I trust, gentlemen, that I am too well known at the bar
of this court and in this community to have my moral standing swept
away by such a flimsy falsehood as you see this to be. And so, to-day,
this child comes into court and declares, with solemn asseveration,
that the evidence fixing his identity beyond dispute or question is
all a lie; and what is this declaration worth? His Honor will tell
you, in his charge, I have no doubt, that this boy's statement,
founded, as he himself says, on hearsay, is valueless in law, and
should have no weight in your minds. But I do not ask you to base your
judgment on technicalities of law. I ask you to base it simply on the
reasonable evidence in this case.
"What explanation there can be of this lad's conduct, I have not, as
yet, been ably, fully, to determine.
"I have tried, in my own mind, to throw the mantle of charity across
him. I have tried to think that, coming from an unaccustomed meal, his
stomach loaded with rich food, he no sooner sank into the office chair
than he fell asleep and dreamed. It is not improbable. The power of
dreams is great on children's minds, as all of you may know. But in
the face of these developments I can hardly bring myself to accept
this theory. There is too much method in the child's madness. It
looks more like the outcome of some desperate move on the part of
this defence to win the game which they have seen slipping from their
control. It looks like a deep-laid plan to rob my aged and honored
client of the credit to which he is entitled for rescuing this boy at
the risk of his life, for caring for him through poverty and disease,
for finding him when his own mother had given him up for dead, and
restoring him to the bosom of his family.
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