Speaker 1: This is section fifty six of The Gilded Age. This
Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Gilded Age,
Speaker 1: A Tale of to Day by Mark Twain and C. D. Warner,
Speaker 1: Chapter fifty six. Missus Hawkins slowly and conscientiously, as if
Speaker 1: every detail of her family history was important, told the
Speaker 1: story of the steamboat explosion, of the finding and adoption
Speaker 1: of Laura Silas that is mister Hawkins, and she always
Speaker 1: loved Laura as if she had been their own child.
Speaker 1: She then narrated the circumstances of Laura's supposed marriage, her abandonment,
Speaker 1: and long illness in a manner that touched all hearts.
Speaker 1: Laura had been a different woman since then. Cross examined,
Speaker 1: at the time of first finding Laura on a steamboat,
Speaker 1: did she notice that Laura's mind was at all deranged?
Speaker 1: She couldn't say that she did. After the recovery of
Speaker 1: Laura from her long illness, did Missus Hawkins think there
Speaker 1: were any any signs of insanity about her? Witness confessed
Speaker 1: that she did not think of it. Then redirect examination,
Speaker 1: But she was different after that, Oh yes, Sir Washington
Speaker 1: Hawkins corroborated his mother's testimony as to Laura's connection with
Speaker 1: Colonel Selby, he was at Harding during the time of
Speaker 1: her living there with him. After Colonel Selby's desertion, she
Speaker 1: was almost dead, never appeared to know anything rightly for weeks.
Speaker 1: He added that he never saw such a scoundrel as
Speaker 1: Selby checked by a district attorney. Had he noticed any
Speaker 1: change in Laura after her illness? Oh, yes, whenever any
Speaker 1: allusion was made that might recall Selby to mine, she
Speaker 1: looked awful, as if she could kill him. You mean,
Speaker 1: said mister Braham, that there was an unnatural, insane gleam
Speaker 1: in her eyes. Well, yes, certainly, said Washington, in confusion.
Speaker 1: All this was objected to by the district attorney, but
Speaker 1: it was got before the jury, and mister Braham did
Speaker 1: not care how much it was ruled out. After that,
Speaker 1: Bias Sellars was the next witness called. The Colonel made
Speaker 1: his way to the stand with majestic yet bland deliberation.
Speaker 1: Having taken the oath and kissed the Bible with a
Speaker 1: smack intended to show his great respect for that book,
Speaker 1: he bowed to his honor with dignity, to the jury
Speaker 1: with familiarity, and then turned to the lawyers and stood
Speaker 1: in an attitude of superior attention. Mister Sellers, I believe
Speaker 1: began mister Braham Beriah Sellers, Missouri. Was the courteous acknowledgment
Speaker 1: that the lawyer was correct. Mister Sellers, you know the
Speaker 1: parties here. You are a friend of the family, know
Speaker 1: them all from infancy. Sir. It was me, Sir, that
Speaker 1: induced Silas Hawkins, Judge Hawkins, to come to Missouri and
Speaker 1: make his fortune. It was by my advice and in
Speaker 1: company with me, Sir, that he went into the operation
Speaker 1: of Yes, yes, mister Sellers. Did you know a Major Lachland?
Speaker 1: Knew him well, Sir, knew him and honored him. Sir.
Speaker 1: He was one of the most remarkable men of our country, Sir.
Speaker 1: A member of Congress, he was often at my mansion, Sir,
Speaker 1: for weeks. He used to say to me, Colonel Sellers,
Speaker 1: if you would go into politics, if I had you
Speaker 1: for a colleague, we should show Calhoun and Webster that
Speaker 1: the brain of the country didn't lie east of the Alleghanies.
Speaker 1: But I said, yes, yes, I believe Major Lachland is
Speaker 1: not living. Colonel. There was an almost imperceptible sense of
Speaker 1: pleasure betrayed in the Colonel's face at this prompt acknowledgment
Speaker 1: of his title. Bless you know, died years ago, a
Speaker 1: miserable death, Sir, a ruined man, a poor sought he
Speaker 1: was suspected of selling his vote in Congress, and probably
Speaker 1: he did. The disgrace killed him. He was an outcast, Sir,
Speaker 1: lothed by himself and by his constituents. And I think, sir,
Speaker 1: the judge, you will confine yourself to Colonel Sellers, to
Speaker 1: the questions of the council, of course, your honor. This
Speaker 1: continued the colonel, in confidential explanation, was twenty years ago.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have thought of referring to such a trifling circumstance. Now,
Speaker 1: if I remember rightly, Sir, A bundle of letters was
Speaker 1: here handed to the witness. Do you recognize that handwriting
Speaker 1: as if it was my own? Sir, it's Major Lackland's.
