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TRIAL OF JOHN W. WEBSTER. 289
laid them on top of the contents of the trunk, in open sight, just as they
were afterwards found, and made a memorandum of it in the presence
of a witness.
I wish to point out another circumstance,-a mistake, though, I have
no doubt, an unintentional one, on the part of the Rev. Dr. Francis Park-
man. I think he did not do me justice in all respects. He certainly
spoke of this very subject of the aberration of his brother's mind, or
admitted its possibility; and there were many other points in the conver-
sation that were of a favorable nature to me which he did not mention,
but which I think he will recollect when I recall the conversation to his
mind. He will recollect that he asked me if a common-looking laboring
man was with his brother when he came to the College; and he also
asked me if he had any lettuce in his hand; and I answered, No, to both
these questions. I told him that I did not notice any lettuce.
As to the nitrate of copper spilt on the stairs and floor of the labora-
tory,-it was spilt accidentally from a quantity used by me in my lec-
tures, between the day of Dr. Parkman's disappearance and my own
arrest. It is well known to persons acquainted with chemistry, that I
should want such a material in my course. Either in the lecture pre-
ceding my arrest, or in the one preceding that, I had occasion to show
some experiments on the nature of acids and their effects in changing
the color of gases, and I prepared a large quantity of the nitric oxide
gas. In a two-gallon jar were placed nitric acid and bits of copper, the
fume of which are conveyed into a receiver, and nitric oxide gas is
thereby produced. After standing a few hours, it becomes colorless. By
the admission of a stream of pure oxygen gas, which may be effected
during the lecture, it becomes of a bright orange color, and the gas is
changed by this experiment into nitrous acid gas. The blood, too, was
wanted for the lectures. By the admission of oxygen gas, the color of
dark venous blood is changed immediately to florid red.
And so I might go on explaining a variety of circumstances which
have been distorted against me. Many things might have been men-
tioned, if I had had any thought of their being required; but I had no
thought that they would be. I depended on the truth alone to prove my
innocence; and I did not anticipate that any more than the truth would
be brought against me.
It has been said that I have been calm. If I have seemed so, I have
not been conscious of it. My counsel have pressed me to keep as calm
as possible; and my very calmness has been brought to bear against me.
In one sense I have been calm. My trust has been in my God, and in my
innocence!
In regard to the money, I must say a word. I had the money to pay
Dr. Parkman, on Friday the 23d of November. That money I had posi-
tively laid by in small sums from time to time to meet this payment, and
kept in a small trunk in my house at Cambridge. I took the money out
of that trunk that morning; but unfortunately no one can be produced
who saw me take it out before I came over to Boston. Therefore I can
only give my word that such is the fact.
As to being locked into my rooms:-several `years ago, I had been in
the habit of having my students have free access to my laboratory, and
help me in making my preparations for the lectures; but so many acci-
dents occurred, and they broke so many things, that latterly I had given
up the practice altogether, and was in the habit of preparing everything
for chemical use in my lectures with my own hands.. This is the reason
why, when I was engaged in this way, I would have my rooms locked;
and it was by no means an unusual thing, as it has been represented,
here to be.
This will serve to give the jury an idea of the perversions, as I must
call them, which have been brought forward in this case.
As regards my whereabouts from the time of Dr. Parkman's disap-
pearance, I have put into my counsel's hands satisfactory information,
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