|
260
Now, if you will reckon, you will see that that is six per cent.,
which would carry it over to April 25th, 1850. Do you think that
Dr. Webster would have paid.a year's interest, when only seven or
eight months' was due ? But perhaps you will say that he did not do
it, and that this amount is made up from other items -from the 8125
and the 817.56, to which I have already alluded, which was a receipt
of money which Dr. Webster had paid Dr. Parkman. But he evi-
dently did do it by casting this year's interest, as we show by his
own figures. Now, to say that you are to cast six per cent. on all the
above items is palpably wrong, because he had different times for
which to compute the interest on the several items. The computa-
tion is made of the six per cent. on 8456.27, and it brought him
8483.64.
Now he says, "9th, due Dr. Parkman 8483.64, by his account.
Desired him to wait till Friday, 23d. Friday, one and a half, paid.
He to clear mortgage," and the other matters, which are not material.
You will have the paper with you, and you will see for yourselves.
Here is another piece of paper. Here is found in his wallet a little
piece of paper bearing the figures 8483.64, and another little piece
which had reference to something else-°° Jug-keys-tin box-
solder!" I do not care to go into that. Why is this memorandum
of 8483.64 put into his pocket and carried about ? It is evident that
it is all a falsehood. But it is a fiction which concerns his reputation
-which concerns everything near to him-that he should be con-
sistent in ; and it would not do for him to change it. Having com-
mitted himself to Parkman and Blake, he must adhere to his state-
ment to them. Lest he should omit, by some slip of the tongue, giv-
ing the right amount, he carefully puts down 8483.64, and puts it
into his wallet ; and carries this, a double version of the affair, omit-
ting two interviews, making a rate of interest which did not exist !
And then, Gentlemen, what is more important than all, there is found,
in the way in which you have already been apprized, through the let-
ter written to his daughter, °' Tell mamma not to open the little bun-
dle which I gave her the other day, but to keep it," -a bundle that
turns out to be these two notes. And yet, from beginning to end, he
represents Dr. Parkman as taking that money from him, turning sud-
denly round, and dashing his pen through the signature. He says
not a. word about two notes, expressly confining his statement to one
piece of paper. And yet, here are found in his possession two notes,
bearing those marks, which, if made by Dr. Parkman, must have re-
quired those dashes to have been made, as it is proved neither one
of them was made by a pen. That is placed beyond question, by the
uncontradicted testimony of both the experts,-Mr. Gould and Mr.
Smith. We can show you how it might have been done. You
will have an opportunity to see how it might have been done, by a
peculiar instrument found on his premises. But, at all events, he has
falsified; and it is not the most serious thing about which he has
falsified.
AFTERNOON.
Mr. Clifford resumed his argument, and continued as follows:
-1
hope, Gentlemen of the Jury, I shall very soon relieve you and
myself from the examination of this painful case. I am aware I have
|
