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that day that was very strange. Something occurred that day which
we cannot understand, which we cannot reach or know. What that
was, who can tell ? Can you, upon the evidence which has been pre-
sented to you?
When his friends made first a comparatively slight and fruitless
search, they gave notice to the world that they put their minds upon
causes which might. produce a strange effect. And it is neither un-
charitable, nor unjust, nor unreasonable, to suggest to you now what
upon the greatest deliberation was suggested by his friends then. We
start no new theory; but we take up the theory of his friends, those
who knew him best. They say, in the advertisement which they
put forth to the community, that he might have strayed away, under
the influence of some sudden aberration of mind. They thought that
reasonable, or they would not have said it. They would not have
put forth a suggestion of that sort under a reward of $3,000, without
believing it. And yet they did it. We cannot tell whether it were
$o.
We know that responsible, unimpeachable men and women, with
organs of vision capable of determining this question, did see this man
abroad. Who can say that that is not true? The suggestion may be,
that they are mistaken. They may be mistaken, but are you certain
that they are mistaken ; so certain, Gentlemen, that these men,and
women are mistaken, that you dare touch the heart's blood of this
man who is upon trial?
Gentlemen, contrast this proof with some other that has been pre-
sented here. When the mangled remains of this human being, who-
soever he was, were spread out on the floors or on the tables of this
Medical College, and exposed to medical gentlemen and friends, they
were asked to view, and see if they could find anything dissimilar to
the frame of Dr. Parkman. And they bring the answer to that ques-
tion here as a fact, from which you are to draw an inference. Yet
in the same moment that they are asking you to systematize the evi-
dence which they present in regard to the want of dissimilarity in
these remains, so that you can draw such a conclusion as that,.-they
are asking you to believe that responsible men and women are mis
taken, not in the naked leg, but in the open face, the open, clear
living peculiarities of the living man. What are we here for? What
is your solemn duty ? To weigh all the evidence;-not a part'. Not
to take up the system, the theory of the Government, and see whether
the evidence of the Government will sustain that theory; not to see
whether the evidence which they produce tends to establish that
hypothesis. It may be that all the facts they maintain should exist,
and yet that the prisoner at the bar should have had no hand in the
atrocious perpetration of the murder, because they parted after the
interview had taken place between them. I commend it, Gentlemen,
to your sober consideration, that you have, upon this question, as
solemn a responsibility as ever rested upon the consciences of human
beings.
Gentlemen, I shall proceed to the examination of the testimony
which the Government have brought to your consideration. And I
mean, Gentlemen, to treat that testimony with all the fairness of
which my mind is capable, in examining or in presenting it to you. 1
do not feel, Gentlemen of the Jury, as if I was here in strife or in
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