PART V.

THE DEFENCE.

As has already been said, the purpose of this review is not to set out the evidence on either side and ask the public to weigh it. That was the function of the jury, and if they did their work unskilfully there is no redress in this world. The main purpose has been to set out the Crown case, and to show, by an analysis of it, that Ross’s guilt could not, as a matter of logic, be deduced from it with the certainty which the law requires in criminal cases. How far that has been done the reader must judge.

None the less it is right to show that Ross, from first to last, did what was humanly possible to establish his innocence.

As far as his evidence is concerned, it simply followed the lines of his written statement made on January 5, and his answers to questions given on that and other dates. His cross-examination left him absolutely unshaken as to his story, though it has to be admitted that his demeanour in the box, his unveiled hostility to the police, his direct allegations against them, his blunt affirmation that what Harding knew he had been told by “the coppers,” and his assertion that the hairs on the blanket had been put there by the detectives, were not calculated to make a favourable impression on the jury. He admitted that he had spoken to Harding about the case, had told Harding that he was in prison to keep the public’s mouth closed, and had mentioned to him that he was with “his girl” that afternoon and evening, but he denied strongly that he had ever confessed to Harding. He said, also, that he knew Harding’s reputation as a “shelf,” and defined a “shelf” as a man who not merely tells tales on prisoners, but makes them up as well—a man “who hears one thing and builds on it.” It is well, however, that Ross’s outline of his movements, both on the fatal day and on January 5, when he is supposed to have made damaging admissions to Olive Maddox during a chance meeting at Jolimont, should be recapitulated in order to see how it was borne out by the long string of witnesses who were called to support him.

ROSS IN THE BOX.

Ross said that when he got into the saloon at about 2 o’clock on the Friday, he saw there, besides his brother Stanley and others, two men named Albert Allen and Lewis. He did not see Ivy Matthews that afternoon, and had not seen her since a couple of days before his trial for robbery under arms in the November previous. He did see a little girl “answering the description” of Alma Tirtschke. It should be borne in mind, in view of Ross’s dying speech, that that was the furthest he ever went, viz., that he saw a girl, between 14 and 15 years of age, whose dress answered the description of Alma, but he never spoke to her, and she had never been in his saloon. She was, when he saw her first, walking towards Bourke Street, and at his next glance was looking in the window of a fancy goods shop next to Madame Ghurka’s. He remained about the saloon all the afternoon, talked to Gladys Wain for a long time, made an appointment with her to meet him again at 9 o’clock, and left the saloon about ten minutes past 6. He then went home. When he got home about 7 he met his eldest brother, Ronald, coming out of the gate. At home he met his mother and his brother Tom, with whom he had tea. He cleaned himself up, and left home again with his brother Tom about 8. They went by the tram to Footscray, and saw and spoke to Mrs. Kee and George Dawsey on the tram. The brothers took the train together at Footscray, and Tom left him at North Melbourne, to go to his (Tom’s) wife’s people, the Ballantynes, at West Melbourne. He got to the Eastern Arcade about a quarter to 9, and waited about the Little Collins Street entrance until a little after 9, when he was joined by Gladys Wain. They went into the saloon, and remained there until half-past 10 or a quarter to 11. They came out into Little Collins Street, went along Russell Street to Lonsdale Street, along Lonsdale Street to King Street, where they remained talking for about ten minutes, close to the girl’s home. He left her at about ten minutes past 11, and went to Spencer Street, where he took train to Footscray. He got to Footscray about fourteen minutes to 12. He there took the tram, and on the tram he met a friend named Herbert Studd, who introduced him to a man named James Patterson. He got off the tram at the terminus, and walked from the terminus to his home with a young fellow named Frederick George Bradley, who was a very casual acquaintance living further along in Ross’s street. He reached home about 12, his mother being still up. He went almost straight into the room, where his brother Ronald was in bed, but awake, and went to bed. He never left his room that night. His brother, Tom, who was working in the neighbourhood, and had come back for breakfast, came into the room about twenty minutes to 7 next morning. He himself had breakfast later on with his mother and Ronald. He then went in to the Arcade, where he was told by Stanley of the murder, and was later on interviewed by the detectives. To them he gave offhand this account of his movements, not with all these details as to meetings with persons, but exactly the same account of his main doings on the previous day and night. Stanley, in the meantime, had given to the detectives his own account of his own and Colin’s movements, and it exactly corresponded with Colin’s account, so far as the movements of the two impinged on one another. In addition to that, the detectives later saw Gladys Wain and got her independent account, and it, too, exactly coincided with Ross’s account.

