|
232
and goes into Mr. Holland's store. But there is another answer to
her testimony. I s appose it to be philosophically true, that two
persons, between whom there is a (.,eneral resemblance of feature,
form, and nait, would not be so likely to be mistaken for each
other, as two persons who have some one peculiar and striking fea-
ture in common. Why? Because a general resemblance does not so
much arrest the attention, and strike the eye, as a single prominent
peculiarity. And you see that the only impression that Mrs. Hatch
received was, that she had seen a prominent chin. She had no con-
versation with him. She did not speak to him, nor he to her. She
passed a person with a prominent chin. She spoke of it, in the
course of the afternoon, not as Dr. Parkman, but as 1° Chin ; " show-
ing what had arrested her notice.
Take the testimony of Mr. Thompson, the biological witness. He
saw him, he says, at about fifteen minutes past two o'clock, in Cause-
way-street. He did not speak to him. He thinks it was fifteen
minutes past. two o'clock that he saw him, because he looked at the
clock as he came away from East Cambridge. That clock, we have
shown to you, by two witnesses, to be an unsafe and unreliable
time-piece; and especially when it was first put up, last autumn.
He merely saw hire passing. He may have made a mistake, as to
the hour, or the identity of the person. I do not suggest that he
made a mistake as to the day, but I think he did mistake the time,
or, more likely, the person.
Mr. Wentworth testifies that he saw him in Court-street, between
half past two and three o'clock. The others saw him going at his
usual gait. This witness sees him looking at the roofs of the houses.
His attention is called to the fact of his disappearance, the next night;
and he does not think it worth his while, notwithstanding the great
public excitement, notwithstanding all the rewards, notwithstanding
the suspense and anguish of desponding friends, to go and commu-
nicate so important a fact as this.
Neither of these witnesses, Mrs. Hatch, or Mr. Wentworth, saw
him so as to observe his dress. But, above all, with respect to Went-
worth's testimony, he declares to you that Mr. Russell was with
him -a gentleman whom we put upon the stand, and who says
that he was with Mr. Wentworth on an occasion when he saw Dr.
Parkman. Wentworth fixes it as the only time when he was with
Mr. Russell and saw Dr. Parkman. Russell says he cannot fix the
day, but that it cannot be the day that Dr. Parkman disappeared;
for he heard of the disappearance the next day, and is confident that
it would then have come to his mind, had it been on the day of his
disappearance. I regard the testimony of Wentworth to be so im-
paired, by this testimony of Russell, as to be valueless.
Next comes the testimony of Mr. Cleland. That testimony, like that
of Mrs. Rhodes, is dependent on two facts of memory that are inde-
pendent of each other. If Mr. Cleland had said that he knew it was
on Friday that he saw Dr. Parkman, because on Friday he met Dr.
Park fnan.going into such a place while he was coming out, and he
knows that he went into that place only on that day, and fixes
it, by other evidence, that he was there, then he has but one fact, in
respect to the time, to remember. But now he has two facts; the
time when he went to see the Rev. Mr. Wildes, and the time that he
|
