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accused, his memory, which was dearer than life, was forever black-
ened: The irreproachable life of fifty years fell in a moment be-
fore the suspicion of a flippant servant. From the polished brutal-
ity of the police officers who gave evidence that they had studied
the tactics of Newgate to considerable purpose ; from the avidity
with which the purse-holders of the deceased entered into the
charge ; from the cold=blooded shoulder-shrugs with which the ma-
jority of his fellow-professors received intelligence of Dr. Webster's
arrest, it would fairly seem that the stake of half a million of prop-
erty and the vacancy of a college chair, were the most powerful in-
centives in the hunt of defamation and expiation. And thus it
became the common cant of conversation, and in a few instances,
the remark of educated men, 11 It is to be hoped Dr. Webster will
be enabled to show his innocence, (!) but we fear he cannot."
Omitting any review of the curious secret inquest of the Coroner,
because of Boston origin, and little likely to be elsewhere imitated;
we come at once to the survey of the great legal melo-drama, and
of the matters which transpired in its action.
The Bostonians have congratulated themselves, with their usual
self-complacency, upon the decorum which marked the progress of
the trial. The congratulations were not undeserved ; for the gravity
and pomp of the whole proceedings received comment from all the
land, widely as the telegraph enchained its attention. And in after
years, the family of the unfortunate prisoner may truly say of the
actors at the court
°° They broke his heart
As kindly as the fisher hooks the worm,
Pitying him the while."
With all deference, however, to the courtesy and decorum of the
occasion, one cannot help thinking that a little wholesome severity
and pointedness of cross-examination from the prisoner's counsel
toward some of the witnesses, would have been pardoned even it,
Boston, and perhaps accomplished significant good for their client.
What habitue of the New York courts, who reads the cross-exam-
ination of Littlefield, does not regret that a Whiting, a Graham; or
a Brady could not have pressed with iron severity the exposed points
in the direct testimony, which seem to have overcome Messrs. Sohier
and Merrick with the lightness of a summer cloud, and exciting
no special wonder.
The whole trial wears an unmistakable Boston stamp. The Par-
isian widow, who has. descended to a sarcasm-loving posterity for her
shrewdnes in advertising upon her husband's tombstone her contin-
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