• A 
REVIEW 
OF THE 
WEBSTER CASE. 
X 
BY 
j 
A MEMBER OF THE NEW YORK BAR. 
" In civil cases,, it is sufficient if the evidence on the whole agrees with and supports 
the hypothesis which it is adduced to prove; but in criminal cases, it must exclude every 
other hypothesis butth at of the guilt of the party."-1 Greenleaf on Evidence, Sec. 
13, ADDITIONAL. 
NEW YORK: 
PUBLISHED BY J. S. REDFIELD, 
CLINTON HALL, CORNER NASSAU & BEEKMAN STS. 
1 8 50. PRINTED BY E. O. JENKINS, 
114 Nassau St., N. Y. REVIEW 
OF THE 
WEBSTER CASE. 
The calm, unprejudiced observer cannot have failed to observe 
the alacrity with which, upon the commission of any supposed 
crime, popular curiosity commences the hunt for the guilty offender: 
especially if the crime be the taking of human life, does the popular 
feeling pant for the murderer. Blood has been shed, and some one 
must expiate the offence. We are almost obliged to believe the 
horror less that murder has been committed, than that the guilty 
perpetrator is not ferreted out to be held up as the universal topic 
of conversation and speculation. 
If a certain arrangement of circumstances designate an individual 
as the probable culprit, how keen is often the satisfaction expressed. 
Speculation is received as evidence ; and the desire to succeed sus- 
pense with discovery frowns down all juster feelings of humanity. 
Repeatedly has it seemed in our community that the rules of law pro- 
vided for the proof of innocence instead of proof of guilt. The accused 
culprit who cannot immediately and unreservedly explain every cir- 
cumstance of alleged evidence has in popular estimation become a 
convicted criminal; and the forms of law which necessarily succeed 
are chided for delay or impatiently surveyed. Public prosecutors 
imbibe the feeling abroad ; and in numerous instances act as if 
they were conducting a matter of self-interest, rather than assisting 
in the righteous and calm determination of justice. 
Each and all of these " facts of the da if have been strikingly il- 
lustrated in Boston, from the hour of Professor Webster's crimina- 
tion until the hour of his sentence. From the time that the officious 
alacrity of the college janitor furnished the legatees of Dr. Park- 
man and the horror-seeking citizens of his neighborhood, with his 
piece-meal remains, it was painfully evident, from the prejudice 
abroad, that unless miraculous agency was given to the unfortunate 4 
accused, his memory, which was dearer than life, was forever black- 
ened. The irreproachable life of fifty years fell in a moment be- 
fore the suspicion of a flippant servant. From the polished brutal- 
ity of the police officers who gave evidence that they had studied 
the tactics of Newgate to considerable purpose ; from the avidity 
with which the purse-holders of the deceased entered into the 
charge ; from the cold-blooded shoulder-shrugs with which the ma- 
jority of his fellow-professors received intelligence of Dr. Webster's 
arrest, it would fairly seem that the stake of half a million of prop- 
erty and the vacancy of a college chair, were the most powerful in- 
centives in the hunt of defamation and expiation. And thus it 
became the common cant of conversation, and in a few instances, 
the remark of educated men, " It is to be hoped Dr. Webster will 
be enabled to show his innocence, (!) but we fear he cannot." 
Omitting any review of the curious secret inquest of the Coroner, 
because of Boston origin, and little likely to be elsewhere imitated ; 
we come at once to the survey of the great legal melo-drama, and 
of the matters which transpired in its action. 
The Bostonians have congratulated themselves, with their usual 
self-complacency, upon the decorum which marked the progress of 
the trial. The congratulations were not undeserved ; for the gravity 
and pomp of the whole proceedings received comment from all the 
land, widely as the telegraph enchained its attention. And in after 
years, the family of the unfortunate prisoner may truly say of the 
actors at the court: 
" They broke his heart 
As kindly as the fisher hooks the worm, 
Pitying him the while." 
With all deference, however, to the courtesy and decorum of the 
occasion, one cannot help thinking that a little wholesome severity 
and pointedness of cross-examination from the prisoner's counsel 
toward some of the witnesses, would have been pardoned even in 
Boston, and perhaps accomplished significant good for their client. 
What habitue of the New York courts, who reads the cross-exam- 
ination of Littlefield, does not regret that a Whiting, a Graham, or 
a Brady could not have pressed with iron severity the exposed points 
in the direct testimony, which seem to have overcome Messrs. Sohier 
and Merrick with the lightness of a summer cloud, and exciting 
no special wonder. 
The whole trial wears an unmistakable Boston stamp. The Par- 
isian widow, who has descended to a sarcasm-loving posterity for her 
shrewdnes in advertising upon her husband's tombstone her contin- 5 
nance of his business at the old stand, is outdone by the Boston wit- 
nesses. And whether we think of the Dentist, who, with so much 
pathetic pertinacity, swore to the teeth he had manufactured three 
years before ; or a brother Dentist, who was careful to make himself 
known as the original manufacturer of mineral teeth ; or the Twine 
Dealer, who descanted upon hemp with appropriate gusto of prolix- 
ity ; or the Professor of Chirography, who picked out letters and 
figures, and swore to their identification of handwriting in the same 
breath with which he puffed himself, we are struck with the sang 
froid of Yankee eye-interest which characterized this wholesale de- 
struction of character and life. 
Attention cannot fail to be drawn to the celerity with which the 
remains discovered one evening at Professor Webster's apartments 
were denominated " Dr. Parkman's," and the now convicted man 
denounced as his murderer. The doctors in attendance at once 
pronounced them parts of one whole. The stains upon the walls 
of the stairs and upon certain wearing apparel were immediately 
pronounced blood. Small regard seems to have been paid to the 
fact that the discoverers stood within the walls of a medical college, 
a few feet from a dissecting room, and where of all places in the 
world fragments of the human frame could be concealed by wicked 
machinators to the best advantage, and within a chemical laboratory 
where stains of all kinds were as common as morning dew-drops in 
a meadow. 
As we have seen that Boston is yet a respecter of forms and cere- 
monies of legal investigation, so do we see from the evidence that 
her police, continue respecters of the ancient customs in criminal 
law ; for not content with taking an unsuspecting man from his 
family by most false pretence of assertion, the officers of justice, 
after first trying what effect the sight of a dungeon and the cool 
charge of murder would have upon the nerves of a constitution- 
ally timid man, conveyed him to his scientific haunts to gaze upon 
roasted remains ; as if, in obedience to ancient legal superstition, 
the blood would flow at sight of him and so indubitably attest his 
guilt. 
Whether after patient investigation the discovered remains were 
those of Dr. Parkman, is to be answered solely by the testimony of 
Dr. Keep. And not for worlds would we be in his place. We say 
solely by his testimony, because although other peculiarities of 
resemblance were in evidence, yet on scrutiny the grounds for these 
'resemblances, and the certainty of their existence, are exceedingly 
slight. The agent of the deceased " did not like to say positively 6 
that the remains found at the college were those of Dr. Parkman 
his brother-in-law merely recognized by the hair on the discovered 
breast (discolored and eaten as it was by acid) and by one of the 
legs (having seen it once when the deceased had playfully rolled up 
his trousers to show his hardihood in wearing no drawers.) No 
vestige of clothing, or spots of blood were anywhere found on the 
premises. Twenty or thirty pounds of blood (assuming the murder 
to have been there committed) had been absorbed somewhere, and 
made way with. No personal property, nor its remnants, of the 
deceased came to light. That the remains were brought in naked 
and already dead, and disposed of as these were found, was a 
hypothesis perfectly reconcileable with these last stated facts, and 
yet it does not seem to be suggested to the minds of any of the dis- 
coverers. Was the janitor, who skylarked every evening, so faith- 
ful a watcher ; was Boston so virtuous a city that burglars and 
false keys were unknown in her precincts ; was Parkman so poor in 
pocket funds that temptation to robbery and murder was out of the 
case ; was there no other poor debtor than Dr. Webster whom, 
in a life of grasping " his due," he had hunted to desperation ; was 
the quarrel between Parkman and Webster unknown to any one; 
did no human eye behold an eccentric rich man running with money 
in his hands ? 