Speaker 1: I was knowing to these letters when Judge Hawkins received them.
Speaker 1: The Colonel's memory was a little at fault here. Mister
Speaker 1: Hawkins had never gone into details with him on this subject.
Speaker 1: Here's to show them to me and say, Colonel Sellers,
Speaker 1: you've a mind to untangle this sort of thing. Lord,
Speaker 1: how everything comes back to me. Laura was a little thing.
Speaker 1: Then the Judge and I were just laying our plans
Speaker 1: to buy the pilot knob and Colonel, one moment, your honor,
Speaker 1: we put these letters in evidence. Letters were a portion
Speaker 1: of the correspondence of Major Lachland with Silas Hawkins. Parts
Speaker 1: of them were missing, and important letters were referred to
Speaker 1: that were not here. They related, as the reader knows,
Speaker 1: to Laura's father. Lackland had come upon the track of
Speaker 1: a man who was searching for a lost child in
Speaker 1: a Mississippi steamboat explosion years before. The man was lame
Speaker 1: in one leg and appeared to be flitting from place
Speaker 1: to place. It seemed that Major Lachland got so close
Speaker 1: track of him that he was able to describe his
Speaker 1: personal appearance and learn his name. But the letter containing
Speaker 1: these particulars was lost. Once he heard of him at a
Speaker 1: hotel in Washington, but the man departed, leaving an empty
Speaker 1: trunk the day before the Major went there. There was
Speaker 1: something very mysterious in all his movements. Colonel Sellars, continuing
Speaker 1: his testimony, said that he saw this lost letter but
Speaker 1: could not now recall the name. Search for the supposed
Speaker 1: father had been continued hued by Lackland, Hawkins and himself
Speaker 1: for several years, but Laura was not informed of it
Speaker 1: till after the death of Hawkins, for fear of raising
Speaker 1: false hopes in her mind. Here the district Attorney arose
Speaker 1: and said, your Honor, I must positively object to letting
Speaker 1: the witness wander off into all these irrelevant details. Mister Braham,
Speaker 1: I submit your Honor, that we cannot be interrupted in
Speaker 1: this manner. We have suffered the state to have full swing.
Speaker 1: Now Here is a witness who has known the prisoner
Speaker 1: from infancy and is competent to testify upon the one
Speaker 1: point vital to her safety. Evidently he is a gentleman
Speaker 1: of character, and his knowledge of the case cannot be
Speaker 1: shut out without increasing the aspect of persecution, which the
Speaker 1: state's attitude towards the prisoner already has assumed. The wrangle
Speaker 1: continued waxing hotter and hotter. The colonel, seeing the attention
Speaker 1: of the Council and the court entirely withdrawn from him,
Speaker 1: thought he perceived here his opportunity. Turning and beaming upon
Speaker 1: the jury, he began simply to talk. But as the
Speaker 1: grandeur of his position grew upon him. His talk broadened
Speaker 1: unconsciously into an oratorical vein. You see how she was situated, gentlemen,
Speaker 1: poor child, it might have broken her heart to let
Speaker 1: her mind get to running on such a thing as that.
Speaker 1: You see, from what we could make out, her father
Speaker 1: was lame in the left leg and had a deep
Speaker 1: scar on his left forehead. And so ever since the
Speaker 1: day she found out she had another father, she never
Speaker 1: could run across a lame stranger without being taken all
Speaker 1: over with a shiver and almost fainting where she stood,
Speaker 1: And the next minute she would go right after that man.
Speaker 1: Once she stumbled on a stranger with a game leg,
Speaker 1: and she was the most grateful thing in this world,
Speaker 1: but it was the wrong leg, and it was days
Speaker 1: and days before for she could leave her bed. Once
Speaker 1: she found a man with a scar on his forehead,
Speaker 1: and she was just going to throw herself into his arms,
Speaker 1: but he stepped out just then, and there wasn't anything
Speaker 1: the matter with his legs. Time and time again, gentlemen
Speaker 1: of the jury, has this poor suffering orphan flung herself
Speaker 1: on her knees with all her heart's gratitude in her
Speaker 1: eyes before some scarred and crippled veteran, but always always
Speaker 1: to be disappointed, always to be plunged into new despair.
Speaker 1: If his legs were right, his scar was wrong. If
Speaker 1: his scar was right, his legs were wrong. Never could
Speaker 1: find a man that would fill the bill. Gentlemen of
Speaker 1: the jury, you have hearts, you have feelings, You have
Speaker 1: warm human sympathies. You can feel for this poor suffering child,
Speaker 1: Gentlemen of the jury, if I had time, if I
Speaker 1: had the opportunity, if I might be permitted to go
Speaker 1: on and tell you the thousands and thousands and thousands
Speaker 1: of mutilated strangers this poor girl has started out of
Speaker 1: cover and hunted from city to city, from state to state,
Speaker 1: from continent to continent, till she has run them down
Speaker 1: and found they weren't the ones I know your hearts.