Turning to his movements on January 5, Ross said that he was seen by the detectives at 11 a.m., and detained until 7 p.m. About that there is no doubt. From the Detective Office he went to Mrs. Linderman’s (Gladys Wain’s mother), in King Street, saw there the Linderman family, Mrs. Kennedy, his own mother, and Mrs. Tom Ross, his sister-in-law, Mrs. Kennedy and his mother arriving soon after him. His mother and Mrs. Kennedy left before him to go down to the “Age” Office. Mrs. Tom Ross also left to go to the house of her mother (Mrs. Ballantyne), some twenty minutes’ walk away, and about 9 he left and went to Ballantyne’s, where he remained, with several others, until about half-past 10, when he left, with his brother Stanley and others, to catch the train at North Melbourne.

STRONG CORROBORATION.

Stanley Gordon Ross said that Colin arrived at the saloon about 2 o’clock on Friday, December 30. He remembered Allen being there at the time, sitting in the corner, and Lewis coming in a little after. Ivy Matthews he had not seen that afternoon, and had not spoken to since about eight or ten days before Christmas. No girl answering to the description of Alma Tirtschke was in the saloon that afternoon, or could possibly have been there without him seeing her. His brother was talking at the door for a good while that afternoon, the first person he noticed him talking to being a lady in an Assam coat, whose name he gave. Shortly after 4 o’clock he noticed Colin talking to Gladys Wain, and about 5 Gladys came into the “cubicle” (though he had never heard it called by that name before), and remained for about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour. He remained in the bar until about 6 o’clock, or a little after, and Colin left before him. Stanley then locked up, went and had tea at the Commercial Cafe, in Elizabeth Street, had a shave, and came back into the Arcade at about half-past 7, and got the lavatory key. He went to the lavatory and returned the key soon after. There was no person in the saloon at this time. He returned to the saloon on the following morning, and opened it up according to custom, swept and scrubbed it out, and saw no signs of it having been scrubbed on the previous night. Early in the forenoon he was seen by Piggott and Brophy, who gave him, so he says (though this is denied by Piggott) a description of the dress worn by the murdered girl, a description which he, in turn, gave to Colin when Colin arrived soon after. Stanley and Colin were not, at the time, living in the same house, and between 6 o’clock on the Friday night and Colin’s arrival at the saloon on the Saturday morning they had not seen one another.

It is noteworthy that Stanley gave a full account of his movements to the detectives before they had seen Colin. The evidence he gave exactly agreed with the statement, except that he told the detectives that he got back to the saloon on the Friday evening at about 7, whereas in his evidence he said it was about half-past 7. He explained this very slight discrepancy by saying that he spoke offhand to the police, but that, on reckoning up afterwards the time he had spent having tea and the time he was in the barber’s saloon, he thought it would be about half-past 7 when he returned to the saloon. The cross-examination of Stanley on this point was directed to show that he had made the time half-past 7 because he had heard in the meantime that the witness Alberts had sworn that he saw Colin Ross in the Arcade at half-past 7. This was another of the incidents that pointed to the honesty of the evidence for Ross. Counsel for the defence were under the impression, owing to some misapprehension, that the answer to Alberts’s evidence was that he had spoken to Stanley, and had mistaken him for Colin, the two brothers being very much alike. Alberts, therefore, was not very strongly cross-examined on the point. He was given permission, after his evidence had been taken, to leave the court, as he had to go to New South Wales. In his evidence-in-chief Stanley was asked: “Did you talk to any person in the Arcade?” (when he returned at half-past 7). The unexpected answer was “No.” Alberts could not then be got for further cross-examination. But if the Rosses had desired to make a case on this point, they could have easily done so by getting Stanley to say that it was he who had asked Alberts for the lead pencil.

Turning to the events of January 5, Stanley said that, pursuant to a message left for him where he was boarding, he went to the Detective Office about a quarter to 7, and found that Colin was still there. He went by train to Footscray, and he came back to Ballantyne’s, in West Melbourne (the family of Mrs. Tom Ross), at about half-past 9. There he met Colin and several other persons, and about half-past 10 he and Colin and two others left the house for Footscray.