In that charity of feeling which we contended for at the outset to- 
ward suspected persons, we have no charges to bring against Little- 
field. But we propose to glance over his evidence for the sake of the 
hypothesis, that were he on trial how would circumstances fit 
him. 
Early in the week of disappearance he becomes cognizant of a 
quarrel existing between Dr. Parkman and Professor Webster. He 
notices particularly the excited manner of the former. He remem- 
bers some scientific allusions to the vault beneath the laboratory, 
made by Dr. Webster, which can, in an emergency, be used with 
crushing power. On the afternoon of the disappearance (although 
of course he has not then heard of it), he is noting something sus- 
picious about the Professor's movements. His laboratory is locked, 
although that is a usual thing, and but a week before Littlefield had 
denied the Professor to the painter of diagrams, because he was 
locked in and busy. He notices that Dr. Webster remains late, al- 
though on the night of the interview when Dr. Parkman was so ex- 
cited, the Professor was equally late. On the morning after the 
disappearance, he encounters Webster in tho entry, and they to- 
gether unlock and enter the apartments. Nothing unusual is then 
seen. He parts with him, but hears some one in the laboratory long 7 
afterwards, and yet the Professor is in Cambridge that day at one 
o'clock, and remains at home all the afternoon and evening. Upon 
the second day after the disappearance (being Sunday), he hears 
for the first time from Professor Webster, that himself and his cred- 
itor had had a meeting, and the same night charges the Professor 
with the murder to his wife ; charges him with murder when nothing 
has transpired to warrant the idea that any one has murdered Dr. 
Parkman, and when all the friends of the latter are fearful he has 
wandered away in an aberration of mind, as he had done before. 
When a day or two afterwards the officers came to search the build- 
ing, Littlefield is their cicerone, and proceeds at once to conduct 
them to Professor Webster's room to commence the search. The 
officers propose a search of the dissecting vault by lowering a light 
into it. " I told them (quoting here his own testimony) there was 
nothing in there but what I put in there myself; that no one but myself 
had access there, and that it was locked and the keys in my possession ; 
they wanted to lower a light down in the vault, but I told them it would 
not burn in the vault, etc." 
Why may not the remains of the deceased Dr. Parkman have 
been then in that vault ? Why not as well as in the privy ? Why may 
not the objection of the janitor to the searching of the dissecting 
vault be as pregnant with meaning against him as it is contended 
the alleged diversion of attention from his private room by Dr. 
Webster, is against the latter ? 
Littlefield knows how to get into the Professor's laboratories by 
other means than through the doors, because after feeling unusual 
heat through the walls adjoining the Professor's furnace, he enters 
by means of windows, both the upper and lower laboratories, and 
there contents himself with a very superficial reconnoitre, consider- 
ing he had been for some days impressed with the idea that Dr. 
Webster is the murderer. He glances at the furnace, and looks 
into a hogshead, "thinking Dr. Parkman may be in it," and then 
leaves. But here is the fact established that he has means of ac- 
cess to the laboratories at any and all times, without interference 
with bolt or lock. 
Upon the afternoon of Thanksgiving-day he commences to break 
into the laboratory vault. He commences at three o'clock, but 
leaves off work at four o'clock. For what ? to dress for a ball. 
For three days and three nights has he carried about him the sus- 
picion that Professor Webster is the murderer. He has, with this 
suspicion, listened at key-holes, peered through crevices, entered 
the laboratories, looked into hogsheads, and investigated every place 8 
except this vault. How extraordinary, that after working an hour 
at the wall, he should forget for awhile such dreadful suspicions, 
and leave investigation for merriment! He has, then, notwith- 
standing his complaint of the tools he worked with, broken through 
two courses of brick. Two courses of brick !-how much thicker 
are walls usually made ? Should he not have known that a few 
more strokes of his hammer and the vault was entered ? He proves 
the fact so to be-for upon his next exertion he demolishes the wall 
in a few minutes. 
The morning after the ball-after his hour's labor-he is in bed 
until nine o'clock. In the afternoon he returns to the wall. Officer 
Kingsley interrupts him as he is recommencing, and requests to be 
let into Dr. Webster's room. Littlefield forgets the windows, and 
his surreptitious entrance a day or two before, and replies, You 
cannot, the doors are locked. At the same time he sees Officer 
Trenholme ; tells him what he is doing ; he does not ask him to ac- 
company him as a witness to his labors, as one would naturally 
suppose him, under the circumstances, to ask ; but says to the offi- 
cer, Go away, and come back in twenty minutes. The officer re- 
turns at the end of the time, but Littlefield has already broken 
through the walls, detected the remains, remarked in the tearful 
agitation of his frame (as described by his wife) that they 
were under the Professor's privy-hole, and hurried away to Dr. 
Bigelow's in a state of increased agitation, but nevertheless collected 
enough to lock the cellar-door after him, for when Officer Trenholme 
desires to go down, the wife lets him in with a duplicate key. By- 
and-bye he returns, the City Marshal and other officers are there ; 
while in the vault, steps are heard in the laboratory above ; Little- 
field exclaims, Webster is there now! Was he there ? Had he not 
seen the Professor leave the premises ? He was not there. Il was 
his wife and children, as he subsequently discovered. 
What a moment to give the coup de grace to a conspiracy ! The 
husband has been alone down stairs, and alone (though witnesses 
were at hand) had discovered one portion of remains ; the wife up 
stairs, where other portions were in a few moments developed with 
a knife most carefully placed, and directly by a cut in the flesh. 
Littlefield bustles around the laboratory, and with marvellous 
celerity, hatchets, knives, towels from the vault marked " W," 
bunches of keys, bones in the furnace, trowsers and slippers 
stained, are produced, and exhibited with the remains in the pres- 
ence of a gaping little crowd to the prisoner. What wonder that 
he became temporarily delirious at the exhibition of all these ac- 9 
cessories of crime, as the thought instantaneously flashed on his 
logical mind,-what fearful evidences ! 
It was urged by the prosecution that the remains were found in 
Dr. Webster's custody; but was not Littlefield keeper of the prem- 
ises ? It was urged that Dr Webster had had a week to consum- 
mate his bloody work ; but who was the most in the building and 
haunting the laboratory passages with singular fascination ? It was 
urged that Dr. Webster was constantly making pointed en- 
quiries as to the disappearance ; was not Littlefield doing the same 
thing ; was not the latter fretted and irritated from his own account 
by the questions hourly put him on the subject; was he not found 
an hour or two after his Sunday interview with Dr. Webster, talk- 
ing of the disappearance to the toll man and some bystanders at the 
bridge office, and carefully repeating the admission Prof. Webster 
had made as to the interview ? It was urged that Dr. Webster went 
into hysterics one evening ; was not Littlefield in a round of suspi- 
cious excitement, curiously associated with merry-makings, for a 
whole week? It was urged that Webster, on his trial, was anxious 
and troubled in physiognomy ; was that worse than the flippant 
oratorical manner of Littlefield, who was on the stand swearing away 
the life of a seven-year employer, solicitous to inform the jury that 
Webster had never given him a cent-worth gratuity, (although 
it was well known that Webster's generosity was prejudicial to his 
interest,) and endeavoring to be humorous ? 
Remember in all these statements we are pursuing an hypothesis, 
which we have a right to do in pursuance of the rule of law, which 
was acknowledged by the Judge and the Attorney-General, but 
strangely disregarded, that the matters of circumstantial evidence 
must approach direct testimony and lead to no other rational hy- 
pothesis than the guilt of the accused. 
