If it please the court," said Mr. Braham, rising impressively, "your

Honor has permitted the prosecution, and I have submitted without a word;

to go into the most extraordinary testimony to establish a motive. Are

we to be shut out from showing that the motive attributed to us could not

by reason of certain mental conditions exist? I purpose, may, it please

your Honor, to show the cause and the origin of an aberration of mind,

to follow it up, with other like evidence, connecting it with the very

moment of the homicide, showing a condition of the intellect, of the

prisoner that precludes responsibility."

The State must insist upon its objections," said the District Attorney.

The purpose evidently is to open the door to a mass of irrelevant

testimony, the object of which is to produce an effect upon the jury your

Honor well understands."

"Perhaps," suggested the judge, "the court ought to hear the testimony,

and exclude it afterwards, if it is irrelevant."

Will your honor hear argument on that!"

Certainly."

And argument his honor did hear, or pretend to, for two whole days,

from all the counsel in turn, in the course of which the lawyers read

contradictory decisions enough to perfectly establish both sides, from

593

The Gilded Age