tongues.

"Men may lie, but circumstances cannot. The thousand hopes and
fears and passions of men may delude, or bias the witness. Yet it
is beyond the human mind to conceive that a clear, complete chain
of concatenated circumstances can be in error. Hence it is that
the greatest jurists have declared that such evidence, being rarely
liable to delusion or fraud, is safest and most powerful. The
machinery of human justice cannot guard against the remote and
improbable doubt. The inference is persistent in the affairs of
men. It is the only means by which the human mind reaches the
truth. If you forbid the jury to exercise it, you bid them work
after first striking off their hands. Rule out the irresistible
inference, and the end of justice is come in this land; and you may
as well leave the spider to weave his web through the abandoned
court room."

The attorney stopped, looked down at Mason with a pompous sneer,
and retired to his place at the table. The judge sat thoughtful
and motionless. The jurymen leaned forward in their seats.

"If your Honor please," said Mason, rising, "this is a matter of
law, plain, clear, and so well settled in the State of New York
that even counsel for the People should know it. The question
before your Honor is simple. If the corpus delicti, the body of
the crime, has been proven, as required by the laws of the
commonwealth, then this case should go to the jury. If not, then
it is the duty of this Court to direct the jury to find the
prisoner not guilty. There is here no room for judicial
discretion. Your Honor has but to recall and apply the rigid rule