Much stress has been laid upon the conduct of Dr. Webster. We 
consider that his conduct offers, from first to last, striking evidence 
in his favor. 
He is at home on the fatal Friday, by his domestic board, calm 
and easy. He mingles in the social amenities of life, (pleasanter 
than which exist in few places out of Cambridge,) with his usual 
hilarity. He retires to his couch-breakfasts with his family-is 
absent a few hours before his dinner-returns at one o'clock to dinner 
-remains at home the entire afternoon-reads from a book to his 
family in the evening-attends the college chapel in the morning- 
remarks to his household that he must go to Boston and visit Dr. 
Parkman's family, because he has observed enquiries after the un- 10 
known gentleman whom the absent man must have met-with anx- 
iety by no means remarkable, under the circumstances he has his 
dinner earlier than usual, that he may fulfill his visit-Dr. Francis 
Parkman is visited-with this interview the Reverend gentleman is 
dissatisfied, because Dr. Webster's conduct exhibits no sympathy. 
What sympathy is expected from a hunted down, vilified debtor, to- 
ward a relentless creditor, whose taunting remarks were still fresh 
in his remembrance ? Besides, the man, as yet, was only missing, and 
his eccentricities were widely known, and readily suggested his ab- 
sence. Was not this want of sympathy proof of innocence ? would 
not guilt have been prompt to enact the sympathy ? Webster re- 
turns to tea, and spends the evening in his usual manner-he is 
very cheerful and social all the entire week, playing whist with his 
neighbors, working in his garden, and on Thanksgiving eve at- 
tending a large party. 
Could he have been the guilty murderer it is charged he was on 
the Friday previous, and have exhibited no moodiness, dejection, or 
concern ? Was he not surrounded by anxious, loving eyes who would 
detect an unquiet thought almost before it was shadowed on his face ? 
What sort of self-possession is that of the murderer ? Is it not va- 
riable ? Is not his exhilaration artificial ? Is his taste for domes- 
ticity as natural as ever ? 
A week has passed away, and one evening the officers from 
Boston stop at his house. They do not come by omnibus, but 
by carriage. There is not one of them, but three. He is told that 
he is demanded to assist in another search. Not a blanch in his 
face, or a falter in his tone as he assents. He draws on his boots 
with deliberation. He remembers his keys. He is told they have 
keys,-still no blanch or falter. He enters the carriage. He talks 
of various subjects. He remarks that the carriage is driving 
wrongly. The officers lie to him. They stop at a strange place- 
still no trepidation ; but turning round, he demands the meaning 
of all this. Like a ball from a musket comes a charge for murder, 
with the information that he is in prison ! 
Murderers almost always have studied a part. Professor Web- 
ster, were he guiity, had had a week for this study. The guilty 
man has prepared himself for a shock. Talk of the calmness of in- 
nocence ! Go with us to the annals of crime, and there ask which 
is the most self-possessed, guilt or innocence ? 
The conduct of the Professor at his laboratory may be answered 
by the same line of observation. But amid all his agitation there was 
one thing which does not savor of guilt. When the privy door is 11 
opened, when the furnace is inspected, (both of which turned out 
to be guilty repositories,) the Professor made no objection ; when 
the private room, where nothing of importance was found, was ap- 
proached and broken into, he requested the officers to be careful or 
they would break the bottles and do great mischief ; he objected, 
also, to the breaking of the drawers, because nothing would there be 
found except demijohns. The man of guilt in such an emergency 
would have thought little of his property, and have been indeed 
rejoiced that attention was diverted to insignificant things. 
It may be said these are trivial things : but straws show how the 
wind blows ; and matters like these, even if they be trivial, are 
none more so than the teeth which, in all probability, will cost Dr. 
Webster his life. 
It is urged that Dr. Webster refused a preliminary investigation. 
Dr. Webster had had time to rally his thoughts ; his was an educated 
mind ; he well knew what preliminary examinations were in times 
of excitement, when the very air was tainted with prejudice ; he 
saw what an array of circumstances were linked against him ; his 
life was not only threatened, but his character ; if there had been 
machination in the case, it was the work of ingenuity, and time and 
deliberation were requisite for its overthrow. Approach any man 
who has been charged with crime and gone through the ordeal of a 
preliminary examination, without having immediate and irrefragable 
proofs of innocence, and ask him if he would advise preliminary 
examinations ? What are preliminary examinations under ordinary 
circumstances ? Trials where there are a thousand judges and hun- 
dreds of thousands of jurymen whose voices become terribly power- 
ful when the one judge and the twelve jurymen are summoned for his 
hearing. 
In cases of murder-charge there are usually four trials : 1st. Be- 
fore the committing magistrate. 2nd. Before the coroner. 3rd. 
Before the grand jury. 4th. On the final arraignment. Philan- 
thropic laymen may talk as loudly as they please of the might of 
innocence and the power of truth at investigation, but your Old 
Bailey practitioner and your Tombs lawyer, will tell you that " in- 
vestigations on the spot," (as they are called) are like players at 
blind-man's-buff, who use handkerchiefs of gauze and catch without 
the trouble of groping or hunting. 
What does the law imply when it says, that circumstantial evi- 
dence should be such as to produce nearly the same degree of cer- 
tainty as that which arises from direct testimony, and to exclude a 
rational probability of innocence ? Why, that each and all of the 12 
circumstances may exist, singly and together, and yet the prisoner 
be innocent. In the evidence offered at Boston they may thus exist. 
Dr. Parkman was never seen to enter Webster's room. The 
bones in the furnace, the remains in the laboratory may exist, and 
yet Dr. Parkman be living somewhere, or lying at the bottom of 
some road-side ditch. So long as there is a possibility of such a 
thing, how dreadful appears the verdict ! The knife-the twine- 
the towels-the hooks-the box-the tan-the intricacy of accounts 
-the anonymous letters may all exist, and yet no guilty connection 
between them and Dr. Webster subsist in reality. There was blood 
on the knife, but the express man saw Webster using it when he 
had just cut his band. A guilty man would not have concealed 
knife and remains together. An idiot would scarcely have failed to 
perceive their connection. Fragments of bone could be pocketed 
and thrown away, if Dr. Webster, being guilty, could act with the 
self-possession he exhibited at home, would he not have used the 
same at his laboratory ? The twine may have been purchased inno- 
cently and used by others. The towels swathed on the limbs, looked 
more like conspiracy than guilty concealment, because the limbs were 
but common to the human species; when connected with marked tow- 
els they approached identification. The hooks were found wrapped 
up in newspaper, the same as when purchased. The box was in no 
wise related to the remains. If Professor Webster had purchased a 
hair trunk it would have been the same-perhaps a stronger circum- 
stance, for it would have been said, hitherto he sent things to 
Fayal in air-tight boxes, but here is some new contrivance less sus- 
picious than a box. The bag of tan had, to all appearances, been 
untouched. The grape vines were not clutched with avidity, but 
remained scattered about the passage-way through evident uncon- 
cern. Dr. Webster was no book-keeper, but proverbial for his 
slovenliness in pecuniary transactions. There are hundreds of men 
wedded to books, and affairs of life not appertaining to this bank- 
note world, who cannot one week remember the transactions in 
money matters of the last week ; who have less management of the 
purse than a child. The Professor had, at all times in his life, 
occasion to save up money ; for.day by day his creditors pressed 
him up, and any bank account lying to his credit was sure to be 
trusteed. The anonymous letters, if written by Webster, were 
little likely to be mailed at his place of residence. 
And so we might continue-not for the purpose of proving Dr. 