Mrs. Elizabeth Campbell Ross, the mother, said she remembered her son leaving home on Friday, December 30, after lunch. At about 7 that night he came home for tea. Her eldest son, Ronald, her married son, Tom, and herself had had tea when he arrived. She got him his tea, and he left the house afterwards with Tom. She herself left home, and went down to Footscray to do some shopping, it being the late shopping night. She returned at about 10, Ronald arrived soon after, and Colin came in at midnight and went to bed. She locked up the house and went to bed, Colin then being in his own and his brother’s room. She got up at 6, to get Tom’s breakfast at 7, and she closed the door of her son’s room, as Ronald was a sufferer from malaria, and a light sleeper. Colin and Ronald were then both in bed. She got them their breakfast later on, and Colin left to go to the cafe.

On Thursday, January 5, the detectives called and took Colin away at about 11 a.m. At about 7 o’clock, Mrs. Ross said, accompanied by her son Tom, she went to the Detective Office, calling at Mrs. Linderman’s on the way. At the Detective Office they were told that Colin had just been released. They returned to Mrs. Linderman’s, and saw there the people mentioned in Colin’s evidence. She and Mrs. Kennedy, in about an hour’s time, went to the “Age” Office, and from there she went home.

AN UNBROKEN PHALANX.

It is needless to set out in detail the evidence called to support the story told by the three foregoing witnesses. Suffice it to say that Tom Ross, Ronald Ross, Gladys Wain, Mrs. Kennedy, Mrs. Kee, Oscar Dawsey, Herbert Studd, James Patterson, F. G. Bradley, Mrs. Tom Ross, Mrs. Linderman, and Miss Alice Ballantyne were all called, and each testified to his or her own portion of the story. There were some persons at Ballantyne’s house on Thursday, January 5, who were not called, for the reason that the evidence seemed overwhelming that Colin Ross was at Ballantyne’s soon after 9 on that date. They would have been called had it been known that Olive Maddox was going to say that it was about half-past 9 that she saw Colin at Jolimont. But that was not said until after the case for the defence was closed. The Crown Prosecutor then asked leave to recall Olive Maddox to get from her the time that she said she met Ross at Jolimont. She had been in court while the evidence for the defence was being given, and knew its effect. Being recalled, she was questioned as follows:—

Mr. Macindoe: Do you remember the 5th January last—you told us you saw the accused that night?—Yes.

What time was it?—It may have been—it was—any time after 10 to half-past 10, when I first seen him.

From 10 to half-past 10!—From 9 to half-past 9—any time until then.

Assuming, however, that Maddox got into the box intending to say that the time was from 9 to half-past 9, and merely made a slip, it will be noticed that the time she fixes is significant. It only conflicts with the witnesses who deposed to seeing Ross at Ballantyne’s, and is consistent with the testimony of those who swore to seeing him at Linderman’s, for it was possible, apart from the evidence, that Ross, after leaving Linderman’s, went to Jolimont. The inherent improbability that, after having been detained for eight hours by the police, and questioned about the tragedy, he should have gone to Jolimont, and should have happened, when there, to meet quite accidentally, one of the only two people in the world who say they saw the child in the saloon, would still stand out, even if the poor street-stroller’s testimony were not confuted by a host of unbroken and unshaken witnesses.

It is not going too far to describe the whole of the evidence for the defence as unbroken and unshaken. The test to which it was subjected was remarkable. The other witnesses were all out of court while a particular witness was being examined. Some deposed to all the time covered by Ross, some to part only. Their evidence locked and interlocked in a remarkable way. All were ably and severely cross-examined, but with the exception of one slight disagreement as to which two of three blankets were in the saloon—a natural mistake, seeing that all the blankets were of the same type, though differing slightly in colour—not the smallest flaw was revealed in the story told by any of them. It is true that Ross swore that, when he and Gladys Wain were in the saloon on the Friday night, the lights were out some of the time, whereas Gladys Wain swore they were alight “every minute of the time,” but Gladys Wain knew what Ross had sworn on the point, and she went into the box insisting on her right to put her own account of the matter. It was not a case of revealing a conflict by cross-examination.

The different pieces of evidence were like a mosaic which, when put together, form a complete and harmonious pattern. From its nature it was full of pitfalls if concocted. The Crown Prosecutor skilfully searched the witnesses to find some break in the completed pattern, but failed signally to do so, and the whole story stood, as every one of the witnesses stood, absolutely unimpeached before the jury. But the weakness seems to have been in the jury rather than in the story.

