respect for religion, but there
is a vast deal of humbug about those who profess it,
and not a little cant. My observation may have been
singular, but I think not, I never knew a boy, I mean
a real boy, not a puling, sickly, Miss Nancy, that went
to Sunday School from choice, or except on compul-
sion, or even upon compulsion—if the fish were biting
well. I know I didn’t like to go, and did not go when
I could get out of it. How was it with you ?
They say my witnesses use bad language, slang
and profanity. Yes, that is so. My surprise is that
in a whole month Cooper could collect so little.
Either he is a dull observer or has a poor memory,
or the District Attorney has made a bad selection.
One of our witnesses, Small, I think, is said to have
called officer Hart “a son of a b-.” Was that so
very terrible . Remember, please, he was speaking
of Hart as a witness, just after Hart refused to remem-
ber anything favorable to the prisoner, or deliberately
suppressed what he did remember,
I know I shall not be forgiven for it, but, gentle-
men, I acknowledge it would have relieved my feelings
very much to have applied to that witness some such
opprobious epithet myself. I am not certain that I
ought not to thank Small for saving me the trouble.
The phrase used by Small was vulgar, I admit. Per-
haps, in a moment of anger, no one of you was ever
betrayed into using it. However that may be, the
fourteenth ward has no monopoly in it. You may
76
hear it at the clubs as well as on the pavement. It is
used as often by swells as by poor boys. Why, even
a late President of the Union Club, when asked if a
certain young man was an habitue of the Club, re-
plied, “No, but he is a son of an habitue.” You seem
amused, gentlemen, not shocked. Is such language
wit when used by a swell, but proof of infamous char.
acter when used by a Spring Street boy . If it was a
mortal offense for Small to apply such an epithet to
that bullet-headed policeman, how much deeper would
Thave been his damnation had he called the District
Attorney “a son of a Beecher " Yet, I sub-
mit, he would have been genealogically accurate,
Remembering how familiar the District Attorney
was, addressing each witness by his nickname, and
inventing one if the witness happened to be destitute,
he has no right to complain if his familiarity bred a
little contempt, so that one of the boys, according to
Cooper, announced his intention, “if the District At-
torney asked him too many questious, to tell him to
go to Hell.” Delmarsh, probably, had not read the
Revised Version or he would have said “Hades,” or
‘‘ Gehenna.” But, with that correction, I insist, con-
sidering his fellows experience, his remark was en-
tirely justifiable, if not commendable. -
Gentlemen, you and I were boys once. We played
and skylarked in the streets; we sat on people's stoops;
we talked slang, quite as vulgar and variegated as that
of these boys; we didn’t go to Sunday School; we were
sometimes profane. We did not flame with enthusi-
asm, when asked to contribute our quarters to the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis-
sions. I must even admit calling “ the old A. B. C.
F.M.” by an offensive epithet. In short, gentlemen,
we were boys, and there is a great deal of human
nature in a boy. Wherein do these boys differ much
from what we were, except that they are poor. In that
they do not differ much from me. “The destruction


77
of the poor is their poverty.” Let us not add to its
burdens by alleging it to be a badge of infamy. I
know what it is to be poor. I do not forget it. I do
not mean to. There is no way in which I could earn
my own contempt sooner. I hope I shall never know
what it is not to feel for the poor, to be insensible and
heartless to their cry. If my nature is of a kind to
be so puffed up by a little prosperity, more the result
of luck than merit, as to make me forget my own early
days, my friends and kindred, the old farm, the old
district school house, and the boys who gathered there
—farmers' and mechanics' sons, all poor—the games
we played, the fights we fought, and the deviltry we
cut up, or the affection, the generosity, the manly
courage, the upright spirit, the self-sacrificing devo-
tion which I have seen exhibited by the poor—if I
forget these things, if I fail to bear witness to them
when occasion offers, I should deem myself un-
worthy the name of man, and unworthy the respect
of the meanest of my kind.
There are, I know, some self-righteous people who
see in each one of these poor lads a prospective crim-
inal. They judge from a narrow experience and a
narrower mind. I protest against such judgment as
ignorant and unjust. Even in this city a large pro-
portion of our best citizens were poor boys like these.
If it were necessary, I could recite a hundred names.
You know them without my reciting them. I don’t
know the fact to be so, but I know enough by com-
mon observation to assert with confidence that more
than one sits in the jury box before me. * -
As perhaps you know, I have had some opportu-
nity for observation, and I assert as its result that,
considering the respective number of rich and poor,
more worthless men, rogues, criminals and tramps, are
produced by the idleness, luxury and excesses of the
rich than by the common vices of the poor, -
Excuse me, gentlemen, if I espouse the cause of

