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Page 22
The young District Attorney turned slowly on his heels, and swept the
court-room carelessly with a glance of the clever black eyes. The
moment was his. He saw all the men he knew--the men who made his
little world--crowding silently forward, forgetful of the heat, of the
suffocating crush of those about them, of the wind that rattled the
doors in the corridors, and conscious only of him. He saw his old
preceptor watching keenly from the bench, with a steady glance of
perfect appreciation, such as that with which one actor in the box
compliments the other on the stage. He saw the rival attorney--the
great lawyer from the great city--nervously smiling, with a look of
confidence that told the lack of it; and he saw the face of the
prisoner grim and set and hopelessly defiant. The boy orator allowed
his uplifted arm to fall until the fingers pointed at the prisoner.
"This man," he said, and as he spoke even the wind in the corridors
hushed for the moment, "is no part or parcel of Zepata City of to-day.
He comes to us a relic of the past--a past that has brought honor to
many, wealth to some, and which is dear to all of us who love the
completed purpose of their work; a past that was full of hardships and
glorious efforts in the face of daily disappointments, embitterments,
and rebuffs. But the part _this_ man played in that past lives
only in the rude court records of that day, in the traditions of the
gambling-hell and the saloons, and on the headstones of his victims.
He was one of the excrescences of that unsettled period, an unhappy
evil--an inevitable evil, I might almost say, as the Mexican
horse-thieves and the prairie fires and the Indian outbreaks were
inevitable, as our fathers who built this beautiful city knew to their
cost. The same chance that was given to them to make a home for
themselves in the wilderness, to help others to make their homes, to
assist the civilization and progress not only of this city, but of the
whole Lone Star State, was given to him, and he refused it, and
blocked the way of others, and kept back the march of progress, until
to-day, civilization, which has waxed great and strong--not on account
of him, remember, but in spite of him--sweeps him out of its way, and
crushes him and his fellows."
The young District Attorney allowed his arm to drop, and turned to the
jury, leaning easily with his bent knuckles on the table.
"Gentlemen," he said, in his pleasant tones of every-day politeness,
"the 'bad man' has become an unknown quantity in Zepata City and in
the State of Texas. It lies with you to see that he remains so. He
went out of existence with the blanket Indian and the buffalo. He is
dead, and he must _not_ be resurrected. He was a picturesque evil
of those early days, but civilization has no use for him, and it has
killed him, as the railroads and the barb-wire fence have killed the
cowboy. He does not belong here; he does not fit in; he is not wanted.
We want men who can breed good cattle, who can build manufactories and
open banks; storekeepers who can undersell those of other cities; and
professional men who know their business. We do _not_ want
desperadoes and 'bad men' and faro-dealers and men who are quick on
the trigger. A foolish and morbid publicity has cloaked men of this
class with a notoriety which cheap and pernicious literature has
greatly helped to disseminate. They have been made romantic when they
were brutal, brave when they were foolhardy, heroes when they were
only bullies and blackguards. This man, Abe Barrow, the prisoner at
the bar, belongs to that class. He enjoys and has enjoyed a reputation
as a 'bad man,' a desperate and brutal ruffian. Free him to-day, and
you set a premium on such reputations; acquit him of this crime, and
you encourage others to like evil. Let him go, and he will walk the
streets with a swagger, and boast that you were afraid to touch
him--_afraid_, gentlemen--and children and women will point after
him as the man who has sent nine others into eternity, and who yet
walks the streets a free man. And he will become, in the eyes of the
young and the weak, a hero and a god. This is unfortunate, but it is
true.
"Now, gentlemen, we want to keep the streets of this city so safe that
a woman can walk them at midnight without fear of insult, and a man
can express his opinion on the corner without being shot in the back
for doing so."
The District Attorney turned from the jury with a bow, and faced Judge
Truax.
"For the last ten years, your honor, this man, Abner Barrow, has been
serving a term of imprisonment in the State penitentiary; I ask you to
send him back there again for the remainder of his life. It will be
the better place for him, and we will be happier in knowing we have
done our duty in placing him there. Abe Barrow is out of date. He has
missed step with the march of progress, and has been out of step for
ten years, and it is best for all that he should remain out of it
until he, who has sent nine other men unprepared to meet their God--"
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