itors of The News, who tried to uphold the weak and nerveless hands of the State against this vice. You cannot get at a man's intentions unless you get at the surrounding circumstances, and we have to ascertain the ideas they had in . publishing this article; and it is conceded by the State of Maryland here that when this article was written policy had been destroyed in the City of Baltimore, not permanently, because, like the cat, it had a multiplicity of lives, but cowed into temporary submission, and these men creeping under the shadows of darkness, under the gaslights, down to Frederick street, each coming out of his den of iniquity, with the guilt in his heart and exhibited in his face, met in secret conclave for the purpose of determining-what? As to whether the floodgates of iniquity that had been stayed by The News should again be thrown open and allow this iniquity to rush over the people of Baltimore; to determine as to whether this playing of this degrading game should again begin to wring the money from the poor; a secret conclave of policy backers, eminent politicians and gamblers meeting in secret under the shadows of night, after being cowed upon the approach of public exposure of their transactions, and as all conspirators meet, and The News knew it. The eye of The News was in the room. The ear of The News was there and heard what every man said, and the eye of The News saw who was there and saw them put up their $82, and heard them resolve, "Now we will again begin this game of policy in the City of Baltimore, which we have temporarily stopped," and that was the situation of things and The News knew it, and that being the situation of things they published this article, and they did give you the name of everybody there, and in connection with that say that among other people who were there was Herlich of the firm of Herlich & Davis, of which ex-Sheriff H. G. Fledderman-is what? Is a partner? No.

"Of which ex-Sheriff H. G. Fledderman is said to be a silent partner.

That is to say, Herlich & Davis were there and that this

that point, taking this august stamp of the State of Maryland and branding these young men as criminals, your verdict must be, Not Guilty. You cannot do it. Oh, gentlemen, I only wish I was strong enough to express the real indignation that bursts from the heart of every honest man within the sound of my voice, at the attempt of the State to do it; that the attempt of the State of Maryland to try to get this jury of citizens of Baltimore city to stamp the name of criminal upon these young men; it is not the least outrageous part of these whole proceedings.

Now, what have they started out to prove? "The grand inquest of the State of Maryland for the body of the City of Baltimore, do, on their oaths, present that Charles H. Grasty, Thomas K. Worthington and John M. Carter, the younger, late of said city, on the 9th day of April, in the year, of our Lord 1893, at the City of Baltimore aforesaid"-now what? You would be surprised to find, gentlemen of the jury, because this indictment has not been read to you in the way to impress upon you the force of the language that is used. Now, what do they charge these men with? "With contriving unlawfully and wickedly"-gentlemen, hear this -"wickedly and maliciously intending to injure, villify and prejudice one Henry G. Fledderman and to deprive him of his good name, fame, credit and reputation, and to bring him into great contempt, scandal, infamy and disgrace, unlawfully, wickedly and maliciously did write and publish a false, scandalous, malicious and defamatory libel in the form of a newspaper article containing divers false, scandalous, malicious and defamatory matters and things concerning the said Fladderman;" that these men not only published this article, but that they did it wickedly and maliciously, contriving to wickedly and maliciously hurt this man; now that they must prove. That is the intention with which this alleged crime was committed.

There cannot be a crime without an evil intention, wrongful intent, as I just read to you; that being the case, all that you have to pass upon on this branch of the inquiry is as to