The criticism usually levelled against an alibi is that the witnesses are either honestly mistaken about the day or have deliberately taken the movements of another day and applied them to the vital day. The alibi, if it can be properly called an alibi, in this case was not open to either criticism. The Friday was the late shopping night, just before the New Year. It was a day that could be easily recalled after the lapse of a week or two. The Thursday following was the day that Ross had been detained by the detectives for eight hours, and was not likely to be soon forgotten by the members or friends of the Ross family. Mrs. Ross could be making no mistake about the day, because it was in regard to her son’s detention that she went to the “Age” Office. The theory that the wrong day was deliberately chosen by the witnesses involves the inference that independent witnesses, like Mrs. Kee, Mr. Dawsey, Mr. Studd, Mr. Patterson, Mr. Bradley, and Mrs. Kennedy, all took part in a conspiracy with the object of saving a man who, if guilty, did not deserve to be saved. Anyone who had the advantage of conferring with them, or of hearing their testimony in the box, could not fail to be impressed by the story they told.

ROSS’S FIRMNESS.

As far as Ross himself is concerned, he not merely stoutly maintained his innocence from the day he was arrested to the day he was hanged, but his conduct and bearing throughout was that of an innocent man. It was not tactful or amiable. It was blustering and bad-tempered, and at times aggressive. But it was, throughout, that of a sullen man, suffering under a sense of wrong.

He made a free statement to the police on the day that the body was recovered, admitting that he had seen a girl answering to the description of the murdered girl. On January 5, after, or in the course of, a detention of eight hours, he made a full statement to the police which was committed to writing. Not one word of that statement is shown to have been false, by evidence that is worth a moment’s serious consideration. A great deal of it the police did not dispute. A solid phalanx of witnesses, as has been shown, was called on the trial to bear out the statement, and not the smallest flaw was revealed by a skilful cross-examination in that long chain of evidence.

But more than that, on Thursday, January 6, the day following his eight hours’ detention and interrogation, like a man suffering from a sense of wrong and indignity at the questions put to him and the suggestions made against him, Ross went boldly back to the Detective Office and said to Piggott: “Who has been saying these things to you about me?” Piggott said: “I won’t tell you.” “Well, I want to know,” said Ross. Piggott replied: “Well, you won’t know. I never divulge where I get my information. Why are you so anxious to know?” “Because,” said Ross, “I will warm them up,” and he went so far as to tell Piggott that he did not believe anyone had told him. Piggott himself gave this in evidence. It was all very foolish and impudent on Ross’s part, no doubt. It was characteristic of his quite fearless and “cheeky” attitude throughout. But a guilty man, who had just escaped from an eight-hour ordeal with the detectives, might surely be expected to keep as far away from Russell Street as possible.

Again, on the 12th, the day he was arrested, Ross answered: “That’s a lie,” “That’s a lie,” to each new allegation made against him. On the following day he was brought before the Police Court. He was undefended, and was asked if he had any objection to a remand. “Yes,” he said, “I don’t require a remand. There is no reason why I should be here. I can prove my whereabouts on that night. I strongly object to a remand. I have all my witnesses here.” As he left the dock, remanded, he called out: “That’s the country’s law,” and then he added, in his characteristic, blustering tone: “This is a great country, there’s no doubt about it.” It may have been all simulated, but it did not sound like simulated indignation.

It is worth recording, too, that his mother, unable to restrain herself, rose in court that day and said: “I can prove where my son was that night.”

On the morning of February 25th he was found guilty of murder. Asked if he had anything to say why the death sentence should not be pronounced, he stood forward, and, without a quiver on his lip or in his voice, he answered: “Yes, sir; I still maintain that I am an innocent man, and that my evidence is correct. If I am hanged, I will be hanged an innocent man. My life has been sworn away by desperate people.” He listened calmly to the death sentence, and repeated: “I am an innocent man.”

Hanged he duly was, or, rather, he was hanged with more than usual expedition. Within less than a week of his doom being sealed by the High Court, a special meeting of the Cabinet was called, and his execution was fixed to take place in a fortnight. The Government, notwithstanding strong representations, supported by affidavits of new facts, declined to allow time for an appeal to the Privy Council. Ross went to the gallows. He was attended by his minister throughout, and he accepted the ministrations in the most worthy spirit. But he never wavered for a moment in his profession of innocence, either to his minister or to his solicitor. Standing on the scaffold, with the rope around his neck, he delivered a final protestation of his innocence in words which have rung through Australia.

