Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/125

 could be invoked—with a deep sense of satisfaction when the court ruled your way—to prevent him from telling something he had on his mind, something that to him seemed entirely exculpatory, something that would make the whole clouded situation clear if it could only find its way to the light and to the knowledge of mankind.

There was a witness against him, a tall, slender young German shoemaker, and it was against him that Rheinhold's outcries were directed. It was not clear just what he was trying to say, and there was small disposition to help him make it clear. His lawyer indeed seemed embarrassed, as though in making his incoherent interruptions Rheinhold were committing a contretemps; he must wait for his turn to testify, that all might be done in order and according to the ancient rules and precedents, and, in a word, as it should be done. Under the rules of evidence, of course, Rheinhold could not be allowed to express his opinion of the shoemaker; that was not permissible. The court could not be concerned with the passions of the human heart; this man before the court had a family, and he had neglected to provide food for it, and for such a condition it was written and printed in a book that the appropriate remedy was a certain number of days or months in the workhouse.

And so while Rheinhold silently and philosophically acquiesced, we tried him during one whole day, we argued nearly all the next day to the jury, and the jury stayed out all that night and in the morning returned a verdict of guilty. And