whether these gentlemen, when they published this article, intended wickedly and maliciously to villify this man; that that was their object, that that was their intention, because that is what the indictment says, or that they intended to do the City of Baltimore a great public service by bringing to the light of day the hordes of policy gamblers who are fattening upon the substance of the poor. Now which? Now which? Ah, gentlemen, you are beginning to see what this thing means. There is not a man in that jury box who, if he takes that indictment, as he must take it, with him to the jury room and reads the intention with which the State has charged this crime on these people, of maliciously contriving and with a wicked intent, to wickedly and maliciously defame this man, and that that was the object and intent of the publication of that whole article-I say, there is not a man in that jury box who can look any of his friends in the face after saying that that has been proven in this trial. The very gravamen of the offense. Why, gentlemen, crime amounts to nothing unless the intention is wrong. I might kill a man by shooting him through the heart, but that doesn't make me a murderer. If that man was about to take my life, or the life of my wife, or the lives of my children, my shooting him through the heart would be wholly an act of selfdefense; it is not the act done that makes the crime. If a police officer strikes a man down, and that man is a murderer fleeing from justice, the blow is not an assault, because his intention was to stop a criminal from escaping. So that the publication here cannot be a libel simply because of the publication. The intention is the very soul of the crime. It is the intention which makes the man the criminal, and hangs the murderer high upon the gallows; all men ought to receive the approbation of their fellow citizens for driving the burglar from their homes and killing him if necessary to protect his home. So that it is the intention which is the soul of the crime. Ah, gentlemen, there is nothing on the side of this prosecution that has soul in it. Now, let us look at the question for a few moments. My brother, Mr.

Carter, went so far as to say-I cannot put my finger upon his language exactly in the record, but I do not think it is very important-but he went so far as to say that this publication was pandering to the passions of the community. Well, gentlemen, if by pandering to the passions of the community, you mean exposing crime which the officials cannot expose, I think that is the kind of pandering which the newspaper ought to do; I think that is the kind of pandering which a newspaper is here for. But that was only a side issue, a little bit in reply to my brother who accused us of talking buncombe, and we do not care to reply ungraciously to anything that that gentleman may say; we esteem him so highly; we have such an affection and regard for Mr. Carter as the leader of this bar, that a provocation stronger than that would not call forth a single word in reply from our side to his speech the other day.

The real question is, did these men publish this article with the intention of defaming Mr. Fledderman, or did they publish this article with the intention of exposing a great villainy? Now, in determining that question, let us look at the situation of things. My brother, Mr. Carter, stated in his speech which he made on the question of evidence that so far as the entire article in this matter was concerned, you may take it to be true, and when, therefore, we brought a cloud of witnesses to prove its truth the State objected, and the ground of their objection was that you could take it to be true, and it was not necessary to prove it, and therefore, gentlemen, we have a perfect right to assume that it is true. Now let me give you another reason if assuming that it is true, the State of Maryland is obliged, if they find this thing to be libelous, and if they desire to punish it as a crime, they are obliged to state in their indictment the whole of the article.

Because it is one thing. It is one publication. If this were a libel intended to vilify the police, it should have been stated in the indictment that that was its intention. If this newspaper intended to villify Moan or Busey, or the various

As my brother Marbury so well said, if you associate with thieves, can you blame the community for thinking you are connected with them? Has not this man Herlich been notoriously a policy backer for years and years and years? Has he not gone numberless times to Hamilton and said: "Go bail for some of my policy writers?" Have not the witnesses of the State said that it is a matter of common knowledge that he is a policy backer? Are not the connections between Fledderman and Davis, by virtue of the official relations which they had, and by virtue of the facts which surrounded these men all incriminating circumstances of the kind by which you convict a criminal on circumstantial evidence? Can we say that he did not feel the force of that? Didn't we challenge him? I am very glad we have the stenographer's notes here. It occurs in the argument I made yesterday before the Court, and it was done for the purpose, as you will see from the language, as I read it, of putting this man on his feet if he had a drop of manly blood in his heart. That is what it was done for. I was arguing about the system of evidence. We showed that Fledderman was a part of a system by which the police, some of the police; the politicians, some of them, and the gamblers were united together by the cords of private interest, and that he was one of that system, and that is what we tried to get the Court to permit. And then this is what I said:

"It is admissible in evidence, certainly as against Herlich and Davis, and I think we will be able to show certainly as against Mr. Fledderman

And I think we will be able to follow up every word that I am about to state to you as if they were Fledderman's words, because they give you the key to this whole business, and it simply needs that they shall sink into your mind and heart and you will undoubtedly at once reject the suggestion as infamous that these gentlemen shall go to jail for saying of this man that he is a partner in the business when he is publicly charged with being a partner, and when he is told