78
these boys with some warmth, and manifest some re-
sentment at the imputation sought to be put upon
them. The memory that I was once a boy myself
stirs in me that “touch of nature’’ which, it is said,
“makes the whole world kin.”
Gentlemen, it is well not to forget that we were
once boys, poor boys some of us. It may help us to
put ourselves in their place, and so to understand
and to be fair and human to these whom we are judg-
ing. What was fun, animal spirits, and boyish levity
in us ought not to be regarded as evidence of ruffian-
ism, or murder or perjury in them. -
God protect us from the man who never was a
boy, and from him alike who forgets what he was and
did when a boy. There are such men. Flinty-hearted
old Pharisees I hated them in my boyhood, and I
hate them now. - -
What has happened to these boys, even what has
happened to Haushalter and Corcoran, might have
happened to you or to me. Put yourselves in their
places. Aye, put yourselves in Corcoran's place. Im-
agine yourselves the victims of a mistaken identifica-
tion, as he has been. Suppose you proved that it was
all a mistake, by showing that you were elsewhere:
then suppose it should be claimed that your witnesses
ought not to be believed because they were your friends
and acquaintances, or because they did not march into
court carrying a Sunday School banner inscribed “I
want to be an angel,” or because they were poor boys;
tell me, pray, what would you think? How would
you like it ! - - -
What knowledge or experience have these young
men had to enable them to frame a defense . A man-
ufactured alibi can be broken all to pieces. If I may
say so without egotism, I have smashed a few myself.
These boys were never witnesses before. They, at
least the most important of them, were fully, and pri-
vately, and separately, examined in the District Attor-

79
ney’s office, long before I ever saw them. Their state-
ments were taken down by a stenographer. The Dis-
trict Attorney had those statements here. I tried to
get them before you. He objected, and the Court sus-
tained his objection. If a person makes conflicting
statements, it is evidence of his falsity. I thought the
rule ought to work both ways, and that if a person
does not make conflicting statements, but always, and
at all times, substantially the same, it ought to be re-
garded as some evidence of truth, more especially so
where the statements were taken as these were. Had
there been any conflict, the District Attorney would
himself have put in the former statements. That he
did not is evidence that the witnesses have not varied,
and, I insist, it is evidence of their truth. -
When a false alibi is to be palmed off, it is kept
a secret to the last moment; not even the names of
witnesses are disclosed. In this case the concealment
of witnesses' names has not been on our side. Do you
suppose if an alibi were fabricated, it would be left
substantially to only one witness? Yet, Kruger car-
ries almost the whole burden of this defense. -
For a month our witnesses have been dogged by:
detectives. One detective, Cooper, has taken up his
residence among them, has mingled with them, un-
known and unsuspected. He alone of the detectives
employed, got anything which the District Attorney
thought of value. He tells you his tale; unheralded,
he brings in his little load of slang and dumps it in
your ears. What does it amount to . A little slang,
a little profanity, a little levity, That is all. What
of it? Does it tend to show that the witnesses were
false in their testimony here . That was the only pur-
pose for which it was admissible. As the District
Attorney will claim it has such a tendency, I must
take it up and examine it. I have already sug-
gested to you how much that is favorable to us it
is likely Cooper has suppressed, considering how lit-

80
tle he brings, how much he does not remember, and
the almost tearful anguish he exhibited when by acci-
dent the truth escaped his purchased lips. What
Cooper thinks of himself you may judge by the fact
that he employed such a person as Neniger to go about
with him, and then to come here to corroborate his tes-
timony. -
Cooper testifies that Small said “the policeman
had gone back on the gang, that he was a son of a
b—, but that he would make a liar of him when he
went on the stand.’ Well, what if he did : Does it
show that Small stated something to Cooper at vari-
ance with his testimony here 4 I say not. He called
the policeman by a vulgar epithet. That I have
already discussed. Were it not for the proprieties
of this place, Small would have asserted here the
same opinion of Hart, and in the same language.
The word “gang” I wish to consider by itself, as
snakes have a separate and distinct chapter in the his-
tory of Ireland, “I will make a liar of him when Igo
on the stand,” said Small to Cooper. What does
that mean Was it anything more than his way of
saying he would testify differently as to certain things?
He meant that Hart had testified falsely. So he had.
Suppressio veri est eaſoressio falsi. To suppress the
truth is to tell a lie. That is what Small meant to say.
But the fact is, Small, like some of the rest of us, is
getting a little rusty in his Latin. I dare say, like
Mark Twain's friend, he could chew tobacco in four-
teen different languages; but for ordinary communi-
cation he prefers the vernacular, with a liberal
admixture of slang. I am unwilling to seem to be
the defender of slang. Among the educated it indi-
cates intellectual sluggishness and coarseness, but it
must be conceded that it is expressive. For exam-
ple, Hart need never be embarrassed by any doubt as
to what Small thinks of him. Nor is slang so very
terrible in itself. It depends upon the surroundings.

