Beadle's Dime Novels No. 38: The Wrong Man — page 88: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

bt) THE WRONG MAN. to make his speech on the part of thz prosecutor. The sol- emn, awe-inspiring look that darkened his countenance baffles all attempt at description. The glistening pate, the bushy eyebrows, the restless eyes—now fixed as twin stars—the snub-nose, with the knob illuminated, the bristling hair, in which could be discerned a few traces of saw-dust, the huge standing-collar—all. these were eloquent with learning and dignity. Placing his left hand behind him, under the skirt of his coat, with the palm outward, and holding in his right hand his brief upside down, he leaned across the table, and, glancing a moment at the twelve men, who seemed petrified by the load of responsibility resting upon them, said : “GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY: The case upon which you are called to act to-day, is one of the most solemn that ever convulsed the annals of our great and glorious country. The case, gentlemen, is murder ; yes, murder—murder of the dark- est and most fiendish kind. As I have sot here a-listening to the o’erwhelming evidence that has come in like the resistlesg tide of the ever-sounding ocean, I have been nearly overcome. Used as I am to attending on the most extronnery criminal cases that has ever come before the courts of this continent— used as I am to witnessing the most revolting cases of an- archy and crime on record—used as I am, I say, to all this, never, gentlemen, never in all my extensive practice, have I sot on a case that has harrered up my nature like this one. No, gentlemen, never. [Here Mr. Scroggs crooked his fore- finger and gouged his right eye, as if some of the saw-dust had worked its way into it.] “When we consider the character of the unfortunate de- ceased, his many virtues, and few, if any; vices—when we consider these, I say, the horrible magnitude of this crime makes its enormity unparalleled in the records of our nation. He who has fallen by the assassifiator’s knife, gentlemen, is Mr. Edward Overton, a gentleman well known to you all [a voice, supposed to be Nathan Dodge's, ‘Known a little too well."] And all who have thus known him can testify to his many virtues, too numerous to mention. Mr. Edward Over- ton, gentlemen, was @ man such as is rarely met with now-a- days. [‘Thank the Lord for that! The voice resembled that of the tin peddler.] A man without a family, he never commicloooks.comn