Dr. James W. Stone. Report of the Trial of
Professor John W. Webster ...
, 1850
,
Image No: 223
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Dr. James W. Stone. Report of the Trial of
Professor John W. Webster ...
, 1850
,
Image No: 223
   Enlarge and print image (55K)           << PREVIOUS  NEXT >>
214 the reason which Mr. Littlefield has given for this work, rather than that of finding the body of Dr. Parkman. He says, he could not go up town, without being told that the body was under the Medical College. He says he went to work there, to satisfy his own mind and that of the public; and vet, he had thought Dr. Webster guilty, and had not failed to mention it on fitting occasions - first, to his wife, then to Dr. Hanaford, to his neighbor, and to Trenholm, and, on Friday, to Drs. Bigelow and Jackson - the latter of whom said to him, °° Do it before you sleep." He borrowed, as I was saying, tools of the Fullers. He was engaged in a work as serious as you are at this moment : he was to find the body of a most respected citizen, who had been murdered ; he was, by that finding, to charge another respected citizen with the crime of murder, which would consign him to an ignominious grave-and yet, mark his language! He joked with the Fullers about it! And, at length, Starkweather, and Kingsley, and, shortly after- wards, Trenholm, came. He had then accomplished his work, and perforated that wall. All he had to do was, to apply the force of the bar. A hole, the size of the bar, had actually been made. Two policemen, and the agent of Dr. Parkman came. Stark- weather put this question to him, as he has testified, though Little- field does not mention it-°° Has every place in this building been searched ? " Mr. Littlefield replies -'° Yes, it has, except the privy of Dr. Webster." Remember, that Littlefield has said that the suspicions that the body was concealed there were universal in the community. He told Starkweather that every place, except the privy, had been searched. '° Well," said Starkweather, °' let us search it now." " No," said he to Starkweather, in substance, '° wait till Dr. Webster has gone home; he has got the key." I do not mean to say of the privy, but the keys of his establishment. ,,Then," said Starkweather, "I will come to-morrow morning." Why not then? Why not have had one disinterested witness, who might, at this mo- ment, have testified about it? Why did he put off Kingsley and Stark- weather, when the hole was actually perforated? Throughout the whole, those men had been there with him-those men who could have been vouchers for his integrity. Mr. Littlefield talked with them about the crime of Dr. Webster. He made no secret, and had no delicacy upon the subject. And yet, when they desired to see beneath that privy, and when the hole was perforated, he sends those men away. And then came his friend, Trenholm, and he told him. But he said, °° Away ! begone, for twenty or thirty minutes, and come back." This is positively fearful. Why not now? He penetrated that wall, Gentlemen of the Jury, exactly up by the wall on the north side, I believe, of that building ; and there, almost in the very front of the hole he made, some few feet distant from the perpendicular line of the privy, were found these remains, with the water dripping on them from the sink. Gentlemen, I bring to you the facts in the case. If they are startling facts-if they demand explanations from Mr. Littlefield, which cannot be given -I bring them to you only that you may say what ought, in justice and in truth, to be deducted from his testi• mony. And if the chain be impaired by the want of credibility of this witness-if you, in short, do not believe, because of these inter