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bar of the New England States; yet op that occasion, and when the
prisoner's friends and relatives, the whole cc
mmunity. were eagerly waiting, ready and anxious to hear an explanation,
such as an innocent man, by a calm
refieetion of 48 hours. might easily give, the prisoner had himself
refused, his counsel had refused, or was unable, to
make that explanation, and he had failed at this time also to make an
explanation which was at all satisfaetary to the
jury or to the government.
The counsel for the defence, instead of producing a direct proof that the
prisoner was innocent of the crime ascribed
to him, had offered, first, a meagre proofof the outside character
sustained by the prisoner ; second, that it was not
an unusual thing for the prisoner to be alone and locked up in his
Laboratory. The other in the attempt to prove which
the defence had signally failed; third, the conduct and whereabouts of the
prisoner during the week succeeding the
disappearance of his victim; fourth, that Dr. P. had been seen by several
witnesses in different parts of the city on the
afternoon, and at a late period, that the Government alleged the crime to
have been committed. The Government had
not, it is true, brought any direct testimony to prove that the prisoner at
the bar was the murderer of Dr. Parkman.
They had brought no living witness of the commission of the deed of blood,
but they had produced overwhelming
evidence of another kind which was quite as conclusive in fact, and in the
eye of the law was considered of great
weight, when; as in this case, each circumstance added to the proof of each
corroborating circumstance in support of
his position as to the weight to be attached to corroborating circumstances
by a Jury. (The Attorney General quoted
the charge of Chief Justice Gibson, of Pennsylvania, to a Jury in the case
of that Commonwealth vs. Harnem, a mother
on trial for the murder of her child.) In that charge Justice Gibson had
instructed the Jury that the force of
circumstances would seem to indicate the guilt of the accused as clearly as
direct testimony. The defence had
contended, that even in case the supposition of the murder of Dr. P. by
Prof. W. was true, the Government had not
shown that the murder was committed with malice prepense; but the
Government would contend that in this case, se
has been decided by this Court in the cases of Peter York and Washington
Goode and in a neighboring County in the
case of Nobile, that where a murder has been committed tLe Government have
a right to suppose the existence of
malice aforethought in the mind of the murderer, and the burden of proof
rested upon the prisoner to show that there
was no malice aforethought in the commission of the act. It was not
considered in the law, that harsh or insulting
words were under any considerations a sufficient provocation to
mansalughter. and unless the defence could show
that Dr. P. had striken Prof. FT. a blow, which the prisoner had returned
with one which proved fatal to his antago
nist, then they could not, in the supposition of the murder, claim a
verdict of manslaughter. On this point, the counsel
for the defence had argued the law applicable to manslaughter to the Jury
with elaborate skill and elo. quence, for the
space of two hours and five minutes, and had spoken of the fact for the
space of ten minutes only as to the fourth
count charged in the indictment, although the defence had objected to it as
not according to the law, the Government
should contend that if the count was not legal, it should in this case be
considered so, and that if it were not legal, it
ought to be; for unless such a count could be inserted in an indictment for
murder. when the' means employed in
accomplishing, it were necessarily unknown to a Grand Jury, there was no
safety' to a man in society-that the
community had lbetter return back. as they would be driven back, to that
state of anarchy where every man revenged
his wrongs by his own right hand. The Court might, and doubtless would;
charge the Jury that the Court was not
according to the law, but the Counsel for the Government would still
contend and urge upon the Jury the propriety of
sustaining the Court against both the Court and the defence: That this
pogition was a correct one, the Attorney
General quoted at length from Hawkins, 2d book, 23d chapter, and the 4th
section. The defence had contended that
the Government had not proved beyond a reasonable doubt the fact that Dr.
P. was not still alive: but the counsel for
the Government would contend that the testimony introduced in behalf of the
Government, that the remains found in
the Laboratory of Prof. W. were those of Dr. P. and no one else, was clear
and positive; and the fact had been proved
by the recognition of the murdered man, and by the evidence of scientific
men, beyond the possibility of a doubt; and
the attempt of the defence to resuscitate him and put life in his mangled
remains were fatile and unsuccessful. Dr.
