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TRIM. OF JOHN W. WEBSTER. '321
We possess no information by which his footsteps can be followed to the
scenes, whatever they were, upon which he entered. He returned no
more to his family; but whether, if he is no longer among the living,
he sunk under the common infirmities of humanity, or fell by the hand
of the assassin, we are without the necessary means of certain determi-
nation. But it is not, as I have said to you in an earlier part of my
remarks, either unjust or uncharitable or unreasonable to assume the
probability of the conjecture of his most intimate friends, immediately
after his disappearance, that he had been overcome by a sudden aberra-
tion of mind, and had wandered away into places unknown, or had fallen
into the hands of wicked men, who had robbed him of his property, and
deprived him of his life.
From this time forward, until the mutilated remains of a human body
were found in the Medical College, there are no tidings, either of his
existence or his death. Let us see if in this interval we can find in
the evidence any traces of an active but unknown agent in these melan-
choly premises, other than the prisoner at the bar, to whom, upon a
reasonable hypothesis, may be attributed the work of darkness and
desolation which was accomplished there. Dr. Webster denies all par-
ticipation in it, and all knowledge of it. He left Boston at an early hour
in the afternoon, and returned to his family at Cambridge. A medical
student, Mr. Preston, testifies that he saw him at the College at six
o'clock
in the evening. But he is manifestly mistaken. Dr. Webster was at
Kidder's, where he purchased a box of cologne at five; and you have
the undisputed testimony of his daughters, that he was with his family
at tea., and remained at home until he went to Mr. Treadwell's. His
daughters went to a party, and returned after twelve o'clock, finding
their father and mother sitting up for them; and the family soon after
retired to rest. During that same night, there was a strange and extra-
ordinary movement within the Medical College. As late as half-alter
nine or ten o'clock, Mr. Littlefield fastened up the building, and bolted
with an inside bolt the outside-door of the dissecting-room entry. No
lights were burning, and no person was known to be in 'the apartments
there. Dr. Webster was then certainly with his family in Cambridge.
Very early the next morning, that dissecting-room entry door was found
unlocked, and bolted on the inside. Some human agent had been
there. Who was he? The question cannot be answered; but the fact
remains, that some one was there. Who he was, or how he obtained
an entrance, or for what purpose he invaded those premises during the
midnight darkness, there is no voice to tell and no witness to explain.
But, if this inexplicable and mysterious presence cannot be accounted
for, it must suggest the most important considerations for your reflec-
tions. It is the first secret movement which is known to have occurred
in that place after the disappearance of Dr. Parkman, and betrays the
operations of a human agency there at a time when Dr. Webster was
certainly absent. It is the beginning of the develcpment of the hypothesis
upon which we rely, and of which still further traces will be subsequently
discovered.
Nothing further is known to have transpired at the College until the
following Monday; on which day, and again on Tuesday, the apartments
of Dr. Webster were vigited by the police; and, although no thorough
search was made, nothing of a suspicious character was seen or discov-
ered. On Wednesday Dr. Webster was at the College. but returned at
an early hour to Cambridge, and did not again go to his rooms at the
College until Friday. You know that during that interval those rooms
were accessible without the use of keys for the doors; Mr. Littlefield has
described to you the free entrance he found through an unfastened
window on Wednesday, when he himself entered, and made examination
of the premises. Within that. period, bad anything occurred, had any
changes been made, which indicated that those apartments had been
visited by any individual? Mr. Kingsley, who was there with the police
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