Speaker 1: By this time, the colonel had become so warmed up
Speaker 1: that his voice had reached a pitch above that of
Speaker 1: the contending council. The lawyer suddenly stopped, and they and
Speaker 1: the judge turned towards the colonel and remained for several seconds,
Speaker 1: too surprised at this novel exhibition to speak. In this
Speaker 1: interval of silence. An appreciation of the situation gradually stole
Speaker 1: over the audience, and an explosion of laughter followed, in
Speaker 1: which even the court and the bar could hardly keep
Speaker 1: from joining Sheriff. Order in the court the judge, the
Speaker 1: witness will confine his remarks to answers to questions. The
Speaker 1: colonel turned courteously to the judge and said, certainly, your honor, certainly,
Speaker 1: I am not well acquainted with the forms of procedure
Speaker 1: in the courts of New York. But in the West, Sir,
Speaker 1: in the West, the judge there there that will do that,
Speaker 1: will do you, see, your honor? There were no questions
Speaker 1: asked me, and I thought I would take advantage of
Speaker 1: the lull in the proceedings to explain to the jury
Speaker 1: a very significant train of the judge that will do sir, proceed,
Speaker 1: mister Bray, Colonel Sellers, have you any reason to suppose
Speaker 1: that this man is still living? For every reason, sir,
Speaker 1: every reason? State why I have never heard of his death? Sir?
Speaker 1: It has never come to my knowledge. In fact, Sir,
Speaker 1: as I once said to Governor, will you state to
Speaker 1: the jury what has been the effect of the knowledge
Speaker 1: of this wandering and evidently unsettled, being supposed to be
Speaker 1: her father. Upon the mind of Miss Hawkins for so
Speaker 1: many years, question objected to, question, ruled out, cross examined,
Speaker 1: Major Sellers, what is your occupation? The colonel looked about
Speaker 1: him loftily, as if casting in his mind what would
Speaker 1: be the proper occupation of a person of such multifarious interests,
Speaker 1: and then said, with dignity, a gentleman, sir, My father
Speaker 1: used to always say, sir, Captain Sellars, did you ever
Speaker 1: see this man, this supposed father, No, sir, But upon
Speaker 1: one occasion, old Senator Thompson said to me, it's my opinion,
Speaker 1: Colonel Sellers, did you ever see anybody who had seen him? No, sir.
Speaker 1: It was reported around at one time that that is all.
Speaker 1: The defense then spent a day in the examination of
Speaker 1: medical experts in insanity who testified on the evidence, heard
Speaker 1: that sufficient causes had occurred to produce an insane mind
Speaker 1: in the prisoner. Numerous cases were cited to sustain this opinion.
Speaker 1: There was such a thing as momentary insanity, in which
Speaker 1: the person otherwise rational to all appearances, was for the
Speaker 1: time actually bereft of reason and not responsible for his acts.
Speaker 1: The causes of this momentary possession could often be found
Speaker 1: in the person's life. It afterwards came out that the
Speaker 1: chief expert for the defense was paid a thousand dollars
Speaker 1: for looking into the case. The prosecution consumed another day
Speaker 1: in the examination of experts refuting the notion of insanity.
Speaker 1: These causes might have produced insanity, but there was no
Speaker 1: evidence that they have produced it in this case, or
Speaker 1: that the prisoner was not, at the time of the
Speaker 1: commission of the crime in full possession of her ordinary faculties.
Speaker 1: The trial had now lasted two weeks. It required four
Speaker 1: days now for the lawyers to sum up. These arguments
Speaker 1: of the council were very important to their friends and
Speaker 1: greatly enhanced their reputation at the bar, but they have
Speaker 1: small interest to us. Mister Braham, in his closing speech,
Speaker 1: surpassed himself. His effort is still remains membered as the
Speaker 1: greatest in the criminal annals of New York. Mister Braham
Speaker 1: redrew for the jury the picture of Laura's early life.
