Dr. James W. Stone. Report of the Trial of
Professor John W. Webster ...
, 1850
,
Image No: 270
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Dr. James W. Stone. Report of the Trial of
Professor John W. Webster ...
, 1850
,
Image No: 270
   Enlarge and print image (55K)           << PREVIOUS  NEXT >>
261 already occupied more of your time than I expected I should have oc- casion to, and I thank you for your patient attention. But there is a duty resting on me which I cannot evade. I proceed now to consid- er, in connection with the remarks I have already submitted to you this morning, the proposition that Dr. Webster has falsified, notwith- standing all his declarations; and you will judge how consistent those declarations are, when you come to consider the statements he made to James H. Blake, to Mr. Littlefield, and to Dr. Parkman, on Sunday, in connection with the statement to Mr. Thompson, his own witness. This last-named witness, under his own hand, has testified that Dr. Webster told him there were two persons present when he paid the money; and he now states that he thinks he was told there were two persons present, though he is not quite certain that this was the statement-but that there were two persons, one of whom was the janitor, who had just left. Now, either of these statements was untrue. Then the statement he made to Mr. S. P. Blake, about his intrusting the mortgage to Dr. Parkman, to carry it over to Cambridge to can- cel it, is untrue. Dr. Parkman would never have attempted to can- cel that mortgage, involving as it did the interests of other parties. Then, take all the circumstances under which he states that Dr. Park- man received that money, and went out from that building with the bills in his hands; - I put it to you to say whether that representation was true. I now come to a more serious matter still. I say to you, that, from the evidence in this case, he told the toll-gatherer that he had paid Dr. Parkman, when he had not paid him. I say to you, from the evidence here, and from the absence of evidence, that he never paid that money at all. Take the deposits in the Charles River Bank, and the manner in which they were drawn out, and compare them, at your leisure, with the account which Mr. Pettee rendered here, as the col- lecting agent of Dr. Webster, of the times he paid him money. It now appears that the whole number of students was 1©7. Mr. Pettee has accounted for 99. Mr. Littlefield for two. Where could he have obtained the money to pay this? Not from the sale of the tickets, the proceeds of which he had - in his embarrassed circum- stances, arising out of an improvident mode of living, which, of itself, is dishonesty-devoted to other objects. A man who lives beyond his means, knowingly, and trusts to the chances of making others the suf- ferers, is a dishonest man. Take these representations, and take the evidence before you, and then ask from what source he derived that money, and you have the great, overshadowing falsehood, which goes to the root of this whole case. This prisoner, and his Counsel, have never been unmindful of the great importance of showing where he got the money to pay that $453.64 to Dr. Parkman. Let me say, that for four months he has had at his command tho entire treasury of this Commonwealth, to summon here every witness from whom he had received a dollar. Judge Merrick. How can that be ? -four months! Mr. Clifford. You will observe the Coroner's Inquest was held immediately after this terrible event. You will observe that the mo- ment the results of that inquest were placed in my hands, they were