“~I am now face to face with my Maker~,” he said, “~and I swear by Almighty God that I am an innocent man. I never saw the child. I never committed the crime, and I don’t know who did it. I never confessed to anyone. I ask God to forgive those who swore my life away, and I pray God to have mercy on my poor, darling mother and my family.~”

Some sticklers for accuracy, who have never made a public speech, and who, it may be hoped, will not have to make a start with a hangman’s rope around their neck, and the gallows for a platform, have fastened on to the words, “I never saw the girl,” as being the assertion of an untruth. Ross signed a statement that he saw a girl answering the description of Alma Tirtschke; he went into the witness box and swore that he had seen such a girl. The words, therefore, at the worst, could only mean, and could only be read by an intelligent man as meaning, that he had never spoken to the girl or seen her otherwise than as he had already said. He was not given much time for correction, or for second thoughts, because within a moment or two of uttering the words he had passed to eternity.

But it is now known that Ross’s words were deliberately chosen, and that he meant to tell the world with his dying breath that he never, as far as he knew, set eyes on Alma Tirtschke. That being his intention, his actual words, it must be admitted, went too far, or not far enough, for from the description he gave of the girl, combined with the other facts, it appears certain that the girl he saw and described was Alma Tirtschke. But that he did not mean to recede from the position he had all along taken up seems so clear as to be beyond the realm of argument or the reach of adverse comment.

ROSS AND HIS FAMILY.

Cowards, who have sought to steel their consciences against the effects of Ross’s dying speech, have circulated the story that Ross’s brother begged him, whatever he did, not to make a confession on the scaffold. It is part of the same policy of easing the public conscience as the base and baseless statements about the letters written to Harding before his execution and to Matthews before his trial. The story of the farewell injunction to the brother can be most fittingly described as a dastardly lie. Whether Ross be guilty or innocent, the brothers never wavered in their belief in his innocence. The idea of a confession would never be present to the minds of any of them.

There was another thing Ross did on the last night of his life which has affected many people even more than his dying speech. His family, including his mother, took farewell of him on the Sunday afternoon. When they had left him, when all hope of mercy was gone, he sat down in his cell and wrote to his mother a letter which was not delivered to her, and was not intended to be delivered to her, until after his death. It is well worth giving, because it is so strongly in accord with the attitude he maintained throughout. It is almost impossible to believe that it is a tremendous piece of hypocrisy. The letter was as follows:—

“Good-bye, my darling mother and brothers. On this, the last night of my life, I want to tell you that I love you all more than ever. Do not fear for to-morrow, for I know God will be with me. Try to forgive my enemies—let God deal with them. I want you, dear mother, and Ronald, to thank all the friends who have been so kind to you and me during our trouble. I have received nothing but kindness since I have been in gaol. Say good-bye to Gladdie for me, and I wish for her a happy life. Dear ones, do not fret too much for me. The day is coming when my innocence will be proved. Good-bye, all my dear ones. Some day you will meet again your loving son and brother.

“COLIN, x x x x x x x x x x”

Ross has been described as inscrutable, and his conduct as puzzling. His firmness or obstinacy—it has been called indifferently either—has been criticised as suggesting a curious nature. But Ross and his conduct are only inscrutable if one starts with the assumption that he was a guilty man. Concede that he was innocent, and everything that he did, or said, or failed to say, not merely ceases to be inscrutable, but becomes quite natural. It is that, amongst other things, which has caused the widespread feeling that his life has been “sworn away by desperate people.”

IS THE MYSTERY SOLVED?

If Ross is innocent, the mystery of the death of Alma Tirtschke remains. It was, however, no part of Ross’s duty to solve it. In this connection it is doubtful whether sufficient attention has been ever paid to the evidence tendered by Joseph Thomas Graham. He is a cab driver by occupation, middle-aged, respectable, intelligent, and thoroughly level-headed. On Friday afternoon, December 30, at about half-past 3, he was in Little Collins Street, nearly opposite the Adam and Eve lodging-house, when his attention was arrested by a series of heartrending screams coming apparently from a young girl. They became higher in pitch as they succeeded one another, to the number of five or six, and then they died away. They were so noticeable that Graham and a man on the opposite side of the street both stopped and listened, but as the screams faded out each man went about his business. On or about Saturday, January 7, Graham saw a notice in the paper saying that, as the girl had been throttled, she was probably throttled to stop her screams, and asking anyone who had heard screams to communicate with the Detective Office. He went on the Monday to the Detective Office and reported what he had heard, but his reception does not appear to have been sympathetic. Graham was never called at the inquest. The police explanation is that he was not sure whether it was Thursday or Friday that he heard the screams, and that, in any case, he placed them as coming from higher up Little Collins Street. Neither explanation can be accepted, for Graham was absolutely definite as to his every movement on the Friday, and absolutely definite as to time and place. An absurd story was told by Detective Brophy about making inquiries in the neighbourhood, and learning of some child that had a reputation for screaming, as though an intelligent man could not tell the difference between the bad-tempered screaming of a naughty child and the agonised death screams of an adolescent girl. When Ross was condemned Graham went to his solicitor and repeated his story. That was the first the defence knew of it. The Full Court heard his evidence, but it declined to allow a jury to hear it.

