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TRIAL OF JOHN W. WEBSTER. 251
suppose that it is a matter which may be referred to, without being put
expressly in evidence, that the sun set, on the 23d of November, at thirty-
two minutes past four o'clock. It is proved that that was a cloudy day.
"I saw him from a quarter to five to five o'clock," says Mrs. Rhoades.
How near dark was it? How did she see him? Approaching? No! Not
till she got up side by side.-Then she bowed to him. She did not say he
bowed first. Suppose it was another person resembling Dr. Parkman.
Suppose he met this gracious lady bowing to him; he would naturally
return the salutation, though she was a stranger. She bows and passes
on in the twilight. On Sunday morning, she first hears of Dr. Park-
man's disappearance. She was a parishioner of his distressed brother,
and it never occurred to her, through that Sabbath-day,-never through
the Monday following,-never through the Tuesday following, until night,
when her daughter returned from Lexington,-to communicate the fact.
Then came the after-thought that she had seen him on Friday afternoon
as late as five o'clock. Then she puts in another fact; and I take the
testimony of herself and daughter together, for it amounts to one;
another fact which is pregnant with significance: that Dr. Parkman,
when she met him, was in company with a gentleman wearing a dark-
colored surtout, which she noticed as she passed him. Where is that
gentleman? Why is not he here to tell us that he was walking in com-
pany with Dr. P'arkman, on that day, at that hour, and in that place? Is
not that fact conclusive that Mrs. Rhoades was mistaken? She is mis-
taken as to the day or person, beyond all peradventure or doubt.
The testimony of Mrs. Greenough I need not comment upon. It was
characterized by a fairness, by a scrupulousness, which I should have
been glad to have seen imitated. "It was my belief, but I cannot be
positive." Why, Gentlemen? Because she reflects that he has never
been seen in the world since. That nobody has seen him, is one of the
elements to be taken into consideration in determining whether she saw
him, or whether she was not deceived in her impression that it was
him.
If we satisfy your minds that Dr. Parkman's remains were found in
that furnace, in that vault, and in that tea-chest, then that fact is just
as much to be taken into consideration, to be weighed against this testi-
mony to prove ,that he was seen after he entered the Medical College, as
this testimony of the alibi is against the fact of those being his remains,
or the fact that he never left that building alive. And I undertake to
say, that all this testimony, if it were in reference to an ordinary case
of alibi, where the party was still living,-the testimony of six witnesses,
who swear that they passed the person in the street, did no business with
him, did not speak with him, that there was a person with him at the
time, who does not come forward,-would be extremely unsatisfactory.
If Dr. George Parkman were living, and in this court-house today, trying
an action against Dr. Webster for having stolen his notes of hand, and
the only defence were founded upon this testimony of an alibi, I should
maintain with confidence to a jury, that the evidence was, in itself, too
weak and insufficient to support it.
But what was Dr. George Parkman doing on that day when these
witnesses think they saw him?-Roaming about the streets; now in
Cambridge street, then in Causeway street; now in Washington street,
going towards Roxbury; then in Court street,-examining the roofs of
houses; again in Cambridge street, and afterwards in Green street. What
was he doing? Was there ever anything so preposterous?
Consider,this fact.-I believe the city authorities have made a com-
putation of the number of persons that pass through Court street in a
certain given time, during a business-day. I do not remember the num-
ber, though I think I have heard that it is thirty thousand; thirty thou-
sand persons, in a day of twelve hours. How many persons were there
in the city who did not know Dr. George Parkman? There was probably
no citizen of Boston more extensively known to its inhabitants.
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