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2io John Galsworthy
faithful sweetheart, full of love and devotion,
burns with anxiety to save the young man, whose
affection for her has brought about his present pre
dicament. Folder is defended by Lawyer Frame,
whose speech to the jury is a masterpiece of social
philosophy. He does not attempt to dispute the
mere fact that his client had altered the check; and
though he pleads temporary aberration in his de
fense, the argument is based on a social conscious
ness as fundamental and all-embracing as the roots
of our social ills
"
the background of life, that
palpitating life which always lies behind the com
mission of a crime." He shows Falder to have
faced the alternative of seeing the beloved woman
murdered by her brutal husband, whom she can
not divorce, or of taking the law into his own
hands. He pleads with the jury not to turn the
weak young man into a criminal by condemning
him to prison.
Frame. Men like the prisoner are destroyed daily
under our law for want of that human insight which sees
them as they are, patients, and not criminals. . . .
Justice
is a machine that, when someone has given it a starting
push, rolls on of itself. ... Is this young man to be
ground to pieces under this machine for an act which, at
the worst, was one of weakness ? Is he to become a mem
ber of the luckless crews that man those dark, ill-starred
ships called prisons? ... I urge you, gentlemen, do not
ruin this young man. For as a result of those four min-
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