Webster innocent. That, under the net of circumstances woven 
about him, would be a dangerous task. But to show that other series 13 
of rational hypothesis, and another hypothesis as a whole than his 
guilt, were deducible from the evidence. 
Apart from all these things, are to be considered the circumstan- 
ces attending the so-called alibi, which strengthened the hypothesis 
of conspiracy, or forbid belief in the government theory that Dr. 
Parkman entered the college at half past one, and never left it alive. 
Few in the city of Boston, who knew the deceased, could ever 
have mistaken his person. If his physical conformation when dead 
was so striking for recognition, as the government by their witnesses 
alleged, how much more striking was it when clothed with vitality, 
and accompanied with eccentricity of movement? There were six 
undoubted witnesses who swore to the recognition of Dr. Parkman 
after half past one o'clock, walking the streets of Boston. Mrs. 
Hatch had known him fourteen years, and saw him near two o'clock. 
She fixed the day (as indeed there could be little difficulty, for it 
succeeded Thanksgiving, the great holiday of New England,) from 
data in which her husband concurred. The Clerk of Deeds and 
Mortgages had known the missing man for five years, and by means 
of his official capacity possessed undoubted means of studying his 
peculiarities. He saw him a little after two o'clock. He also had 
his data of day and hour; for his memorandum book showed him 
the former, and he noticed the latter when he started from his office, 
and then saw it was two o'clock. He noticed that the Doctor's 
hands were behind him. Mr. Wentworth saw him at a later time, 
walking in similar attitude. Mr. Cleland had known him eleven 
years, and noticed him about the same hour; not saw him only, but 
noticed him walking with a laboring man, as he supposed. Mrs. 
Rhodes had known him twenty-five years, and saw him while with 
her daughter, and passed him on a narrow side-walk. The Doctor 
bowed to them, and was walking with a man. Her evidence, as to 
time, was very important, because it dovetailed with that of the 
apothecary who sold Webster his cologne ; and the two together 
showed that Parkman and Webster were seen in the streets of Bos- 
ton about the same time. 
How was this testimony evaded by prosecution and jury ? We 
shall see when examining more fully into their course. 
But, to an unprejudiced mind, how striking is this evidence. 
Not to show that Webster was innocent, but to raise a doubt of his 
guilt. It was not the evidence of one witness, but of half a dozen; 
not the evidence of casual acquaintances, but of those who had 
known him for years as one of the notables of Boston ; not the evi- 
dence only of those who glanced, but who observed. 14 
It was said there was another man who resembled Dr. Parkman. 
What !-say this after spending ten days of debate upon the fact 
that he was so remarkable a man that his lifeless remains 
could not be mistaken ? Why may not the bystanders of 
the college have seen this alter ego, instead of the Simon 
Pure, as well as the witnesses in the streets ? 
We come now to the course of the various counsels, of the 
judge, and of the jury. 
The silence and timidity of cross-examination evinced by the 
counsel for the defence, at an early stage of the proceedings, be- 
tokened to the lawyer spectator that in all probability they had in 
reserve certain evidence which would completely break down the 
case of the prosecution ; but when the proceedings were closed, 
the conclusion was irresistible that this silence and timidity were 
akin to the course of an inexperienced attorney, rather than of the 
practiced barrister. Or, perhaps, when we number the years which 
the counsel have passed at the bar, each of them thought more of 
playing the polished gentleman than discharging the duty of the 
enthusiastic advocate; and kept ever in mind that decorum 
and courtesy were more important than the acquittal of their client- 
Their cross-examinations were almost solely upon the matters of 
the direct testimony. It cannot be said, as in some States it could 
be urged, that this was their rule of action. In Massachusetts, as 
in this State, have been adopted the length and breadth of the 
English rule which allows an introduced witness to be examined in 
cross by leading questions upon the whole case, and not limited to 
the matters upon which he has already been examined in chief. 
Had the honorable counsel in remembrance the rule of the United 
States Supreme Court forbidding this ; and had he forgotten the 
antagonistic rule of his own State, early laid down in a case where 
a namesake of his own client figured, that of Webster vs. Lee, in 
5 Mass. Rep., at p. 334 ? 
In perusing the evidence, the legal, and even the popular reader, 
asks at every page :-why was not this matter and that circumstance 
diligently pressed ? 
Was delicacy so much at stake, and the nerves of court and jury 
so refined, that the relatives swearing to the hair and the legs could 
not be pressed more rigidly for their means of knowledge ? How 
often had the land agent and the brother-in-law seen the hair they 
swore to ? When Kingsley testified to asking for a pen, and to hav- 
ing Littlefield hand him the reed one which subsequently figured so 15 
largely, why were not Littlefield's demeanor and language on the 
occasion more particularly inquired into ? When Littlefield handed 
him the reed pen, how came he to say-" You can't write with it ? " 
Where was Littlefield cross-examined on this point ? Was the fact 
of the dissecting-room being found unbolted the morning after the 
disappearance, when it was bolted the night before, of so little im- 
portance that it would not bear a quarter hour's examination ? Why 
was there not instituted a close investigation upon that matter of the 
sledge-hammer which so miraculously disappeared, and which de- 
pended for existence solely upon the veracity of Littlefield, when 
the fact was glaring, that if the hammer ever figured in the bloody 
tragedy it was more bulky than the knife which so singularly re- 
mained to be a witness ? Why was not Littlefield's behavior about the. 
dissecting vault diligently investigated; or his means of access to 
the laboratory through windows at one time as well as another ,* 
or the whole tenor of his mind almost minute by minute from Friday 
to Friday brought into confessional; or his neglect to sooner investi- 
gate the mystery of the privy; or whether the key was not hanging 
there when he was about; or why he desisted in his masonry demoli- 
tion ; or how he came to exactly hit upon the place for demolition 
most contiguous to the spot where the remains were found ; or 
whether it was not easier to fit a key to the privy, unnail the seat 
and lower a lantern than to knock down the wall of a vault ? Why 
was not his life raked over from beginning to end; his ways of life 
investigated that his credibility might be securely known ? Were 
the counsel fearful of a libel suit; or of an assault and battery; or 
a loss of popularity ? 
When Dr. Francis Parkman testified on his direct examination 
that Dr. Webster in the Sunday interview " displayed much ner- 
vous excitement in his demeanor," but not more than is usual with 
him, why was not this whole matter of demeanor and sympathy 
rolled into strips and plates as a gold-beater would expand the pre- 
cious ore ? Were the counsel fearful from this quarter of a pulpit 
anathema ? 
Why were the police officers treated so tenderly? Why was not 
their motives in deceiving Dr. Webster at the start from Cambridge, 
and on the road to Boston, more fully investigated ? Why was it 
not traced to a cause readily suggested, that of a desire to manu- 
facture testimony ? Why did they not explain the reason that he 
was not informed of his arrest at his house, and duly cautioned in 
his conduct ? Was the Professor a desperate man, who would sum- 
mon a crowd to release him ; would he have escaped from three men ? 16 
Why was so much hearsay testimony, and so many conversations, 
and so many collateral questions allowed to creep into the evidence 
from the prosecution ? 
The defence very properly, however, resisted the introduction of 
the penmanship evidence. And yet there did they look into the 
question with proper lights ? Here was a Professor of Chirography 
acquainted with ordinary handwriting with a pen called to prove by 
comparison, handwriting alleged to have been done with a brush or a 
slick. We say by comparison because the witness had never seen 
the prisoner write, and knew only his signature. He was an excel- 
lent witness to prove that the anonymous letters were in all proba- 
bility not written with a pen ; but beyond that, he had no more right 
to detect resemblances than the Judge. For this purpose alone he 
was undoubtedly introduced, but the manner of the cross-examina- 
tion had the effect of making him a witness as to the authenticity 
of the anonymous letters charged upon Dr. Webster. 
