Dr. James W. Stone. Report of the Trial of
Professor John W. Webster ...
, 1850
,
Image No: 253
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Dr. James W. Stone. Report of the Trial of
Professor John W. Webster ...
, 1850
,
Image No: 253
   Enlarge and print image (57K)           << PREVIOUS  NEXT >>
244 afterwards find there, what?-not that portion which has been satis- factorily identified, but parts which could not, be identified! L°ow absurd, that he should have destroyed all those parts of the body by which identity is ordinarily proved, and to which we must resort to prove it-the bead, hands, arms and feet-and then undertake to find the remains which were concealed in the vault, for the purpose of getting the reward, when the great questinn mould be, in the first instance, whether they were the remains of Dr. Parlzman or not. You will remember that all Air. Littlefield found were the portions deposited in the privy vault. He did not find the portions in the tea-chest, or the bones and teeth in the furnace, and he gave no inti- mations by which they could be found. He found simply the pelvis the right thigh, and left leg. And how did he find them? I shall consider that in a moment. The proposition, then, that they were put there for the purpose of obtaining a reward, is preposterous. Then take the other proposition. Could any man in his senses have undertaken to destrov those remains in Dr. Webster's laboratory? -in the day-time, remember, when he was there, as we show, not by Mr. Littlefield alone, but, as they show, negatively, by their own evidence. For it is a most remarkable and significant fact, that the three daughters of Dr. Webster, who came here to testify in the defence, have, by their own testimony, in a most remarkable degree, confirmed and corroborated Mr. Littlefield. They put their father away from home at the very time Mr. Littlefield puts him at the College, and Mr. Littlefield puts him away from the College at the very time they put him at home. There is no conflict, but a perfect harmony, between the testimony of these witnesses. Now, the ab- surdity of any person doing such a piece of work as this, in that laboratory, without the knowledge of Dr. Webster, is manifest. Sup- pose they had secured their opportunities, when lie was out? There was that assay furnace, in which, upon the evidence, a fire had never been kindled before. Do you think Dr. Webster could have bad a person there, and a fire in the furnace, without his attention being attracted to it? Per what purpose would any other individual do this? Who would be so fatuitously presumptuous as to attempt to fasten upon a man in Dr. Webster's position an accusation like this and by such means as these ? -Now, Gentlemen, I intend to state to you two or three propositions ul;on this subject, which, I think, are clearly met by the evidence in the case, aid sustained. If Dr. Parkman had been killed in that Col- lege, and his body never carried out, but subsequently conveyed into Dr. Webster's laboratory, for concealment, or for the purpose of being consumed, then it is evident that either Dr. Webster or Mr. Little- field must have known it. I think that we cannot escape from that proposition. Their hypothesis is, that some assassin might have lurked in the entry - a little space of eight feet wide - and, as he came out of Dr. Webster's room, waylaid and slew him; and that he carried the body either to Dr. Webster's laboratory, and ran the risk of being detected by him, or into Littlefield's apartments, or some other portion of the building, encountering an equal risk of being de- tected by him. The idea of au assassin laying in wait, with a hun- dred students all around him, and with the janitor near, and the front door broad open to the street, is as absurd as for a roan to lie in wait