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169
few months since, a well-known and highly respectable individual
suddenly disappeared from this city. His disappearance was followed
by inquiries broad, extensive, almost universal. An individual con-
nected with a family well known in this community-himself con-
nected with large and great interests in it-who had been accus-
tomed, day by day, and month by month, and year after year, to
mingle freely in the. community-without any known cause, was
.Ost.
His friends, naturally, inevitably, took the deepest interest in his
discovery, and in his recovery. They enlisted the entire official force
of the community i,; their service. Much more than that! They
enlisted the entire sympathies of the whole community. When all in-
quiry, and all investigation, and all effort, seemed to be utterly babied,
and there was no hope left, and there was, in reference to this individual,
one universal darkness, a sudden and astounding notice fell upon us
all. The mangled remains of his dead body, it was believed, were
found. The perpetrator of the awful crime, which brought that body
to the condition in which it was found, was said also to have been de-
tected; and that individual was one who, in the ordinary course of
things, would have been no more suspected of such atrocious crim.
inality than you, or any one of you or of us who are engaged in this
pr,osent trial.
That discovery, Gentlemen, so astounding, so overwhelming, was
instantaneously followed bya disclosure to the commupity, in every form
in which disclosure can be made, of the various circumstances tending
to establish the facts, that these remains which were found were the re-
mains of the body of Dr. George Parkman, and that the prisoner at the
bar was connected with the scene of his death. Incident after incident
was communicated to the public, and everything which could bear
against this unhappy prisoner was spread abroad, as it were, on the
wings of the wind. Every sheet that was published-every hour that
passed-gave pew tokens to the community, at once of the death of
Dr. Parkman, and, as it was supposed, of the guilt of this prisoner.
In the mean time, Gentlemen, the prisoner now at the bar was in
the cells of your prison, a silent sufferer. While every incident tend-
ing most unfavorably to affect him was the subject of daily commu-
nication and discussion abroad, he was alone, and without friends,
and without help, to repel these accumulating circumstances of the
charge against him. Gentlemen, he waited not only in silence, but
in hope and in confidence. He sent forth no appeal to the commu-
nity. He suffered these communications of which I have spoken to
be spread broad-cast through the community, till the voice of the echo
came from the distant parts of our country, and from other lands, with-
out ever once asking this community even to suspend the formation of
their judgment,. He waited, Gentlemen, in silence, and in hope and
in confidence, pecause he had lived long in our midst, and knew who
were finally to be his judges. He knew that a time was coming, when
passion would subside, when prejudice would give way, when
calm reason would intervene, and his country would try him fairly, in
the midst of her tribunals of justice.
That hope and that expectation are not disappointed. He never
asked, Gentlemen of the Jury, one hour's delay of this investigation;
but so soon as it was the pleasure and convenience of the Govern-
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