The physician who saw Dr. Parkman ascending the laboratory 
stairs, was allowed to depart from the stand without a word of cross- 
examination ! 
These matters in reprehension of the counsel for the defence 
would be perhaps of little moment, had they not been succeeded 
by additional and more fatal errors. In pursuing these we may find 
apology in the opening speech. Says the counsel, '' The position 
of jury is more fortunate than that of the counsel. If they erred, 
nothing could save them from their own self-accusations, from their 
awful accountability to the family, or from the judgment of a scruti- 
nizing and exacting profession." 
In the opening by the defence, the course of the counsel was ar- 
ranged under the following heads :-First; the rules of law were to 
be presented. Second ; the indictment would be examined. Third ; 
the nature of the evidence of the prosecution would be examined 
and sifted. Fourth ; its complete insufficiency to make out any 
criminal charge when regarded under the principles of law applica- 
ble to all such cases. Fifth; the heads of the evidence which it 
was expected to produce for the defence. 
The matter introduced under the first and second heads should 
never, never have been touched upon by the defence. 
From the moment we understood that the counsel were talking to 
the jury about manslaughter, we gave over Dr. Webster's charge of 
acquittal So suicidal a policy was never known in a criminal case. 
Dr. Webster, if guilty of homicide, was guilty of murder. Where 
was the shadow of evidence in the case which could suggest man- 17 
slaughter ? Had the counsel forgotten that in all killing malice was 
presumed unless there was something tending to qualify the crime ? 
Substantially there has never been a departure from the rule thus 
laid down in Blackstone, " for all homicide is presumed to be mali- 
cious until the contrary appeareth in evidence." There was no ev- 
idence in the case, save from the Professor's admission, that himself 
and Dr. Parkman ever came together. There was no circumstance 
to show tie probability of a quarrel. Their client's statement had 
alway been, He went out after I paid him the money. 
If in a charge for murder there are any circumstances of acci- 
dent, necessity, or infirmity of which the prisoner would avail him- 
self in excuse or extenuation, they ought to be proved by the pris- 
oner in his defence, unless they arise out of the evidence produced 
against him. In the case at bar, the prisoner could prove no excu- 
sing or extenuating circumstances from which the manslaughter was 
to be inferred, for no one witnessed the interview. They did not 
arise out of the evidence for the same reason. Thus we say that 
in law as well as in views of expediency, the dwelling on manslaugh- 
ter was an error. 
The course of the counsel on the defence was very plain. He is 
innocent of the homicide, should have been their cry from first to 
last; and as well that his position in the community, his conduct 
with his family, and his veracity, all forbid the suspicion. That 
he was the victim of a conspiracy, and knowing no more of those 
piece-meal remains than any of the jury. 
And yet here was a counsel debating the question of man- 
slaughter, and the various shades of homicide ! A stranger to the 
trial, taking up the speech, would naturally have inquired, what 
were the circumstances of the quarrel; what induced the heat of 
blood ; what was the nature of the sudden provocation in evi- 
dence ? 
Says the counsel, speaking of the shades of malice, " The line 
is often a nice one, and, indeed, sometimes faded into shadow. But 
it was important to keep the line steadily in view, for death was on 
one side of it. Il was not to be lost sight of in any step of this 
trial!!! The idea of sudden and great provocation was to be 
constantly kept in view" 
When such an issue was raised, we wonder the congregated bar 
did not insist upon an instant withdrawal of Mr. Sohier from the 
case. He was addressing men who were not possessed of the 
keenest logical minds. He was admitting to them, in debating this 
question of manslaughter, that there was a possibility of Dr. Web- 18 
ster's committing the homicide. If he admitted the homicide, he 
almost as well admitted the inhuman barbarities committed after 
death. 
Was he intimidated by popular feeling ? Was he frightened by 
the evidence of the prosecution ? Had he no confidence in his 
case ? 
In either of these contingencies, he was more unfit for his post 
than the most timid of his juniors. We venture to say, there 
were scores of law students from the neighboring law-school, 
who would never have committed these mistakes. 
The counsel who at any time loses confidence in his case has 
no business to remain longer connected with it. But if he be a 
man of nerve, and if the feeling is irresistible at too late a stage 
to withdraw, let him affect the virtue, and act with the greater 
skill. 
He next touches upon the adjoining neighboring ground of defect 
in the indictment; arguing technicalities which would have done 
honor to the practitioner of a justice's court, ambitious of smart- 
ness, but which was, under the grave circumstances before him, 
grossly inexpedient and erroneous. Apart from the mistake of 
his law on the subject, it was immaterial how the killing was 
accomplished; that was denied in toto by his client, and that 
should have been his only rule of action. 
His objection was to the count in the indictment, that the prisoner 
inflicted the deadly wound by some unknown weapon. He called 
upon the prosecution to show how Dr. Parkman was killed by Dr. 
Webster. The youngest District Attorney, in any county of any 
State, fresh from the latest edition of Russell on Crimes, would 
have told him that which the Judges laid down in the charge, that 
the count was a good one. 
But were it ever so bad, the counsel should never have alluded 
to it. Juries are ever suspicious of technicalities. They view them 
as subterfuges of guilt; and a resort to them is, in popular estima- 
tion, a half confession. 
The junior counsel for defence, on these matters of manslaughter 
and defect of indictment, was culpable enough ; but his senior was 
more reprehensible. In his closing speech, he states a lamentable 
paradox. ,£ Dr. Webster denies that he did the murder. But, 
gentlemen, his counsel cannot know what effect the evidence which the 
government has produced may have on your minds; and if, therefore, 
you should arrive at the conclusion that he is guilty, then, gentle- 
men of the jury, you are to decide whether the homicide is murder 
or manslaughter." 19 
Error accumulated error. With the alibi evidence in their 
hands, and that from the Webster family, the counsel for the 
prisoner should never have offered any other. They best knew 
whether this testimony was strong or weak. If it was strong, it was 
sufficient of itself; but the addition to it of the remaining testi- 
mony afforded presumption to prosecution and jury, that it was in 
reality weak. 
Over twenty witnesses were brought to prove his previous good 
character, merely because the law allowed it. As if it was not in 
popular knowledge that the mildest dispositions had committed mur- 
der ! As if murderers generally were brought up to the business ! 
The manner in which the prosecution had left the question 
of the teeth was comparatively unimportant. The original makers 
of them had sworn to their identity, and the absurdity of the 
evidence was prominent matter for comment in argument. The 
jury should have been impressed with the interest that Dr. 
Keep possessed in identifying his work ; with the suspicious pathos 
which accompanied his evidence ; with a common-sense view of 
the improbability that a set of artificial teeth could have been 
burned and yet identified. 
But the teeth received importance from the defence. Dr. Keep's 
testimony was made of moment by the introduction of evidence to 
contradict it. And thus, not only was an absurdity stamped with 
probable authenticity, but an opportunity afforded the prosecution of 
strengthening their testimony on the subject, by rebutting and corroborative 
testimony. The defence should have known that when the consist- 
ency of any professional man in a matter affecting the pride of his 
art, is impugned, a host of friends can be found to support his state- 
ments. 
And when the prisoner rose to his speech, why did not his legal 
custodians pull him to his chair, or by some ruse that should easily 
suggest itself to Yankee ingenuity prevent his address ? What a 
moment for his counsel to spring forward with the exclamation, 
" My worthy friend, however innocent you deem yourself, we alone 
must declare that!" and who can doubt the effect which would 
follow such a course ? 
What are the charges we bring against the conductors of the de- 
fence ? Culpable management of the weapons of cross-examina- 
tion ; glaring want of confidence in their case ; suicidal raising of 
inexpedient, distracting and dangerous issues on the questions of 
manslaughter, and error of indictment; the dwelling upon inconsist- 
ent theories; the proving too much; the clothing absurdities with 20 
importance ; and with error upon error of judgment and know- 
ledge. 
