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TRIAL OF JOHN W. WEBSTER. 255
Its separate threads may be snapped by an infant's hands; united, they
resist the force of the tempest.
I come now to the positive, the demonstrative testimony; upon which
I undertake to say, that you, as intelligent men, must be as well con-
vinced, as if we had brought in here the entire mortal body of the
deceased. I mean the testimony of Drs. Keep, Noble, and Wyraan. And
I approach it reverently, when I consider the circumstances under which
this identification was made; when I remember the long and patient
labor of that conscientious man, Dr. Keep, upon the manufacture of a,
set of teeth for Dr. Parkman, that he might be present at the opening of
that College of which he had been the munificent benefactor; that it
should happen, in the order of Providence, that in that very building
where he met his fate, that very set of teeth should have been found to
identify his remains, and thus bring his murderer to justice, and vin-
dicate the law!
I do approach it reverently. I seem to see in it the guiding hand of
Almighty God, leading us to the discovery of the truth. And when that
witness stood upon that stand, and gave us the history of his patient
labors over those blocks of teeth, the counsel for the prisoner must have
felt, and did feel, that the great foundation of the defence, upon which
they had hoped to build up their theory, was crumbling out, ,sand by
sand, and stone by stone, from beneath them.
Consider, too, that these witnesses were no volunteers to fasten upon
the prisoner a charge so awful and revolting. No! Dr. Keep's own
emotion indicated with what reluctance he had come to that sad con-
viction. Why, Gentlemen? Why? Not simply that these were the
remains of his friend, but that they were the remains of the friend
of Dr. Webster, who was also his friend. Dr. Webster had been his
teacher; and he saw how this discovery tended to fasten this act upon
him. He saw what an immense stride was then made towards the set-
tlement of this great question of identity against its final submission
to the consideration of a jury.
The conviction pressed itself upon him, that this prisoner, whom he
would save if he could, must be connected with the mutilated remains of
one who had been not only the benefactor of the institution in which
he was a professor, but, as these papers here have shown you, the bene-
factor, too, of the prisoner; of him
"Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife himself."
Dr. Keep felt as any man of ordinary sensibility would feel, at com-
ing to such a conclusion as the truth required him to state to us; that
he knew those were the teeth of Dr. P'arkman, as well as if he had them
entire in his hand that day. To show that he could justly state this with
confidence, take the testimony of the experts we put upon the stand,
who testified so positively to the means of identification. If you believe
them, what becomes of the miserable pretext sought to be supported by
the testimony of Dr. Morton, that such blocks of teeth could not be iden-
tified? They could be recognized, according to the beautiful illustrations
of the two witnesses, Drs. Harwood and Tucker, "as well as the sculp-
tor would know the product of his chisel;" or "the painter, who had
studied a face for a week, and painted it upon the canvas, could know
the portrait as his own work, wherever he might see it."
If anything more were needed, it is found in the conformity of the
jaw of Dr. Parkmap to the mould which Dr. Keep had preserved; which
mould corresponded with all the peculiarities of the jaw of Dr. Parkman,
picked out from the smouldering ashes, and-by that true lover of science,
and uncompromising seeker for the truth, Dr. Wyman,-put together and
produced here before us. If he had produced here Dr, Parkman's right
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