Speaker 1: He dwelt long upon that painful episode of the pretended
Speaker 1: marriage and the desertion Colonel Selby, he said, belonged, gentlemen,
Speaker 1: to what is called the upper classes. It is the
Speaker 1: privilege of the upper classes to prey upon the sons
Speaker 1: and daughters of the people. The Hawkins family, though allied
Speaker 1: to the best blood of the South, were at the
Speaker 1: time in humble circumstances. He commented upon her parentage. Perhaps
Speaker 1: her agonized father, in his intervals of sanity, was still
Speaker 1: searching for his lost daughter. Would he one day hear
Speaker 1: that she had died of Felon's death, Society had pursued her,
Speaker 1: fate had pursued her, and in a moment of delirium,
Speaker 1: she had turned and defied fate and society. He dwelt
Speaker 1: upon the admission of base wrong in Colonel Selby's dying statement,
Speaker 1: he drew a vivid picture of the villain at last
Speaker 1: overtaken by the vengeance of heaven. Would the jury say
Speaker 1: that this retributive justice, inflicted by an outraged and deluded woman,
Speaker 1: rendered irrational by the most cruel wrongs, was in the
Speaker 1: nature of a foul, premeditated murder. Gentlemen, it is enough
Speaker 1: for me to look upon the life of this most
Speaker 1: beautiful and accomplished of her sex, blasted by the heartless
Speaker 1: villainy of man, without seeing at the end of it,
Speaker 1: the horrible spectacle of a gibbet. Gentlemen, we are all human,
Speaker 1: we have all sinned, we all have need of mercy.
Speaker 1: But I do not ask mercy of you, who are
Speaker 1: the guardians of society and of the poor waifs. It's
Speaker 1: sometimes wronged victims. I ask only that justice which you
Speaker 1: and I shall need in that last dreadful hour when
Speaker 1: death will be he robbed of half its terrors. If
Speaker 1: we can reflect that we have never wronged a human being, Gentlemen,
Speaker 1: the life of this lovely and once happy girl, this
Speaker 1: now stricken woman, is in your hands. The jury were
Speaker 1: visibly affected. Half the court room was in tears. If
Speaker 1: a vote of both spectators and jury could have been taken,
Speaker 1: then the verdict would have been let her go. She
Speaker 1: has suffered enough. But the district attorney had the closing
Speaker 1: argument calmly and without malice or excitement. He reviewed the testimony.
Speaker 1: As the cold facts were unrolled, fear settled upon the listeners.
Speaker 1: There was no escape from the murder or its premeditation.
Speaker 1: Laura's character as a lobbyist in Washington, which had been
Speaker 1: made to appear incidentally in the evidence, was also against her.
Speaker 1: The whole body of the testimony of the defense was
Speaker 1: shown to be irrelevant, introduced only to excite sympathy, and
Speaker 1: not giving a color of probability to the absurd supposition
Speaker 1: of insanity. The attorney then dwelt upon the insecurity of
Speaker 1: life in the city and the growing immunity with which
Speaker 1: women committed murders. Mister mc flynn made a very able speech,
Speaker 1: convincing the reason without touching the feelings. The judge, in
Speaker 1: his charge, reviewed the testimony with great show of impartiality.
Speaker 1: He ended by saying that the verdict must be acquittal
Speaker 1: or murder in the first degree. If you find that
Speaker 1: the prisoner committed a homicide in possession of her reason
Speaker 1: and with premeditation, your verdict will be accordingly. If you
Speaker 1: find she was not in her right mind, that she
Speaker 1: was the victim of insanity, hereditary or momentary, as it
Speaker 1: has been explained, your verdict will take that into account.
Speaker 1: As the judge finished his charge, the spectators anxiously watched
Speaker 1: the faces of the jury. It was not a remunerative study.
Speaker 1: In the court room. The general feeling was in favor
Speaker 1: of Laura, but whether this feeling extended to the jury
Speaker 1: their stolid faces did not reveal. The public outside hoped
Speaker 1: for a conviction, as it always does. It wanted an example.
Speaker 1: The newspapers trusted the jury would have the courage to
Speaker 1: do its duty. When Laura was convicted, then the public
Speaker 1: would turn round and abuse the governor if he did
Speaker 1: not pardon her. The jury went out, Mister Braham preserved
Speaker 1: his serene confidence, but Laura's friends were dispirited. Washington and
Speaker 1: Colonel Sellers had been obliged to go to Washington, and
Speaker 1: they had departed under the unspoken fear the verdict would
Speaker 1: be unfavorable. A disagreement was the best they could hope for,
Speaker 1: and money was needed. The necessity of the passage of
Speaker 1: the University bill was now imperative. The court waited for
Speaker 1: some time, but the jury gave no signs of coming in.
Speaker 1: Mister Braham said it was extraordinary, and took a recess
Speaker 1: for a couple of hours. Upon again coming in, word
Speaker 1: was brought that the jury had not yet agreed, but
Speaker 1: the jury had a question. The point upon which they
Speaker 1: wanted instruction was this. They wanted to know if Colonel
Speaker 1: Sellars was related to the Hawkins family. The court then
Speaker 1: adjourned till morning. Mister Braham, who was in something of
Speaker 1: a pet remarked to mister O'Toole that they must have
Speaker 1: been deceived that juryman with the broken nose could read
Speaker 1: end of chapter fifty six.