These are all so glaring that a proper regard to the maintenance 
of an elevated standard for ability in the great and glorious profes- 
sion of the law overcomes all ordinary considerations of courtesy 
and sympathy. The counsel were in no wise surprised by testi- 
mony ; they were in no wise embarrassed by the animosity of 
opposing counsel; and they possessed a case which challenged to- 
ward them the envy of every ambitious advocate outside the borders 
of Massachusetts. And yet even around their domicils where sym- 
pathy is universally against their client, are already heard the ani- 
madversions of calm, experienced observers. 
But the learned Attorney-General is entitled to animadversion as 
well. In the course of the opposing counsels, most striking anti- 
podes were seen. If the counsel for the defence erred upon the 
side of timidity and caution, the Attorney-General committed 
equal error in his eagerness for conviction, by pressing upon Court 
and Jury absurdities and shallow artifices. If the one counsel erred 
in their delicacy, their opponent went as far in attack. If the con- 
ductors of the defence were ignorant in many matters, the prosecu- 
ting officer was audacious in his assumption of precedent. 
What will the barristers of Westminster Hall think of the highest 
law officer in that State which gave birth to Joseph Story, when 
told that after conceding abundantly the remarkable physique of 
the missing man, he attempted to say that another man was mis- 
taken for him by six witnesses ? If they wonder at this, what will 
they say when told that he falsified the plainest scope of evidence 
by offering five or six witnesses to prove that an unknown person had 
been seen in the city on the afternoon of Dr. Parkman's disappear- 
ance, who bore so great a resemblance to Dr. Parkman that he had 
been approached by several persons who discovered on addressing 
him that it was another person ? What will they say when told that 
this same officer blew hot and cold in almost the same breath, argu- 
ing guilt at one time, from the agitation of the prisoner, and at 
another from the calm fortitude with which he behaved upon the 
trial ? What will they say when informed that, after for many days 
he had laid stress upon the time when Dr. Parkman must have 
been murdered, he finally declared the time to be immaterial ? 
The attempt of the Attorney-General to destroy public confidence 
in the clock, (omitting all reference to its patriotism,) was utterly 
unworthy the dignity of the occasion. And the same may be said 
of his " biological" attack upon the Clerk of Deeds. The ground 21 
assumed by him in the latter position is dangerous to the commu- 
nity where he lives ; for if belief in mesmerism destroys the credi- 
bility of a witness, let the people of Boston conceal their faith in 
the hundreds of fellow-" isms" that taint their atmosphere. 
What shall we say of the charge by Chief Justice Shaw ? Is not 
the legal or the merely historical reader carried back by its perusal 
to the times when judges overawed counsel and jury, and dictated 
verdicts ? What is the amount of this charge but a direction to 
the jury to bring in a verdict of guilty in accordance with popular 
feeling and my own prejudice ? It differs only in the polish of 
rhetoric from the language of the Arkansas frontier judge who was 
accustomed to say, " D-n you, gentlemen, bring him in guilty, or 
fight me." 
It is the well-known principle of common law jurisprudence, un- 
trameled by statute, that the facts belong to the jury and the law 
to the judge. But nevertheless, the judge possesses alway an im- 
mense power to influence the facts to the jury. So glaring is this 
abuse that the Legislature of Louisiana, in their Code of Practice, 
have forbidden the judge to touch upon the facts except in so far as 
they are connected with the matters of law. 
The late Justice Savage (in the case of the People vs. Vane, 12 
Wendell, 82) has these considerations in view when he remarked 
that in criminal cases where juries are lead to erroneous conclu- 
sions from judicial comment on the evidence, there is no remedy 
for the prisoner except through the exercise of the pardoning 
power. 
It is no new thing for judges in Massachusetts to meddle with 
the province of the jury, as they will say who cast their memories back 
to the times of that distinguished but often erring Judge, Mr. Story. 
But we venture to say, never did they display the apparent 
inhumanity (none the less reprehensible because coupled with cour- 
tesy of manner, polish of diction, and pathos of tone) which charac- 
terized the charge of Justice Shaw. 
Are we speaking too vaguely ? Listen to such comment upon 
evidence as the following : " The government bring proof that 
Professor Webster could have had no money to pay either of the 
notes ; and he has never pretended that he had money enough to 
take up the larger one of them. One significant fact is, that 
the ninety dollars which was paid him by Mr. Pette on the day of 
disappearance was next day deposited in bank. He also told Mr. 
Pette that morning that he had settled with Dr. Parkman, although 
Dr. P. had not then called upon him. You must judge how far 22 
these circumstances go to prove intention to obtain the notes as 
motive of the homicide ; and if that was the motive, it is a very 
strong case of murder by express malice. ****** 
became known on Saturday evening that Dr. Parkman, a man 
known to almost everybody, had disappeared. The whole commu- 
nity were put upon their recollections, and would it be strange if a 
great many had seen him., and yet have been mistaken ? This 
negative evidence, it is true, is not conclusive in itself, but it goes to 
destroy the positive evidence, for we can hardly conceive that if there 
had been no mistake upon identity and time in those who saw him, 
a great many others would not also have seen and not recollected it 
the next day !'' 
In all of these extracts he is pressing home one fact as being sig- 
nificant against the prisoner ; paralleling one hypothesis with another 
against the prisoner ; and pointing out impossibilities in the evidence 
of the defence. One would almost suppose he was acting under the 
inhuman maxim of Beccaria. In atrocissimis leviores conjectura 
sufficiunt, et licet judici jura transgredi. Strike off the heading of 
the charge, and prune down the references to ''the court," 
and you possess a speech for the prosecution which, properly 
spiced with enthusiasm of manner, had done credit to the Attorney- 
General. 
The eulogy of circumstantial evidence by Chief Justice Shaw, is 
as remarkable as his omission to dwell with becoming humanity 
upon the many doubts in favor of the prisoner, and of the weight 
those doubts possessed in the hands of the jury. There was none 
of that kindly reference to doubt which is alway expected, and to 
the honor of the English and American bench be it said, generally 
awarded. Were there no significant facts in favor of the prisoner ? 
Were there no absurdities in the hypotheses of the govern- 
ment? Were there no impossibilities in the evidence of the pros- 
ecution ? 
May it be long before so bloody a charge as this was in effect be 
scattered throughout the land, and be wafted to foreign shores as a 
specimen of American justice. 
After all these things, it is small wonder that the jury enacted the 
solemn farce which was gone through with in their room. They had 
retired to deliberate: to weigh evidence : to discuss hypotheses: to 
determine, with power seldom put into mortal hands, the duration of 
a life, and the happiness or ignominy of a family. Yet if the accounts 
of the most respectable journals in Boston are to be believed, 
and, indeed, a letter from one of the jury to similar purport, they 23 
had no discussion, no logical deliberation, but remained silent for most 
of the time, communing with themselves. They never regarded the 
alibi evidence in the least ; but voted away a life with the formality 
of hand-raising, and upon a matter of circumstantial testimony, 
where there was great room for doubt. It is said some of them 
cried. They would have done better to have acted like men ; 
waited for prejudice to subside ; divested themselves of all in- 
fluence from cant or maudlin sentiment toward public security; 
and talked over the evidence like persons of mature judg- 
ments. 
It is not a little remarkable to note what a blubbering set the 
Bostonian actors in this trial were. Littlefield wept when he found 
the remains ; Dr. Keep wept when giving his testimony ; " the jury 
were in tears for forty minutes ; " " the foreman was affected when 
the verdict was given and Chief Justice Shaw dismissed the jury 
" in a voice wild with emotion." 
It is an everlasting pity that the learned judge could not have 
enlisted his sympathies in favor of the prisoner at an earlier stage, 
of the proceedings. 
