October 28 1907.]
about you? How would anyone know Miss Dayton was staying at the hotel?
Instead of spending that night at the hotel you slept at the Young Men's Christian Association ?-That is what I call it. It is a sailors' home.
Have you any evidence as to this?—I have not, but I believe if the man and woman who are in the place could come here and hear me describe the general run of the place they would testify that I slept there that night.
Would you have any trouble in convincing the Court that you slept at a Japanese brothel --I do not know which brothel I was in.
Why did you want to leave the country and lose yourself?-Because my name was mixed пр
in the affair. I decided the best thing for me to do was to go away, and stay away for ever.
You won't say, sir, because you had been guilty of a foul murder, and to escape justice?
-Ne, sir (emphatically.)
Your conduct when arrested at Chefoo was not that of an innocent man-I did not want my name mixed up in it.
Why did you not stat when arrested that you spent your time in a brothel ?—I was asked for no statement.
I put it to you that the whole of your story from beginning to end is a subterfuge, a pure concoction ?-No, sir. It is nothing but the truth; the Gospel truth. When I returned to Hongkong the witnesses failed to identify me ; why should I not now have trouble in getting witnesses in my favour?
The jury for the last two days have been investigating the question as to whether you came here at all. Now you admit the whole story, all but the murder, and I am putting it to you, your story from beginning to end is a concoc.100. You displayed some ingenuity in the matter?-No, Sir. I have given my state. ment, and am being cross-examined, and if there are any lies they certainly would come out. Your wife was living at Chefoo when you went there ?-No, sir.
{
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
You never saw the deceased woman hare any conversation with any other mau that night ?-- Not to my knowledge.
You did not sea ber?-No. This concluded the cross-examination and prisoner returned to the dock.
Sir Hery Berkeley, who spoke for 55 minutes, then commenced his address.
f
He said--Gentlemen of the jury, the charge against the prisoner is the wilful murder of Gertrude Dayton, and the ath you have taken is that you will find a verdict of guilty or not guilty according to the esidence. Gentlemen, I feel impelled to thus address yon, as it may see m unnecessarily, because it
may be assumed that men of
your age and experience are aware that juries can only find a verdict sccording to the evid nee; but gentlemen, believe me that the warning I have respectfully ventured to bring before you is not impertinent, is not unnecessary in the particular case under consideration, for gentlemen, I venture fu say that there is hardly a man in this colony, hardly except one even in this court, who has not discussed this question at a time when it was never a-sumed that the man Adsetts would come before a Hongkong jury to take his trial. I will venture to go further and to say that there are very few, if any, of these who discu-sed the case who had not already found the man guilty before he arrived in Hongkong. ow gentlemen, that circumstance, together with the unwise act of the prisoner in fleeing from the Colony in the manner that he did, that circumstanÇA renders task herculean unless you will find a verdict only according to the evidence; unless you will remember that no oue saw prisoner commit the act the Crown charges ag-inst him. That he can only be found guilty upon what is known as cir- cumstantial evidence must be the logical result of accurate reasoning from the evidence before
you.
my
But it must be a cool, clm aud independ. ent judgment, a judgment free from all fear of what the pub ic may say if you find a verdict of which the public will disapprove, the unthink- ing public, the public that did not hear the Where has she been living-My wife is in evidence, and the public that having heard the Philadelphia.
Hes she not been living at the Beach Hotel at Chefoo?-No, sir.
years.
At the time -She has been there for My instructions are that your wife was living at the Beach Hotel, Chefoo.-1 was living with a woman and was in partnership with her.
Was the woman there when you arrived ?— No, sir. She left the night previous to my arrival.
She heard you were coming?—I don't know. From Chefoo you went to Shanghai ?-From Shanghai I went to Chefco.
Did you pawn a lady's ring at Shanghai?- No, sir
You were in Shanghai on the morning of the 10th August?-I cannot remember the date.
You pledged a diamond ring for $180 with a firm of jewellers in Nanking Road -No, sir.
You swear that-Yes, sir. Positively swear that Positively. Did you go to Ullmann and Company No. You know where Ullmann and Company is? -I don't know. I am not acquainted with Shanghai.
Did
you pawn there any property?—No sir. This is a representation made to the Consul General of the United States, your own consul, from the Captain Superintendent of l'olice. in which it states that a dretts, who is now detain ed on a charge of murder, arrived in Chefoo on the 10th August and pledged a ring with a firm of jewellers here. You deny the whole of that?
-Yes, sir.
At those houses which you visited that night with the deceased woman did you see any other men?-I saw some men in one of the other houses.
Did you see her have any conversation with any other man ?-No, sir.
So far as your recollection gors, until you became intoxicated and lost your senses, she was not in the company of any other man that night? No, sir.
Did you
see her have any conversation with any man except yourself -Not to my knowledge.
At Miss Hempstead's house you and deceased were drunk together. Anybody else at the house? Was it the same at Miss Leavitt's house? -I don't remember being at Miss Leavitt's house.
