While the foregoing facts are nov expressly admitted by the defence they are established by practically undisputed evidence, and that they show the commission of the crime of murder is not seriously questioned. The chief controversy in the argument was as to the degree of the crime, The defence contends that none of the qualifying circumstances necessary to raise the crime to the first. degree have been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Was there, then, wilful, deliberate, malicious and premeditated ing" or killing "perpetrated from a premeditated design The accused claims that shortly after he entered the dance hall and sat down at the table he lost. consciousness and remembers nothing of the subsequent events until the explosion, which was evidently that of the revolver. There is evidence on the part of the prosecution's witnesses which tends to corrohorate this claim of the accused. The party whom he assailed at the other table says that the accused, when! thu came there, was "apparently under the influence of liquor." Another witness for the prosecution, to whose truthfulness both sides pay tribute, says—that the accused seemed "sufficiently drunk to want to cause trouble." Still another of the prosecution's witnesses declares that sometimes he did seem a little bit dazed." The bar boy who served the accused states that the latter when at the table "hung his head down and did not utter a word."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.