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5
uance of his business at the old stand, is outdone by the Boston wit-
nesses. And whether we think of the Dentist, who, with so much
pathetic pertinacity, swore to the teeth he had manufactured three
years before ; or a brother Dentist, who was careful to make himself
known as the original manufacturer of mineral teeth T or the Twine
Dealer, who descanted upon hemp with appropriate gusto of prolix-
ity; or the Professor of Chirography, who picked out letters and
figures, and swore to their identification of handwriting in the same
r breath with which he puffed himself, we are struck with the sang
froid of Yankee eye-interest which characterized this wholesale de-
struction of character and life.
Attention cannot fail to be drawn to the celerity with which the
remains discovered one evening At Professor Webster's apartments
were denominated " Dr.- Parkman's," and the now convicted man
denounced as his murderer; The doctors in attendance at once
pronounced them parts of one whole. The stains upon the walls
of the stairs and upon certain wearing. apparel were immediately
pronounced blood. Small regard seems to have been paid to the
fact that the discoverers stood within the walls of a medical college,
a few feet from a dissecting room, and where of all places in the
world fragments of the human frame could be concealed by wicked
machinators to the best advantage, and within a chemical laboratory
where stains of all kinds were as common as morning dew-drops in
a meadow.
As we have seen that Boston is yet a respecter of forms and cere-
monies of legal investigation, so do we see from the evidence that
her police continue respecters of the ancient customs in criminal
law ; for not content with taking an unsuspecting man from his
family by most false pretence of assertion, the officers of justice,
after first trying what effect the sight of a dungeon and the cool
charge of murder would have upon the, nerves of a constitution-
ally timid man, conveyed him to his scientific haunts to gaze- upon
roasted remains ; as if, in obedience to ancient legal superstition,
the. blood would flow at sight of him and so indubitably attest his
guilt.
Whether after patient investigation the discovered remains were
those of Dr. Parkman, is to be answered solely by the testimony of
Dr. Keep. And not for worlds would we be in his place. We say
solely by his testimony, because although other peculiarities of
resemblance were in evidence, yet on scrutiny the grounds for these
resemblances, and the certainty of their existence, are exceedingly
slight. The agent of the deceased " did not like to say positively
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