Perhaps we have erred in animadversion upon the jury. Poor 
fellows, '' Boston expected every man of them to do his duty," 
and convict the culprit at all hazards. They knew the feelings 
abroad when entering the box. They saw the timidity of the 
prisoner's counsel. They entered into the eagerness of the At- 
torney-General. They were told by the Judge, in almost so 
many words, that the prisoner was guilty. And thus they became 
weeping automatons in vindicating the reputation of Massachusetts 
for law and order, as their ancestors had done in former days, by 
burning witches and Quakers. 
The political, historical, and scientific illustrations of this trial 
seem to have been peculiarly unfortunate in their treatment, from 
one source or another. In the telegraphic report before us, from 
the Cou/ier and Enquirer, we have the fine blank verse of Lear- 
" Plate sin with gold, 
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks : 
Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw doth pierce it"- 
turned into a doggerel imitation of Pope- 
" Plate sin with gold, it breaks the strongest arm of law: 
Clothe it with rags, and you may pierce it with a straw." 
The venerable Dr. Dodd was made to figure as executed for mwrder, 
in a strong appeal of Mr. Clifford, against the respectability of a Har- 24 
vard Professor ; when any servant-girl patron of circulating libraries 
would have told him that Dr. Dodd was a forger. 
And the presiding Judge saw in the analogy of false teeth, to the 
peculiar person of Dr. Parkman, the fine process of Cuivier's Com- 
parative Anatomy. " Dr. Keep's evidence," says his Honor, " is 
of the same nature with that which is applied to fossil remains, by 
means of which a single bone is made to lead to the discovery of 
an entire animal of an extinct species." You may discover by the 
bones of an ox that it was once part of an ox, but will the bones 
help us to a discovery of how fat was the ox, and whether it was 
brindle or brown ? You may discover by bones that they once be- 
longed to humanity; but can you tell, in addition, that the man 
who owned them was black or white, fat or lean, a man of genius 
or an idiot ? 
In approaching the conclusion of this brief and hurriedly-pre- 
pared pamphlet, we add, lest its purport be mistaken, that as wri- 
ter we have no bias one way or the other toward Professor Web- 
ster, and individually little in his favor. We have had in main view 
a solemn belief in which three-fourths of the American people out- 
side Boston undoubtedly concur, that whether the convicted gen- 
tleman be guilty or innocent, he ought not to have been found 
GUILTY ON THE CASE PRBSENTED ! 
A case entirely analogous can no where be found. It is sui gen- 
eris. And we hope its records, in its present shape, may never 
stain the annals of criminal precedent, as an authority and bea- 
con- light. 
We do not quarrel with circumstantial evidence, nor impugn its 
legitimate force. It is one of the sheet-anchors of jurisprudence; yet 
when it grapples, let it find but one hypothesis to hold on by, and 
let that be the inevitable conclusion of the guilt of the prisoner on 
trial. 
There is one very old case which may be acceptable to the un- 
professional reader, and we subjoin it. A case very like Profes- 
sor Webster's in its trial, where the prisoner made his appeal, 
and the Judge dictated to the jury. The circumstances were strong 
against him, and yet, as afterward appeared, the murderer was fore- 
man of the jury. Let the people of Boston take heed lest a promi- 
nent actor in their tragedy be not some day discovered guilty, and 
so bring them into greater reproach, if indeed that be possible in the 
matter. 
" In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, a person was arraigned before Sir 
James Dyer, Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, upon 25 
*n indictment for the murder of a man, who dwelt in the same parish 
with the prisoner. The first witness against him deposed, that on a 
certain day mentioned by the witness, in the morning, as he was go- 
ing through a close, which he particularly described, as some distance 
from the path, he saw a person lying in a condition that denoted him 
to be either dead or drunk; that he went to the party, and found him 
actually dead, two wounds appearing on his breast, and his shirt and 
clothes much stained with blood ; that the wounds appeared to the 
witness-to have been given by the puncture of a fork or some such in- 
strument, and looking about he discovered a fork lying near the 
corpse, which he took up, and observed it to be marked with the ini- 
tial letters of the prisoner's name ; the witness at the same time pro- 
duced the fork in court, which the prisoner owned to be his, and 
waived asking the witness any questions. 
" A second witness deposed, that on the morning of the day on 
which the deceased was killed, the witness had risen early, with an in- 
tention to go to a neighboring market town, which he named ; that as 
he was standing in the entry of* his own dwelling-house, the street 
door being open, he saw the prisoner come by, dressed in a suit of 
clothes, the color and fashion of which the witness described; that he 
(the witness) was prevented from going to market, and that afterward 
the first witness brought notice to the town, of the death and wounds 
of the deceased, and of the prisoner's fork being found near the corpse; 
that upon this report the prisoner was apprehended, and carried be- 
fore a justice of the peace, whom he named and pointed at, he being 
then present in the court; that he (the witness) followed the prisoner 
to the justice's house, and attended his examination, during which he 
observed the exchange of raiment which the prisoner had made since 
the time when the witness had first seen him in the morning; that at 
the time of such examination the prisoner was dressed in the same 
clothes which he had on at the time of the trial, and that on the wit- 
ness charging him with having changed his clothes, he gave several 
shuffling answers, and would have denied it; that upon the witness 
having mentioned this circumstance of the change of dress, the justice 
granted a warrant to search the prisoner's house for the clothes de- 
scribed by the witness as having been put off since the morning; that 
the witness attended and assisted at the search, and that after nice in- 
quiry for two hours and upward, the very clothes which the witness 
had described, were discovered concealed in a straw bed. He then 
produced the bloody clothes in court, which the prisoner owned to be 
his clothes, and to have been thrust into the straw bed with an inten- 
tion to conceal them, on account of their being bloody. 26 
" The prisoner also waived asking the second witness any ques- 
tion. 
" A third witness deposed to his having heard the prisoner deliver 
certain menaces against the deceased, from whence the prosecutor in- 
tended to infer a proof of malice prepense. In answer to which, the 
prisoner proposed certain questions to the court, leading to a discovery 
of the occasion of the menacing expressions deposed to, and from the 
witness' answer to those questions, it appeared that the deceased had 
first menaced the prisoner. 
" The prisoner being called upon to make his defence, addressed the 
following narration to the court, as containing all he knew concerning 
the manner and circumstances of the death of the deceased, viz.:- 
' That he rented a close in the same parish with the deceased, and 
that the deceased rented another close adjoining to it. That the only 
way to his own close was through that of the deceased, and that on 
the day the murder in the indictment was said to be committed, he 
rose early in the morning, in order to go to work in his close, with his 
fork in his hand, and passing through the deceased's ground, he ob- 
served a man at some distance from the path, lying down as if dead 
or drunk; that he thought himself bound to see what condition the 
person was in, and upon getting up to him he found him at the last 
extremity, with two wounds in his breast, from which a great deal of 
blood had issued ; that in order to relieve him he raised him up, and 
with great difficulty set him in his lap ; that he told the deceased he 
was greatly concerned at his unhappy fate, and the more so as there 
seemed to be too much reason to apprehend that he had been mur- 
dered ; that he entreated the deceased to discover, if possible, the oc- 
casion of his misfortune, assuring him he would use his utmost en- 
deavors to do justice to his sufferings ; that the deceased seemed to 
be sensible of what he said, and in the midst of his agonies attempted, 
as he thought, to speak to him, but being seized with a rattling in his 
throat, after a hard struggle, he gave a dreadful groan, and vomiting a 
great deal of blood, some of which fell on his (the prisoner's) clothes, 
he expired in his arms; that the shock he felt on account of the accident 
was not to be expressed, and the rather, as it was well known that 
there had been a difference between the deceased and himself, on 
which account he might possibly be suspected of the murder ; that he 
therefore thought it advisable to leave the deceased in the condition 
he was, and to take no farther notice of the matter; that, in the con- 
fusion he was in when he left the place, he took away the deceased's 
fork, and left his own in the room of it, by the side of the corpse; 
that being obliged to go to his work, he thought it best to shift his 27 
clothes, and that they might not be seen, he confessed that he had 
hid them in the place where they were found ; that it was true he had 
denied before the justice that he had changed his clothes, being con- 
scious that this was an ugly circumstance that might be urged against 
him, and being unwilling to be brought into trouble if he could help 
it; and concluded his story with a solemn declaration that he had re- 
lated nothing but the truth, without adding or diminishing one tittle, 
as he should answer it to God Almighty. Being then called on to 
produce his witnesses, the prisoner answered with a steady, composed 
countenance, and resolution of voice, "He had no witness but God and 
his own conscience." 
