theory--that the legal processes of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence are of
slight avail in dealing with people of another race.

Now it is possible that even had Mr. Tutt put in no defense whatever the
jury might have refused to convict, for there was a curious air of
unreality surrounding the whole affair. It all seemed somehow as
if--assuming that it had ever taken place at all--it had occurred in
some other world and in some other age. Perhaps under what might have
been practically a direction of the court a verdict of conviction might
have been returned--but it is doubtful. The more witnesses testified to
exactly the same thing in precisely the same words the less likely it
appeared to be.

But Mr. Tutt was taking no chances and, upon the forty-third day of the
trial, at a nod from the bench, he opened his case. Never had he been
more serious; never more persuasive. Abandoning every suggestion of
frivolity, he weighed the testimony of each white witness and pointed
out its obvious lack of probative value. Not one, he said, except the
Italian woman, had had more than a fleeting glance of the face of the
man now accused of the crime. Such an identification was useless. The
Chinamen were patently lying. They had not been there at all! Would any
member of the jury hang a dog, even a yellow one, on such testimony? Of
course not! Much less a human being. The people had called forty
witnesses to prove that Mock Hen had killed Quong Lee. It made no
difference. The On Gee could have just as easily produced four hundred.
Moreover, Mr. Tutt did a very daring thing. He pronounced all Chinese
testimony in an American court of justice as absolutely valueless, and
boasted that for every Chinaman who swore Mock Hen was guilty he would
bring forward two who would swear him innocent.