Missed a Great Chance

     Some papers are praising the speech made by Judge Titus in the Czolgosz trial. The Courier-Journal rightly, we think, characterizes it as chiefly a defense by Judge Titus of Judge Titus for being defendant’s counsel in the case. That occasion would have supplied a great lawyer with a great opportunity. Suppose William H. Seward had received such an assignment when he was in his prime and practicing law in the Empire State. Think what a picture he would have drawn of his client; a man with brain and mind and heart all perverted so far as to meditate such a murder and to be indifferent when by the blow he struck he had killed the most blameless of men and whelmed a nation in mourning. He would have shown by every act of the man that he was in fact an irresponsible being, and his plea would have been that the law contemplated the execution of no such a criminal, that it was the duty of the jury not to consign him to death, but to solitary confinement, where he could never more do harm, but in silence and solitude wait until in the course of nature he should be called hence.
     We do not think the plea would have availed anything, for the public sentiment in that atmosphere would not have permitted it, but it was the opportunity of a lifetime for Judge Titus, and he failed to improve it.