justice to-day is not the swift judgment of honest men upon a
criminal act, but a clever game between judge and lawyer, in
which the action of the jury is discounted entirely and the
moves are made with a view to checkmating justice, not in the
trial courtroom, but before the appellate tribunal two or
three years later.

"My young feller," said a grizzled veteran of the criminal bar
to me long years ago, after our jury had gone out, "there's
lots of things in this game you ain't got on to yet. Do you
think I care what this jury does? Not one mite. I got a nice
little error into the case the very first day--and I've set
back ever since. S'pose we are convicted? I'll get Jim here
[the prisoner] out on a certificate and it'll be two years
before the Court of Appeals will get around to the case.
Meantime Jim'll be out makin' money to pay me my fee--won't
you, Jim? Then your witnesses, will be gone, and nobody'll
remember what on earth it's all about. You'll be down in Wall
Street practicing real law yourself, and the indictment will
kick around the office for a year or so, all covered with
dust, and then some day I'll get a friend of mine to come in
quietly and move to dismiss. And it'll be dismissed. Don't
you worry! Why, a thousand other murders will have been
committed in this county by the time that happens. Bless your
soul! You can't go on tryin' the same man forever! Give the
other fellers a chance. You shake your head? Well, it's a
fact. I've been doin' it for forty years. You'll see." And
I did. That may not be why men kill, but perhaps indirectly
it may have something to do with it.