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this man intimately for years, said his character for purity was good. Some of them said it was the "best in the world." And when one of the witnesses declared that this book, which the District Attorney says is too obscene to put on the records of this Court, had done her good, the District Attorney, for getting his high position, forgetting that he had the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to back him, and therefore he could afford to be generous, aye, forgetting his man hood, undertook to browbeat and badger that witness. He asked this woman of education and refinement, and of as pure and exalted a character as any woman in the District Attorney's acquaintance, by what part of the book she had been benefited. She replied "by all parts." That woman has been a sufferer by disease, and her spirit has been so purified by suffering, that she can appreciate the teachings of that little book. But I cannot appreciate the forgetfulness of the Commonwealth's officer, or the inexplicable meanness of any man who would undertake to insult or badger such a witness while on the stand. Gentlemen had that Reporter for "The Press" who said that lady gave her testimony without her "h's," followed the teaching of Doctor Landis, his brain would not have been so filled with the fumes of bad whiskey and worse tobacco, as to have penned so mean a slur. If the Commonwealth's officer will find an individual of respectable standing in Philadelphia, whose word is fit to be received in a Court of Justice, who will testify they ever heard from this defendant one impure or obscene word, or who ever knew him to perform an obscene or immoral act, I will abandon this case and join with the District Attorney in asking you to convict. He cannot do it.
The Book-Keeper—Not one of those painted butterflies, who crowd Chestnut street in Grecian Bends and high-heeled boots; their soft hands loaded with diamond rings, whilst their softer heads scoff at God's holy law of maternity; but a young woman of education, who works for her living as all young women should; an honest, industrious, pure-minded, God-loving woman, who would be a prize to the best man in Philadelphia could he secure her love; that young woman said on the witness stand, there was no man on earth whose character for purity surpassed that of Doctor Landis." That is the opinion of one who has for five years had charge of the Doctor's Books and who had a good opportunity to learn the real truth respecting this man's character.
If the District Attorney does not object, I will say to you what this defendant's wife told me the day after his arrest. She said to me that although the Doctor was impulsive and sometimes imprudent, and who of us are not? there was no purer man living on this planet than he. There was no kinder or truer husband in the wide wide world, no kinder father than Doctor Landis She knew his character for purity better than any other human being. She under stood his motives in writing and publishing this little book His motives she said were pure and holy.
This is the statement of the defendant's wife. Mrs Landis is one of the most talented and noble women of Philadelphia. I say women, because I love the name. My mother was a woman, and at an early age I followed her dear form to the grave—a grave on the hill side that looks out on Mount Washington and the clear waters of the Saco, that flows at its base, in the Old Granite State. I often think of that mother of her sweet voice of prayer, and of those beautiful lines of Cowper, which I always repeated as I passed by her grave.
"My mother when I learned that thou wast dead,
Say was't thou conscious of the tears I shed;
Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son,
Who scarce life's journey had just begun,
I heard the bell tolled on thy burial day,
I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away
And turning from my nursery's window drew
A long, long sigh and wept a last adieu."
Her spirit still lives, and from her spirit home she encourages me to toil on in behalf of truth. She tells me never to uphold the wrong for all the money clients can bring—but to stand by the right, come poverty or