S1
When Small was speaking he was standing just out-
side the door of a saloon, or what the Excise Board
calls a “hotel.” Imagine a man airing his Latin or
talking Boswellian Johnsonese in such a place It
would have been as much out of place as slang is
here. We kept our slang in its proper place. To the
credit of my boys it must be said, that when they were
charged here with their slang utterances, they hung
their heads in shame and knew not what to say. It
is the other side that insists on bringing it here. They
have no regard for the proprieties. They don’t seem
to know that this is no place for it.
All Small meant by saying he would make a liar
of Hart was that he would dispute his testimony. So
he did. If he had only been elegant and polished in
his diction, there was nothing in the substance of what
Small said to impeach his testimony here. If he had
only said, “That handsome officer—bearing such
striking resemblance to the First Napoleon or George
Washington—was betrayed by the warmth of the wea-
ther into several misstatements, which it will be my
province to correct when I go upon the stand; sup-
pressio veri est expressio falsi,” there would have
been no harm. That is just what he did say in
substance. -
Then he, whom Cooper and the District Attorney
call “Fatty Gleason,” said, “’Stick to the one thing
and the gang will get him off.” By the way, who is
Fatty Gleason . We may infer from his name that he
is fat, but what do we know of him, except that he
has been in bad company I thought the District
Attorney was going to honor us with an introduc-
tion, but he did not. Possibly he was not pleased
with your reception of Neniger. Some men are over
sensitive and easily discouraged. Who is “Fatty
Gleason : " Apparently a friend of Cooper's and an
acquaintance of some of the boys. He is no friend
of ours. His name has never been on our witness

82
list. He is a friend of Cooper's, and if beer strength-
ens friendship, Cooper has “grappled him to his soul
with hooks of steel.” His employment by Cooper
was to drink beer and talk, as Neniger's was to drink
beer and listen. Both are sorry the job is at an end.
If this trial had only been postponed till fall, what a
happy trio would they have been, Cooper, Neniger and
Gleason Cooper would have got a lot of money for
furnishing the prosecution with slang which they
might have got for nothing from the slang diction-
ary; Neniger and Gleason—what beatific visions of
unlimited beer have been rudely swept away from
them No more free beer for you, Neniger; nor
for you, Gleason You have done Cooper's dirty
work, and he has done with you. In one thing you
are quits.' You were paid all your work was worth.
He has been paid, out of Chinese blood money, a great
deal more.
Well, Fatty Gleason, and Neniger and Cooper
started out to gather testimony; to get something to
swear to. Gleason was to take his precious compan-
ions into the presence of some of our witnesses, ask
questions and give maudlin advice. Cooper was to
“make a note on’t,” and Neniger was to come and
support Cooper's credibility by a corroboration. That
is the private detective business. That is the way they
do things. Presently the District Attorney will want
to charge up against my client all Gleason's maudlin
utterances, because Small and Delmarsh did not knock
him down with a club, when he gave his unsolicited
advice. I repeat, Gleason is no friend of ours. We
resent his impertinent interference. Even if kindly
meant, it is likely to do more harm than good. I think
it was Tally rand who used to pray, “God save me
from my friends; against my enemies I can protect
myself.”
It may be you will think us bound by whatever
83
Gleason said. You may think us bound to accept his
alleged friendship.
Well, Mr. Gleason, if you are to be presented to
us, we shall insist, in the first place, that you drop
these low acquaintances you have picked up, or who
have picked you up, and the beer drinking habits
into which they have led you, Men and dogs are
sometimes judged by the company they keep. If we
keep yours, and you keep Cooper's and Neniger's,
some one may think we are private detectives, as if
it were not bad enough to charge us with murder.
We are not good boys. The District Attorney says
we are not, and it must be so; but we have not fallen
so low as to engage in the snooting business—to
swear away men's lives and women’s characters.
What was it, gentlemen, that Fatty Gleason
said : “Stick to one thing, and the gang will get him
off.” This Cooper swears Gleason said, once to Small,
and once or twice to Delmarsh. This is the result of
a month’s close, I may say beery, intimacy between
Cooper and Gleason. -
All the rest of their conversations Cooper says he
does not remember, because they were of no import-
ance. I apprehend that Cooper makes no distinction
between what is of no importance and what tends to
help the side other than that on which he is employed.
Whether or not that be so, you have had the pick of
all Cooper's stock. What he brings here and exhibits
to you are the selected tit bits, by which the prosecu-
tion will claim they have shown that the witnesses for
the defense are telling a fabricated story, And they
are all. No. I forget; there is one other. Gleason
said to Delmarsh, in the interview at Military Hall,
that he saw Corcoran and had a pint of beer with him
about half past nine that Sunday night; to which
Delmarsh replied, “That’s where I should make a liar
of you.” Perhaps that, too, shows that Delmarsh
proposed to testify not out of his own memory, but