Whether it would have had any effect on the jury can now be only a matter of conjecture. There is this to be said of it, however, that it fits in with the medical evidence, for it suggests a struggle, and the medical evidence of the abrasions suggests a struggle. It fits in, also, with all we know of Alma Tirtschke’s nature. The fact must be faced that, if the Matthews confession is true, the girl was not what her relatives believed her. She boldly went to Ross, and boldly remained in Ross’s saloon for three hours, like a pert and forward youngster, not to put it any further. If it comes to a choice, most people will prefer to think of the child as good and innocent and retiring, rather than to accept anything to the contrary which comes unsupported from the lips of Ivy Matthews. If the Harding confession is accepted the matter is very little better, for you then have the girl walking deliberately back into the Arcade after she was seen in Little Collins Street by the Youngs, accepting the invitation of a stranger to come into his wine saloon, and taking wine at his hands—wine of which no trace could be found when the stomach was opened less than eighteen hours afterwards. The attractive feature of Graham’s evidence, if the screams he heard were connected with Alma Tirtschke, is that it allows us to think of the little girl as we would all like to think of her—pure, innocent, and modest. That little girl met her death, in all human probability, within a few minutes of the time she was last seen alive by the Youngs, she met it in some place which was much handier to Gun Alley than Ross’s wine saloon, and she met it in a house provided with a fireplace or other conveniences for disposing of incriminating evidence. If anyone would like to see one other improbability in connection with the Crown case against Ross, he should visit the Little Collins Street entrance of the Arcade by night, and ask himself whether it is likely that any man would carry the dead body of a murdered child such a long distance up a brilliantly lighted thoroughfare even at 1 o’clock in the morning.

APPENDIX.

During the progress of the trial numberless letters, anonymous and bearing signatures, were received by Ross’s legal advisers. They were of all classes—helpful criticism, incoherent comment, threatening, laudatory, and censorious. One received on the eve of Ross’s execution, with a covering note asking that it should be handed to him, and saying that it would have been sent direct only the writer had doubts whether the prison regulations would allow Ross to get it, bore on its face some suggestion of genuineness. No one, of course, can say definitely, but the letter may perhaps be given as possessing some public interest. The envelope bore the postmark of a small country town, but there was nothing otherwise to indicate whence or from whom it came. With the elision of a sentence or two, rather Zola-esque for publication, it was as follows:—

“Colin C. Ross, “Melbourne Gaol.

“You have been condemned for a crime which you have never committed, and are to suffer for another’s fault. Since your conviction you have, no doubt, wondered what manner of man the real murderer is who could not only encompass the girl’s death, but allow you to suffer in his stead.

“My dear Ross, if it is any satisfaction for you to know it, believe me that you die but once, but he will continue to die for the rest of his life. Honoured and fawned upon by those who know him, the smile upon his lips but hides the canker eating into his soul. Day and night his life is a hell without the hope of reprieve. Gladly would he take your place on Monday next if he had himself alone to consider. His reason, then, briefly stated, is this: A devoted and loving mother is ill—a shock would be fatal. Three loving married sisters, whose whole life would be wrecked, to say nothing of brothers who have been accustomed to take him as a pattern. He cannot sacrifice these. Himself he will sacrifice when his mother passes away. He will do it by his own hand. He will board the ferry across the Styx with a lie on his lips, with the only hope that religion is a myth and death annihilation.

“It is too painful for him to go into the details of the crime. It is simply a Jekyll and Hyde existence. By a freak of nature, he was not made as other men.... This girl was not the first.... With a procuress all things are possible.... In this case there was no intention of murder—the victim unexpectedly collapsed. The hands of the woman, in her frenzy, did the rest.

“May it be some satisfaction to yourself, your devoted mother, and the members of your family to know that at least one of the legion of the damned, who is the cause of your death, is suffering the pangs of hell. He may not ask your forgiveness or sympathy, but he asks your understanding.”