l would be rather long, _as she was
prosecuted with 34 other prisoners_."

This explanation of M. Kirschen is amazing to any lawyer who is familiar
with the defense of men who are charged with a crime. Here was a case
of life and death and the counsel for the defense intimates that he can
adequately defend the prisoner at the bar without being previously
advised as to the nature of the charges or obtaining an opportunity to
confer with his client before the testimony begins.

Still more remarkable is his explanation that as his client was to be
tried with 34 others, the opportunity for a defense would be especially
ample. As the writer had the honor for some years to be a prosecuting
attorney for the United States Government and therefore has some
familiarity with the trial of criminal causes, his opinion may possibly
have some value in suggesting that the complexity of different issues
when tried together, and the difficulty of distinguishing between
various testimony, naturally increases with the simultaneous trial of a
large number of defendants. Where each defendant is tried separately,
the full force of the testimony for or against him can be weighed to
some advantage, but where such evidence is intermingled and confused by
the simultaneous trial of 34 separate issues, it is obvious, with the
fallibility of human memory, that the separate testimony against each
particular defendant cannot be fully weighed.

The trial was apparently a secret one in the sense that it was a closed
and not an open Court. Otherwise how can we account for the poverty of
information as to what actually took place on the trial? The court sat
for two days in the trial of the 35 cases in question, and the American
Legation had been most anxious, in view of the nature of the case and
the urgency of the inquiries, to ascertain something about the trial.
The outside world apparently knew little or nothing of this wholesale
trial of non-combatants, most of them being women, until some days
thereafter, and the only intimation that the American Legation
previously had was a letter of "a few lines" from M. Kirschen, stating
that the trial would take place on October 7th. Notwithstanding the
assurance of M. Kirschen that he would keep the American Legation fully
advised and would even disclose to it in advance of the trial "the exact
charges that were brought against Miss Cavell and the facts concerning
her that would be disclosed at the tria