84
out of Gleason's invention. If Gleason should say
one thing Delmarsh would make a liar of him by tes.
tifying to something quite at variance with it.
To this prosecution that is evidence that Delmarsh
was going to testify under Gleason’s instructions.
Nothing strained or forced about that, is there :
Suppose, then, Gleason did advise Small and Del-
marsh to stick to one thing ; what was there so very
wrong in that . It was not wrong for officer Hart, the
Police Sergeant, the committing Magistrate, the Cor-
oner, the District Attorney, and private Counsel to
bully the Chinamen into “being sure.” Is what is
right for the prosecution wrong for the defense . Gen-
tlemen, unless it is, this prosecution must fail. If
Gleason had not been full of Cooper's beer—pur-
chased with Chinese blood money—he would prob-
ably have remarked, “I have always observed that
a witness makes a much better impression, and
secures for his testimony a higher degree of cred-
ence if, having made his statement, he tenaciously
adheres to it.” That is the kind of adviee every
one thinks it entirely proper and innocent to give
to a person who is about to become a witness. It
is good advice, too, particularly in view of the bul-
lying, badgering and sneering, which persons who
are unfortunate enough to be witnesses constantly
encounter from the well-bred gentlemen of the bar.
Will the District Attorney say he never gave such
advice . Have not you given it yourselves, gentlemen,
at some time or other . Let me again remind you, -
it was in this connection that Cooper said to Delmarsh,
“You had better not testify to anything that isn't so;''
to which Delmarsh replied, “I don't intend to.”
Consider these conversations as a whole, remember
they were confidential, that Gleason and Small and
Delmarsh did not know Cooper was a detective, but
supposed him a friend, and that they spoke freely
before him; consider how much Cooper thinks it un-
85
important to remember; and I challenge this prosecu-
tion to assert to you that they show or tend to show a
fabricated defense. I put it to your common sense
judgment, do they not show quite the reverse :
Neither Small's nor Delmarsh's testimony wasim-
portant. They testified to very little, I remember
John Brougham, as Murphy Maguire in the play,
saying to another character, “we want nothing from
you, sir, but silence, and damn little of that.” That
was about all we got from Delmarsh. His testimony
was only corroborative of others, and that in a trifling
particular. He happened to be conversing with Cor-
coran's sister and cousin in Broadway, on Sunday
night, in the neighborhood of twenty minutes after
nine o'clock, when Corcoran and Kruger came up.
Delmarsh expressed to Cooper his reluctance to
be a witness. He didn’t want to come; called Cor-
coran “a G-d d_n murderer.” It is not difficult
to know what preceded this ill-tempered and profane
expression,
Cooper was trying to dissuade Delmarsh from be-
ing a witness at all, by alarming him about getting
into trouble, Delmarsh knew his own testimony un-
important. He didn't want to come. He had never
been in Court, Naturally, he dreaded it. Haushalter
had been arrested. Any one else might be who lived
in the vicinity. And so, under the influence of Coop-
er's menaces, he called Corcoran a murderer. That
was no evidence that Corcoran is a murderer, nor was
it any evidence that Delmarsh is so friendly to Corcor-
an as to be willing to commit perjury for him. In
point of fact, Delmarsh's testimony here agrees with
his statement to Cooper, that all he knew about the
case was that he met Corcoran and Kruger in Broad-
way, somewhere between a quarter and half-past nine
o'clock.
So, if we honor Mr. Cooper and his red-nosed
friend, by being the first to believe their testimony, it


