has failed to establish any such charge.  The suggestion of murder comes solely from the man who has so deeply wronged and has pursued with such deadly venom the unfortunate prisoner at the bar.  This man, after betraying the cause of freedom, after wrecking the prisoner’s home and family, after proving traitor to every trust imposed in him, now seeks to fasten upon his victim this horrid crime of murder.  His is the sole evidence.  What sort of man is this upon whose unsupported testimony you are asked to send a fellow human being to the scaffold?  Think calmly, gentlemen, is he such a man as you can readily believe?  Is his highly coloured story credible?  Are you so gullible as to be taken in with this melodrama?  Gentlemen, I know you, I know my fellow citizens too well to think that you will be so deceived.

“Now what are the facts, the bare facts, the cold facts, gentlemen?  And we are here to deal with facts.  Here they are.  There is a wedding.  My learned friend is not interested in weddings, not perhaps as much interested as he should be, and as such, apparently, he excites the pity of his friends.”

This sally turned all eyes towards Mrs. Fitzpatrick, and a broad smile spread over the court.

“There is a wedding, as I was saying.  Unhappily the wedding feast, as is too often the case with our foreign citizens, degenerates into a drunken brawl.  It is a convenient occasion for paying off old scores.  There is general melee, a scrap, in short.  Suddenly these two men come face to face, their passions inflamed.  On the one hand there is a burning sense of wrong, on the other an unquenchable hate.  For, gentlemen, remember, the man that hates you most venomously is the man who has wronged you most deeply.  These two meet.  There is a fight.  When all is over, one man is found dead, another with a wound in his breast.  But who struck the first blow?  None can tell.  We are absolutely without evidence upon this point.  In regard to the Polak, all that can be said is this, that it was a most unfortunate occurrence.  The attempt to connect the prisoner with this man’s death has utterly failed.  In regard to the man Rosenblatt, dismissing his absurdly tragic story, what evidence has been brought before this court that there was any deliberate attempt at murder?  A blow was struck, but by whom?  No one knows.  What was the motive?  Was it in self-defence warding off some murderous attack?  No one can say.  I have as much right to believe that this was the case, as any man to believe the contrary.  Indeed, from what we know of the character of this wretched traitor and thief, it is not hard to believe that the attack upon this stranger would come from him.”

And so O’Hara proceeded with his most extraordinary defence.  Theory after theory he advanced, quoting instance after instance of extraordinary killings that were discovered to be accidental or in self-defence, till with the bewildered jury no theory explanatory of the crime committed in the basement of Paulina’s house was too fantastic to be considered possible.