|
256 TRIAL OF JOHN W. WEBSTER.
hand with a sear upon it, which every one of his friends. had known, the
'evidence of identity could not be more conclusive. When we consider
that here is a man in this culprit's dock,-himself a devotee of science,-
that he has enjoyed all the advantages of intellectual association and
culture,-the thought that he could so debase and betray his high voca-
tion and mission, as to slay-either in anger or in cold blood, whichever
it may be-his benefactor and friend, almost sickens us; we feel that
there is no shield for any of us against the commission of great crimes;
that culture, science, and all the ennobling and purifying influences of
education, are utterly lost upon us. To find the powers they confer sub-
jected to such base uses as that chemist's laboratory has witnessed,
prompts us to exclaim,
"O star-eyed Science! hast thou wandered there,
' To waft us back the tidings of despair?"
But we recover and are refreshed by reflecting upon the other great
fact which this case discloses, that, although science had been debased
to the purpose of destroying those remains, yet this honored handmaid
of wisdom and virtue, in her true vocation, in her nobler scope, sifted
and penetrated those smouldering ashes, and evoked from them the
materials with which she has reconstructed almost the entire body which
a perverted science had vainly attempted to destroy.
I cannot pass from this part of the case, Gentlemen, without express-
ing a feeling which has often arisen in my breast during the solemnities
of this trial,-of the respect and honor that are due to that noble pro-
fession whose ministers have rendered this great service to the cause
of justice and truth. When we have welcomed them to our bedsides,
amid our trials and sufferings, we have loved and honored them; but
when we meet them here, and see them taking the stand, as they do,
most reluctantly, against one of their own brotherhood,-forgetting, or
rather trampling under foot all those considerations which arise
from caste and class, and giving themselves unreservedly to the
truth, let it strike where it may, let it fall where it will,-they
challenge, and are worthy of, the highest honor; and they have my
humble reverence. One of their number, whom we hoped to have seen
here, and whose aid I had occasion to seek in another recent capital trial,
in which his testimony showed how much he would have added to the
impressiveness of this, has passed away from us since these investiga-
tions commenced; -a man who honored the community in which he
lived, who honored the profession to which he belonged, and who, for the
cause of science, has been removed from us too soon; -l refer to the
late Dr. Martin Gay, whose testimony to the scene down in yonder prison,
and over at that Medical College, would have been as valuable to us, as
his scientific testimony would have been upon this question of the identi-
fication of the remains.
I pass to the consideration of another point. I assume as a matter
settled beyond all question, that there were found in Dr. Webster's
laboratory, in the vault, the tea-chest, and the furnace, the remains of
Dr. Parkman. The circumstances under which those remains were
found, negative, without the aid of argument, the two propositions which
have been presented by the learned counsel: one, that he died by his own
impious hand,-that he committed suicide; the other, that he died by the
visitation of the Almighty,-a natural death.
I do not feel called upon to argue suppositions like these. Why, Gen-
tlemen, to have died a natural death, and his body to be found thus
mutilated!-for what conceivable purpose? Or is it possible that he
committed suicide, and some person, in mere sport, had hacked those
remains, and burned that head? Preposterous! Absurd! Could his death
have been innocent, with such a disposition of his body? No, Gentlemen,
that speaks louder than any language of mine can speak, that there was
|