86
not only fails to show what is claimed for it, but to
any fair minded man it shows just the contrary.
How is Kruger's testimony impeached . In no
way. How assailed . The detectives report no con-
versation with him. He was rigidly examined in the
District Attorney’s office long ago. His testimony
then and now agrees in all matters of importance. He
corrects it in one particular—as to the corner where
he and Corcoran got a glass of beer. It was a matter
of no sort of consequence. That Kruger thinks it was
and corrects it, shows he means to tell the truth, and
that he has very little experience or ability to judge
what truths are material or important here. Kruger is
our main witness. He was with Corcoran all that
Sunday evening. Our other witnesses only corrobor-
ate him, I repeat, do you suppose if this were a
manufactured defense it would have been allowed to
rest mainly upon one witness. Kruger bears the bur-
den. What is there against him . I forget ; he is
German; and none but Chinese are to be believed this
week in the General Sessions. -
What is there against our other witnesses, Egan,
Dwyer, the Corcoran girls, Miss Klussman, Mrs. Mead,
Haushalter, Schorting, except that they are not Chi-
nese, and are not witnesses for the prosecution. Un-
less you recklessly, and for no reason, say you will
not believe them, Corcoran's defense is clearly made
out. - -
As to the events of Friday night I will not detain
you further to speak. As to what happened that
evening, the same as to Sunday, the fate of this lad
must depend on whether you believe what his wit-
nesses have said. If there be one of your number who
says he does not, I ask you to demand from him why
not, and I challenge him, as I challenge the District
Attorney, whom you will presently hear, to show any
good reason, that commends itself to common sense-
not a mere pig-headed ipse divit—why Kruger, why.
87
the Corcoran girls, why Joe Scott, why Eagan, why
Small, why Delmarsh, why Miss Klussman, why
House, why Pete Monahan, should not be believed.
There ought to be some good reason for disbelieving,
for setting the stamp of perjury on all these young
heads. I invite the District Attorney to show you
what it is, and I ask you to discriminate between his
assertions and the evidence, to weigh and examine the
reasons he alleges, to analyze and test his innuendos,
to apply to them your instinct of fair play and your
common sense judgment. -
I had nearly forgotten one thing. The mention
of Pete Monahan's name recalls it to me. We sent
for Monahan at the close of the testimony, by His
Honor’s permission, simply to show by him that, as
he sat on the sidewalk in front of his segar stand in
the Prescott House, that Sunday night, he saw Cor-
coran with Kruger, his sister and cousin, pass by on
the other side of the street. Monahan could only say
he saw the girls, whom he recognized, with two per-
sons—ºmen, whom he could not distinguish in the
darkness. He couldn’t see as well as Officer Hart,
possibly because Broadway is not as well lighted as
Spring Street. With that I dismissed Monahan.
Neither my associate nor myself had ever seen him
before. The District Attorney took him up, and with
that habit of thorough cross-examination, which in
this instance commanded my praise and gratitude,
brought out something which I regard as of great
importance. In reply to questions of the District
Attorney, Monahan said he was informed by Eagan
of Corcoran’s arrest on Friday night immediately
after it occurred; that he ran up and overtook him
and the officer; asked him if he had any tobacco :
asked him what he was arrested for, to which Cor-
coran said, “I got pushed into a Chinaman.”
Our defense, then, is no afterthought. It is no
nvention of Fatty Gleason or of anyone else. The