" The judge then proceeded to deliver his charge, in which he pa- 
thetically enlarged on the heinousness of the crime, and laid great stress 
on the force of the evidence, which, although circumstantial only, he 
declared he thought to be irresistible, and little inferior to the most posi- 
tive proof: that the prisoner had indeed cooked up a very plausible 
story, but if such, or the like allegations, were to be admitted, in a 
case of this kind, no murderer would ever be brought to justice, such 
bloody deeds being generally perpetrated in the dark, and with the 
greatest secrecy; that the present case was exempted, in his opinion, 
from all possibility of doubt, and that they ought not to hesitate one 
moment about finding the prisoner guilty. 
" The foreman begged of his lordship, as this was a case of life and 
death, that the jury might be at liberty to withdraw, and upon 'this 
motion an officer was sworn to keep the jury. 
" The trial came on the first in the morning, and the judge having 
sat till nine at night, expecting the return of the jury, at last sent an 
officer to inquire if they were agreed in their verdict, and to signify 
to them that his lordship would wait no longer for them. Some of 
them returned for answer that eleven of their body had been of the 
same mind from the first, but that it was their misfortune to have a 
foreman that proved to be a singular instance of the most inveterate 
obstinacy, who, having taken up a different opinion from them, was 
unalterably fixed in it. The messenger was no sooner returned, but 
the complaining members, alarmed at the thought of being kept under 
confinement all the night, and despairing of bringing their dissenting 
brother over to their own way of thinking, agreed to accede to his 
opinion, and having acquainted him with their resolution, they sent an 
officer to detain his worship a few minutes, and by their foreman 
brought in the prisoner not guilty. His lordship could not help ex- 
pressing the greatest surprise and indignation at this unexpected ver- 
dict; and after giving the jury a severe admonition, he refused to 28 
record their verdict, and sent them back again, with directions that 
they should be locked up all night without fire or candle. The whole 
blame was publicly laid on the foreman by the rest of the members, 
and they spent the night in loading him with reflections, and bewail- 
ing their unhappy fate in being associated with so hardened a wretch ; 
but he remained quite inflexible, constantly declaring he would suffer 
death rather than change his opinion. 
" As soon as his lordship came into the court the next morning, he 
sent again to the jury, on which all the eleven members joined in re- 
questing their foreman to go into court* assuring him they would adhere 
to their former verdict, whatever was the consequence, and, on being 
reproached with their former inconstancy, they promised never to de- 
sert or recriminate upon their foreman any more. Upon these assur- 
ances, they proceeded into court, and again brought in the prisoner 
not guilty. The judge, unable to conceal his rage at a verdict which 
appeared to him in the most iniquitous light, reproached them with 
the severest censures, and dismissed them with this cutting reflection, 
that the blood of the deceased lay at their door. 
" The prisoner, on his part, fell on his knees, and with uplifted eyes 
and hands, thanked God for his deliverance, and, addressing himself 
to the Judge, cried out, You see, my lord, that God and a good con- 
science are the best of witnesses. 
" These circumstances made a deep impression on the mind of the 
Judge, and, as soon as he was retired from the court, he entered into 
discourse with the high sheriff upon what had passed, and particularly 
examined him as to his knowledge of this leader of the jury. The 
answer this gentleman gave his lordship was, that he had been ac- 
quainted with him many years; that he had an estate of his own of 
about £50 per annum, and that he rented a very considerable farm be- 
sides ; that he never knew him charged with an ill action, and that he 
was universally esteemed in his neighborhood. 
"For further information his lordship likewise sent for the minister 
of the parish, who gave the same favorable account of his parish- 
ioner, with this addition, that he was a constant churchman and a de- 
vout communicant. 
" These accounts rather increased his lordship's perplexity, from 
which he could think of no expedient to deliver himself, but by having a 
conference in private with the only person who could give him satis- 
faction. This he desired the sheriff to procure, who readily offered 
his services, and without delay brought about the desired interview. 
" Upon the juryman's being introduced to the judge, his lordship 
and he retired into a closet, where his lordship opened his reasons for 29 
desiring that visit, making no scruple of acknowledging the uneasi- 
ness he was under, and conjuring his visitor frankly to discover his 
reasons for acquitting the prisoner. The juryman returned for an an- 
swer, that he had sufficient reasons to justify his conduct, and that 
he was neither afraid nor ashamed to reveal them, but that as he had 
hitherto locked them up in his own breast, and was under no compul- 
sion to disclose them, he expected his lordship would engage upon his 
honor to keep what he was about to unfold as secret as he himself 
had done ; which his lordship having promised to do, the juryman 
then proceeded to give his lordship the following account: That the 
deceased being titheman of the parish where he (the juryman) lived, 
he had, the morning of his decease, been in his (the juryman's) 
grounds amongst his corn, and had done him great injustice, by taking 
more than his due, and acting otherwise in a most arbitrary manner. 
That when he complained of this treatment, he had not only been 
abused with scurrilous language, but that the deceased had likewise 
struck at him several times with his fork, and had actually wounded 
him in two places, the scars of which wounds he then showed to his 
lordship ; that the deceased seeming bent on mischief, and he- (the 
juryman) having no weapon to defend himself, had no other way to 
preserve his own life but by closing with the deceased and wrench- 
ing the fork out of his hands, which having effected, the deceased at- 
tempted to recover the fork, and in the scuffle received the two 
wounds which had occasioned his death; that he was inexpressibly 
concerned at the accident, and especially when the prisoner was taken 
up on the suspicion of the murder; that the former assizes being but 
just over, he was unwilling to surrender himself and to confess the 
matter, because his farm and affairs would have been ruined by his 
lying in jail so long; that he was sure to have been acquitted on his 
trial, for that he had consulted the ablest lawyers upon the case, who 
had all agreed, that as the deceased had been the aggressor, he would 
only have been guilty of manslaughter at the most; that it was true 
he had suffered greatly in his own mind on the prisoner's account, but 
being well assured that imprisonment would be of less ill consequence 
to the prisoner than to himself, he had suffered the law to take its 
course; that in order to render the prisoner's confinement as easy to 
him as possible, he had given him every kind of assistance, and had 
wholly supported his family ever since; that in order to get him 
cleared of the charge laid against him, he could think of no other ex- 
pedient than that of procuring himself to be summoned on the jury, 
and set at the head of them, which with great labor and expense he 30 
had accomplished, having all along determined in his own breast rather 
to die himself than suffer any harm to be done to the prisoner. 
" His lordship expressed great satisfaction at this account; and af- 
ter thanking him for it, and making this further stipulation, that in 
case his lordship should survive him, he might then be at liberty to 
relate this story, that it might be delivered down to posterity, the 
conference broke up. 
"This juryman lived fifteen years afterwards; C. J. Dyer inquired 
after him every year, and happening to survive him, delivered the 
above relation."-1 Cowen fy Hill's Noles to Phil, on Ev., page 559, 
last edition.