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9
pearance, and a general search, though conducted with some less
publicity than was afterwards resorted to, was commenced on that day
-on Saturday.
The police were summoned to aid in that investigation and search.
And in the course of the day, it becoming apparent that he must either
have met with foul play somewhere, or that he had wandered away
from his home, notices were published in the evening papers of Sat-
urday, calling the attention of the entire public to the fact of his dis-
appearance.
Judge Shaw. Was Friday the day?
Mr. G'liford. Friday was the day of his disappearance, Saturday
of the publication. Rumors of his having been seen were rife. They
were traced in every instance, when brought to the knowledge of those
who conducted this search, and were found in every instance to be
entirely unfounded. His friends and the police heard so many confi-
dent statements of his having been seen in different parts of the city,
that in one of the advertisements, which was published at a very early
period after his disappearance, he was represented by them as having
been seen in or near Washington-street on Friday afternoon, at five
o'clock. But on tracing this rumor, as all others were traced, to its
source promptly and at the time, it was satisfactorily ascertained, by
those who had the greatest interest. in following them up with assi-
duity, vigilance and care, that the parties, in every instance, were
either mistaken in respect to the time when he was seen, or in the
identity of the person.
Gentlemen, the police, the entire police of this city, were brought
into requisition. Handbills were issued, offeripg the most liberal
rewards. And whatever may have been the hopes and expectations
of those who looked for his coming, for his return, when those rewards
were offered to the public, to the police, to everybody-whatever
might have been their hope or expectation that he had wandered off-
when they brought no tidings of him, (rewards of very large amount,
$3000 one of them,) that hope gave way, and the . conjecture and.
apprehension which bad possessed the minds of his friends, the police
and the public, deepened into certainty, that he was not in the land. of
the living.
In the course of the Sunday, Gentlemen. the following day after
the first publication of the notices -and I now propose, for your con-
venience, to give an outline of what will be proved, chronologically,
in the order in which it took place-on Sunday, his family learned
from Dr. Webster, the prisoner at the bar, that on the Friday previ-
ous he had been in his company between the hours of one and two
o'clock. The circumstances under which that communication,was
made to the family will be a subject upon which I shall have occa-
sion, in another stage of these proceedings, to advert perhaps, but
I now speak of it only as one fact in connection with the disappear-
ance and the attempt to discover the whereabouts of Dr. Parkman.
The search was continued through the week-Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday,'Thursday, and up to Friday of the following week. And
although, Gentlemen, the friends of Dr. Parkman and the police who
were engaged in this search did occasionallV hear, as I have already
remarked, that he had been seen after the time when he is represented
to have gone into the Medical College, and followed up every account,.
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