In other words, failure to prove a fact essential to the conclusion of guilt, and without which that conclusion would not be reached, is fatal to the government’s case, but failure to prove a helpful but not an essential fact may not be fatal. Take an essential fact. All would admit that the necessity of establishing the presence of the defendant in the house, when, for instance, her father was killed, is a necessary fact. The government could not expect that you would find her guilty of the murder of her father by her own hand unless you are satisfied that she was where he was when he was murdered. And if the evidence left you in reasonable doubt as to that fact, so vital, so absolutely essential, the government must fail of its case, whatever may be the force and significance of other facts, that is, so far as it is claimed that she did the murder with her own hands. The question of the relation of this handleless hatchet to the murder. It may have an important bearing upon the case, upon your judgment of the relations of the defendant to these crimes, whether the crime was done by that particular hatchet or not, but it cannot be said, and is not claimed by the government, that it bears the same essential and necessary relation to the case that the matter of her presence in the house does. It is not claimed by the government but what that killing might have been done with some other instrument. I understand the government to claim substantially that the alleged fact that the defendant made a false statement in regard to her stepmother’s having received a note or letter that morning bears an essential relation to the case, bears the relation of an essential fact, not merely the relation of a useful fact. And so the counsel, in his opening, referring to that matter, charged deliberately upon the defendant that she had told a falsehood in regard to that note. In other words, that she had made statements about it which she knew at the time of making them were untrue, and the learned district attorney, in his closing argument, adopts and reaffirms that charge against the defendant. Now what are the grounds on which the government claims that that charge is false, knowingly false? There are three, as I understand them. First, that the one who wrote it has not been found: second, that the party who brought it has not been found, and third, that no letter has been found. And substantially, if I understand the position correctly, upon those three grounds you are asked to find that an essential fact, a deliberate falsehood on the part of the defendant, has been established. Now what answer or reply is made to this charge? First, that the defendant had time to think of it; she was not put in a position upon the evidence where she was compelled to make that statement without an opportunity for reflection. If as the government claims, she had killed her stepmother some little time before, she had a period in which she could turn over the matter in her mind. She must naturally anticipate, if she knew the facts, that the question at no remote period would be asked her where Mrs. Borden was, or if she knew where she was. She might reasonably and naturally expect that that question would arise. Again, it would be urged in her behalf, what motive had she to invent a story like this? What motive? Would it not have answered every purpose to have her say, and would it not have been more natural for her to say simply that her stepmother had gone out on an errand or to make a call? What motive had she to take upon herself the responsibility of giving utterance to this distinct and independent fact of a letter or note received, with which she might be confronted and which she might afterwards find it difficult to explain, if she knew that no such thing was true? Was it a natural thing to say, situated as they were, living as they were, living as they did, taking the general tenor of their ordinary life, was it a natural thing for her to invent? But it is said no letter was found. Suppose you look at the case for a moment from her standpoint, contemplate the possibility of there being another assassin than herself, might it not be a part of the plan or scheme of such a person by such a document or paper to withdraw Mrs. Borden from the house? If he afterward came in there, came upon her, killed her, might he not have found the letter or note with her, if there was one already in the room.