He did not mean to say
that the evidence had not justified the trial. He thought that the
trial had been fully justified. Nevertheless, had nothing arisen to
point to the possibility of guilt in another man, he should not the
less have found himself bound in duty to explain to them that the
thread of the evidence against Mr. Finn had been incomplete,--or,
he would rather say, the weight of it had been, to his judgment,
insufficient. He was the more intent on saying so much, as he was
desirous of making it understood that, even had the bludgeon still
remained buried beneath the leaves, had the manufacturer of that
key never been discovered, the great evil would not, he thought,
have fallen upon them of punishing the innocent instead of the
guilty,--that most awful evil of taking innocent blood in their just
attempt to punish murder by death. As far as he knew, to the best of
his belief, that calamity had never fallen upon the country in his
time. The administration of the law was so careful of life that the
opposite evil was fortunately more common.
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