"A jury of my peers! A lot of thick-headed country tradesmen, prejudiced
against me from the start because I'd sometimes kicked up a row in their
town! They weren't my peers any more than they were yours!"

"The law assumes all men to be equal--"

"Just as it assumes all men to be intelligent--only they're not. The law
is a very fine theory. The chief thing to be, said against it is that five
times out of ten it leaves human nature out of account. I'm condemned to
death, not because I killed a man, but because you lawyers won't admit
that your theory doesn't work."

He began to speak more easily, with the energy born of his desperate
situation and his sense of wrong. He sat up straighter; the air of
dejection with which he had sunk to the chair slipped from him; his gray
eyes, of the kind called "honest," shot out glances of protest. The elder
man found himself once more struggling against the wave of sympathy which
at times in the court-room had been almost too strong for him. He was
forced to intrench himself mentally within the system he served before
bracing himself to reply.

"I can't keep you from having your opinion--"

"Nor can I save you from having yours. Look at me, judge!" He was bolt
upright now, throwing his arms wide with a gesture in which there was more
appeal than indignation "Look at me! I'm a strong, healthy-bodied,
healthy-minded fellow of twenty-four; but I'm drenched to the skin, I'm
half naked, I'm nearly dead with hunger, I'm an outlaw for life--and
you're responsible for it all."