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TRIAL OF JOHN W. WEBSTER. 249
"The times have been
That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there an end; but now,"
under the invocation of the learned counsel,
-"they rise again,
With twenty mortal muruers on their crowns
To lush us from our stools."
-Ay, Gentlemen, to push you from the stools which you occupy,-the
seats of justice and the law. But the attempt will fail. I read it in
your countenances. I read it in the proof which came from that witness-
stand,-that you have no more doubt that those were the remains of Dr.
George Parkman, than that this, which is now addressing you, is my
living voice. Upon this part of the case there is not left a particle of
doubt.
But we are to consider, what was originally intended (I presume) to
be presented as evidence, that these could not have been his remains;
but which, upon the strength of the proof, has now been tortured into
the foundation of another hypothesis,-the evidence of the alibi, so to
speak, of Dr. Parkman.
What was the original purpose and object of the counsel, in under-
taking to show that Dr. George Parkman was seen on Friday afternoon,
the 23d of November, after two o'clock, and so along till five o'clock of
that day? What was the original purpose of this evidence? Look back
to the statement of the opening counsel for the defence, and you will see.
Did an intimation fall from the lips of my learned friend, the junior
counsel, that their evidence was to satisfy you, what the senior counsel
undertook to maintain as his hypothesis,-that there was a separation
of Dr. Parkman and Dr. Webster, which reconciles the testimony of both
the Government and the defence? That evidence was for the purpose of
satisfying, or rather of raising a reasonable doubt in your minds, whether
the remains were proved to be those of Dr. Parkman. That was the
object of it; for that was really the great point in the defence. Dr. Web-
ster had started it very early in these proceedings, and under circum-
stances which made the declaration pregnant against him, that "that
was no more Dr. Parkman's body than it was his body." So they win-
nowed this community to find witnesses who could testify to having seen
Dr. Parkman. And I venture to say, that, from the fifteen or twenty
whom they might have presented here, they selected the five whose
stories most nearly agreed. Can you doubt that they might have had
fifteen more? But that would have placed him in so many places at the
same time, that it would have been impossible for all the evidence to be
true, without making him ubiquitous.
They have limited the evidence, therefore, to the testimony of Mrs.
Hatch, Mr. Thompson, Mr. Wentworth, Mr. Cleland, Mrs. Rhoades and
her daughter, and Mrs. Greenough. I shall examine their testimony,
not only to show how fallacious it is with regard to Dr. Parkman's sep-
arating from Dr. Webster, but also as it bears upon the main proposition,
that those were the remains of Dr. Parkman found in the laboratory of
Dr. Webster
Mrs. Hatch is the first witness. She places Dr. Parkman. in Cam-
bridge street, going up towards Court street, at about a, quarter before
two o'clock on Friday afternoon, November 23d. This is all consistent
with the statement of the Government. It was some time in the course
of the afternoon she spoke to her sister of meeting "Chin," as she called
him. Suppose a mistake of only five minutes and Dr. Parkman, being
in Cambridge street, turns upon his track while she passes on; he turns
again, and goes into Mr. Holland's store. But there is another answer
to her testimony. I suppose it to be philosophically true, that two per-
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