argumentative or philosophic disposition may care to quarrel
with this doctrine, they must at least admit that it would
doubtless appear to them of vital truth were they defending
some trembling client concerning whose guilt or innocence they
were themselves somewhat in doubt. "Charity believeth all
things," and the prisoner is entitled to every reasonable
doubt, even from his own lawyer. It is the lawyer's business
to create such a doubt if he can, and we must not be too
censorious if, in his eagerness to raise this in the minds of
the jury, he sometimes oversteps the bounds of propriety,
appeals to popular prejudices and emotions, makes illogical
deductions from the evidence, and impugns the motives of the
prosecution. The district attorney should be able to take
care of himself, handle the evidence in logical fashion, and
tear away the flimsy curtain of sentimentality hoisted by the
defence. These are hardly "tricks" at all, but sometimes
under the name of advocacy a trick is "turned" which deserves
a much harsher name.

Not long ago a celebrated case of murder was moved for trial
after the defendant's lawyer had urged him in vain to offer a
plea of murder in the second degree. A jury was summoned and,
as is the usual custom in such cases, examined separately on
the "voir dire" as to their fitness to serve. The defendant
was a German, and the prosecutor succeeded in keeping all
Germans off the jury until the eleventh seat was to be filled,
when he found his peremptory challenges exhausted. Then the
lawyer for the prisoner managed to slip in a stout old Teuton,
who replied, in answer to a question as to his place of
nativity, "Schleswig-Holstein." The lawyer made a note of it,