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388 APPENDIX.
tumultuous movements; while within, as it was computed by an esti-
mate of the police, no less than fifty-five to sixty thousand persons had
a view of the trial from the gallery. Perhaps within the bar, and upon
the lower floor, where the audience was much more permanent, nearly
as many more persons, including judges of other courts not in session,
members of the legislature and the bar, members of the clerical and
medical professions, and citizens of all ranks and occupations from the
vicinity and a distance, were present at one time or another during the
proceedings. The witnesses, who alone numbered nearly one hundred
and fifty, were accommodated, during their exclusion from the Court
room, in the neighboring grand jury room; while the reporters for the
different newspapers, to the number of fifteen or twenty, were furnished
with seats in the vicinity of the Sheriff's desk, serving as a means of
communication to a vastly larger audience at a distance than that
present before them.
It may be added, as a more material criticism upon the external
appearance of the conduct of the trial, which the Reporter ventures to
make on the representation of many persons of great experience in
courts, that the proceedings wore an aspect of impressive solemnity
from the outset, such as is seldom witnessed in a court of justice; even
upon a capital trial. The audience seemed inspired with a feeling,
emanating perhaps from the bench in the first instance. that the occasion
was the scene of the exercise of the highest functions of human justice;
and, whether those functions were well or ill performed, that they were
discharged with a gravity and decorum of manner befitting the highest
majesty of the law.
PROFESSOR WEBSTER'S INTERVIEW WITH MR. AND MRS.
LITTLEFIELD, AFTER THE ISSUING OF THE WARRANT
FOR EXECUTION.
We take from the Boston Daily Journal, of July 25th, the following aecount
of an
interview between Professor 11'ebster and Mr. Littlefield. after the jury
trial had ended
and the application for a commutation of sentenee had failed. We have sinee
verified its
accuracy by personal inquiry of lIr. Littlefield and :11c. Jailer Andrews-
REP.
"Yesterday afternoon, at the mutually expressed wish of both parties,
Mr. Littlefield, the janitor of the Medical College and principal witness
for the Government on the trial of Professor Webster, visited the jail,
and had an interview with the conderpned man in the presence of Mr.
Andrews, the jailer. As he went into the cell, Professor Webster greeted
Mr. Littlefield with great cordiality, taking him by the hand, and told
him that he had long been desirous of seeing him, in order to make his
acknowledgements to him. Professor Webster said he had done him
(Littlefield) great injustice, and asked his forgiveness.
" Mr. Littlefield replied, ` I forgive you, Dr. Webster, with all my
heart, and I pity and sympathize with you.' He told him that it was a
painful thing to go on to the stand and testify against him, but that
he felt it to be his duty, and he had no right to shrink from it. If he
had testified to anything that was not strictly correct, it was not done
intentionally by him; if he had, he asked his (Webster's) forgiveness.
" Professor Webster replied-` Mr. Littlefield, all that you said was
true. You have misrepresented nothing. But, as a dying man, I have
no recollection in regard to the sledge hammer. 1 cannot bring my
mind to bear on it.'
" Professor Webster also requested an interview with Mr. Little-
field's wife, who will, we understand, visit him this afternoon.
"Both Professor Webster and Littlefield were much affected during
the interview, and they parted with mutual good feeling."
In the interview with Mrs. Littlefield, on the next dav. a,s we learn from
her hus-
band and Mr Andrews, who were both present. Professor -Webster used the
following
language,-originally reported in the Boston Daily Herald.-REP.
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