88
little bit of evidence for which we are indebted to
accident and the District Attorney’s pertinacity,
shows that as clearly as anything can be shown.
One thing more, gentlemen, before I release you
to the blandishments of the District Attorney. That
word “gang.” Cooper says Gleason and Small spoke
of themselves and their fellows as “the gang.” Per-
haps he said the same of Delmarsh If he did not, he
meant to. I have heretofore quoted their words. The
District Attorney calls them “an organized gang”—
whether organized under “the manufacturing Act.”
or the “two-thirds Act,” he did not inform us. I
think it was a rhetorical love of adjectives which
made him use the word. He certainly did not use it
because of any evidence to justify its use. “Gang’”
is a word of awful import to him ; but an “organized
gang,” what a name to conjure with !
It makes chain gangs, prison gangs, gangs of
burglars, Australian bushmen, Western train rob-
bers, float before our excited and disordered fancy.
It is a blood and thunder dime novel compressed into
one phrase.
Given, a little Sunday school, a little theology, a
limited observation of life, much reading of cheap lit-
erature, a lurid imagination and a fluent diction; put
them into a pot and stir them ; when they are heated
to the boiling-point, whisper over them the cabalistic
words “gang,” “organized gang,” and what will you
see : A band of desperadoes, with glaring, murder-
ous eyes, matted hair, faces smeared with blood and
burnt powder, slouch hats, big leather belts fastened
around their waists by a big brass buckle, filled with
big knives and pistols—swash-bucklers who meet in
mountain fastnesses, or caverns of the earth, reached by
secret passages, where they pledge fidelity to schemes
of murder and rapine in goblets of human blood.
Their fiendish revelry shocks and horrifies us. I must
not forget; they are organized—a captain-no-ban-
80
dit chief is better, lieutenants, and all that sort of
thing.
Now, gentlemen, prepare for something awful.
Your blood shall curdle with horror. I am about to
march in my gang. Joe, you shall be the bandit
chief. Come, Kruger, Eagan, Dwyer, Small, Mona-
han, Haushalter, Schorting and the rest. Come, Nellie
Corcoran, you shall be bandit queen, if you can keep
still two minutes. Come, pretty cousin, and Miss
Klussman and Mrs. Mead, Are you all here *
Look at them, gentlemen.
What is the matter .
I observe that your blood refuses to curdle, The -
thing doesn’t work.
What You decline to have a lot of common-
place working people palmed off on you for a bandit
gang, an organized gang ! - -
Gentlemen, this is all the gang there is, organized
or unorganized.
The fact is, that word “gang” is a part of the
slang of boys. The District Attorney thought it a
piece of dynamite which would blow this defense to
atoms. It is really as harmless as a piece of punk.
All boys use it in speaking of their associates. I did.
So did you. So do the boys we know–our friends'
children. My own boys are girls, and I hope their
mother will teach them to draw their language only
from “the well of pure English undefiled.” That
boy is indeed a rare specimen who does not possess a
vocabulary of slang as extensive and variegated as
are the contents of his trowsers pockets. “Gang.”
“mob,” “crowd,” “fellows,” are but a few of the
synonyms in an ordinary boy’s vocabulary. -
Here, gentlemen, I end my observations upon these
things, by the magnifying of which to the discredit of
his witnesses, it is sought to convict my client. I say
they are “trifles light as air.” Let the District




90
Attorney satisfy you, if he can, that they are “strong
as proofs of Holy Writ.”
And now, gentlemen, I will stop. I have talked
much too long. Both to you and to the Court I make
my apologies, as well as my thanks for the great kind-
ness and patience with which you have heard me.
I know you will not expect me to apologize for
taking the deep interest I do in this case. Our com-
mon humanity will excuse that. I have done what I
could for this little lad, I shall never regret that I
stood by his side in this terrible trial. I only regret
that the limit of my abilities did not permit me to do
more for him.
I have tried to convince you by arguments which
seemed to me fair and just, and drawn from the evi-
dence, that he ought not to be convicted; that the
identification is unreliable; that the prisoner's run-
ning, unexplained, did not necessarily show guilt;
that, explained as it was, it shows quite the reverse;
that the prisoner was elsewhere when Lee Teep was
stabbed, and so could not have done it; that there is
no good and substantial reason why witnesses who
prove this should not be believed ; and that the
reasons alleged are not good and substantial. I
think I have succeeded; but my heart is in the case,
and perhaps it misleads me. Perhaps what seems
clear to me I am lacking in ability to make clear to
you, though it seems to me to require no ability at
all, but only a just and upright mind. Be that as it
may, I must no longer vex your forbearance.
My little lad's fate is now in your hands. I leave
him to you. I make no entreaty or appeal. I ask
not your mercy, but your justice. In the name of all
that is human in you, give the little fellow fair play.
And may that God, without whose guidance we are
weak and foolish indeed, guide your deliberations to
a just conclusion.
91
Mr. BEECHER summed up for the prosecution.
Recorder SMYTH charged the jury at considerable
length, with great ability and fairness. He stated
the law as to homicide, the degrees of murder and
manslaughter, and the general rules governing cases
of this kind, but did not discuss the facts.
The jury retired, and after an absence of thirty
minutes, returned with a verdict of “Not Guilty.”

(ºcoſ
º
-
-