231
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things. One is the identity.of the person accused of the crime and the second is the identity of the corpse as the person whom the prisoner is alleged to have murdered. It is the duty of the couusal defending to seo that the strictest of these facts.
proof is given It is monstrous, as I derstand from
008 question amination by the learned Attorney-General, in cross-ex-
to suggest that the prisoner could be prejudiced in any defence which his counsel might pat forward, merely because his defence, either in whole or in part, had been sketched on the lines of the cross-examination. I did not wish to cross-examine in order to establish the identity, and as far as I can see, had the prisoner pleased to make no statement, the identity of the corpse, with that of the body of Gertrude Dayton, had it to you that there has not been sufficient not been sufficiently proved to the jury. I put identification of the corpse. General has strangely overlooked another part The Attorney- of my cross-examiuation. At the only time when I had an opportunity of asking a question shadowing that defence, namely, the question I put to the doctor with respect to the presumption of suicide. The question I put to him wis as to when 悲 sirangled, would the facts as a rule point to the person was found
presumption of suicida, or would the facts lay to the presumption of homicide. Now, gentle- men, I put it to you that upon the evidence before you you will not be justified in finding that the prisoner murdered the woman Dayton. Whatever your private feeling may be, you will clusion than that the woman Dayton committed not be justified in coming to say other con-
suicide.
Use ju
Gentlemen, in all criminal cases while it is not at any time essential to the prosecution to prove motive, it is always wall that they should be able to do so, and in all criminal cases where the defence
can show a lack of motive it is always extremely valuable for the def-uce to do so. I submit to you gentlemen, there is no evidence before us which will warrant us in saying that the prisoner, Adsetts, had any motive for the murder of the woman Dayton. The motive suggested by the evidence are incapable of giving the proper Crown is the robbery of her money, legal weight to the evidence. Gentlemen, the and here there is по
evidence of that case for the Crown is that the prisoner arrived except the death of
the woman, SO here with this won an and went to the Hongkong the
that Crown is arguing in Hotel, and for the purpose of getting possession say there is no motive, and I am going a circle. I of her money and her jewellery did her to death and disposed of her body. That is the case for assist me in showing a lack of motive.
to give you the evidence of the Crown to the Crown in a few words. If I took to the end
The Crowa says he murdered ber, took possession of of the day and the Attorner-General follows me for hours he could say nothing more than I the Crowa was that the woman had entrusted her money and her jewels; but the evidence for hare told you in these words. The case for the these to him for safe keeping. There is the prisoner is that he came into the Hongkong evidence of Mrs. Hempstead. who said that the Hotel, found the woman lying on the bed and disposed of her body to save himself from the prisoner to give her money, and he took out woman Dayton, when at her honse, asked the charge that he could not but feel must b-laid a burdle of forty or fifty notes. You cannot against bim, against which he did not feel get away from the fact that this is evidence courageous enough at the moment to stand. of the fact that the prisoner had Aud he fled. Now, gentlemen, I say there is a
1088-ssion of the money with the consent of the woman. great mystery which you have to solve, and the If you solution of that mystery is not to be in any way
refuse to accept that, there is no
riving any eridence assisted but rather obscured and prevented There is an ovidence given by the Crown that at all, by inflammatory speeches to you and to which the man murdered her for her money. Gentle. I trust You will not be subjected. The med, I
say he had that money with her consent, only solution is by the process to which I will and that fact corroborates the statement of the ask your attention for a few minutes, that is prisoner when he says that the money and the to say a careful review, calm and logical, of jewellery had been entrusted to him by Dayton the facts that have been proved. Ex post facto for safe keeping. When a witness is found acis Bre most dangerous in arriving at a speaking the truth in Court he has a right to conclusion. Que of the things that no doubt ask you to accept the other part as being true, makes the public cond-mn the prisoner; and it is not inconsistent with reason that a one of the things which is apparently con- woman who would entrust him with $1,500 sidered most damning is the fact of bis geld, would entrust him with the jewellery, the flight. Gentlemen, that is merely an incident
value of which is not proved. The two things to which no weight should be attached. The are absolutely consistent, and so far prisoner's prisoner may be perfectly innocent and yet story i corroborated by the prosecution. The afraid to staud the charge, and so he fled. It prisoner, however, gives evidence why the is of course equally to be considered in fair- woman gave him the money, and that is a ness to the prisoner that after he fled he reason which subsequently volunteered to take his trial tion in coming to your enclusion.
you must take into considers- in Hongkong if he Were duly defend. | reason was that this woman ed. Γ
and 687,
Dayton it cannot be contradict feing from Manila with a large sum of ed that there was LO law by which Д money. and she
it gava prisoner could have been forcibly taken from she was afraid of arrest.
to him because Tast is suported by Chefoo to Manila, and it is only in commen the Crowa witness, Josie Marshall, an i we may fairness to the prisoner that when you consider take it that the pris ner is again speaking the that he fled that you also give him such credit truth. Gentlemen, the motive for this murder as he may be entitled to from the fact that has not been shown and the only motiva which ultimately he was willing to take his trial. bas been suggested has no foundation in reason, Gentlemen, in every prosecution for murder The woman Dayton has been proved to have it is the duty of the prosecution to prove two been a fugitive from Manila with a large sum
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