Keep had identified the mineral teeth found in the furnace of the
Laboratory-those teeth he had labored so long and
faithfully upon in order to finish them on a cert4in day, in order that Dr.
P. might attend the opening of that College
which owed its existence in a greLt measure to his own munificence. The
defence had not been able to shake the
testimony of Dr. Keep by the testimony of Dr. Morton in one single
particular. Dr. Wyman bad shown clear and
conclusive proof that the parts of the human body1found in the furnace,
vault,
a
nd tea-chest of the laboratory of Prof. W., wereyparts of one and the same
body and those parts of the body, when
put together, agreed in height, appearance of age, the color of the hair on
the parts, &c., with the description of Dr. P.
The Counsel for the overnment recognised in these proofs, thus discovered,
the finger of the living God. The defence,
in attempting to prove that Dr. P. had been seen the afternoon of Friday
the 23d Nov. after 2 o'clock, have introduced
but a very few witnesses, and those witnesses might have been mistaken, and
have seen some other strange person,
who so greatly resembled the unfortunate Doctor, that he was repeatedly
taken and mistaken for Dr. P. In illustration
of this position, Mr. Clifford cited a late case of two alleged felonious
assaults committed by a man, upon two girls-one
in Newton and one in Medford. one on Saturday and another on Monday-and
when the man was arrested, and
recognised among an hundred other persons by each of the injured parties,
and afterwards the defendant had in
Court produced evidence which proved that on the entire days on which the
alleged attempts had been made he was
in the neighboring State of New Hampshire-and the defendant had been
acquitted; the Judge at the time remarking,
that he never knew a stronger case made out than the one by the Government,
except that made out by the defendant-
and that the case proved that there existed two persons exactly alike. not
only in personal appearance, but in the
accidents of dress. Again. the counsel of the Government remarked that
a
case in point had once happened to him when he had been mistaken by a
policeman for Mr. Train, County Attorney
for the neighboring County of Middlesex; and when the policeman was brought
into the presence of the two, he
thought that ho was subjected to a hoax in being told that he had seen and
conversed with Mr. Clifford, intead of Mr.
Train. From these facts, Mr. Clifford argued that in the afternoon of
Friday, the 23d of Nov. 1849, a strange person
was in this city. who so much re.;embled Dr. P., that he was mistaken for
Dr. P. by the most intimate friends of the
unfortunate man. Another supposition used by the defence was, that if the
murder was committed, or the remains of
some strange body had not been placed there in the laboratory by Mr.
Littlcfield, which, by the way, the counsel for
the defence had not for a moment attempted to prove; then, there had some
marauder gained access to the College,
killed Dr. P., and placed his body. cut and mangled in three different
places, where the remains were found. Tis
hypothesis on the part of the defence, the Government counsel contended,
involved so many absurdities that it fell to
the ground from its or-n weakness. If a marauder had murdered Dr. P, and
then concealed the body in the laboratory
of Prof. Webster. that murderer must have run the chances of being
discovered at any moment-first by Little field and
secondly by Professor Webster; he must have had soave knowledge of the
location of the place, of the anatomy of the
human body and some chemical skill. The supposition that Dr. P: had been
killed out of the College, and then brought
there, cut up and roasted by any one not connected with that Institution,
in view of the position of; and the chemical
treatment which the remains found had undergone, was inadmissible for a
single moment. Of the truth and veracity of
Mr. Littlefield's statements on the stand, the defence had evinced no doubt
and had made no attempt to.impeacb; and
the counsel for the Government would say, then and there, that he believed
the truth and veracity of Mr. Littlefield was
unimpeachable. He was an humble but an onest and conscientious man, and his
reputation as a man and Janitor,
even of a Medical College, was as dear to him as was the reputation of a
College Professor to him, and it should not
be the fault of the counsel for the Government, if full justice was not
done to that man, who bad brought to light the
commission of the atrocious crime of te murder of Dr. P. by the prisoner,
and the counsel would contend, also, that
the whole behavior of Mr. Littlefield, during the time
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