Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.
Atlanta Journal
August 15th, 1913
Testimony up to Thursday Would Fill 500 Newspaper Columns, Says Official
Mrs. M. Marcus, M. J. Goldstein, I. Strauss, Who Participated in Card Game, Declare Frank Showed No Signs of Excitement When They Saw Him Saturday Evening and That There Were No Scratches on His Face
That all Georgia records for criminal trials already had been broken and that probably there was no southern record approaching it, was the statement of the court stenographer informally Thursday afternoon with regard to the Leo M. Frank murder trial.
The stenographer stated that the records of the trial up to Thursday morning and including none of Thursday’s testimony, were well in excess of 400,000 words.
That is equivalent to more than 500 newspaper columns of solid print, with each line a full one.
That court did not include, of course, the voluminous record of the coroner’s inquest nor any of the other profuse documents which were written in advance of the trial’s beginning.
According to witnesses for the defense Leo M. Frank was not nervous and displayed no signs of extra concern on Saturday night, April 26, just a few hours before the little girl’s body was found by Newt Lee, the negro night watchman. The witnesses testified that they attended the card party at the home of Emil Selig that night and that the accused came in about 8:15 or 8:30 and sat in the hall and read a magazine until after 10 o’clock when he retired.
Mrs. M. Marcus, of 482 Washington street, was the first witness. She told the jury that she attended the Seligs’ card party, saw Frank and noticed nothing unusual in his manner. M. J. Goldstein, also of Washington street, declared that he too attended the card game and noticed nothing unusual about the accused. I. Strauss told the jury that he went to the Selig home about 10 o’clock that night to escort Mrs. Strauss home and that he saw the superintendent who retired shortly after he arrived. John W. Todd, of Pittsburg, Pa., was the only character witness introduced early in the afternoon. He was treasurer of Frank’s class at Cornell and said that the accused had a good reputation in college.
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