Closing Address in Second Star Route Trial (part 2)

They claim, gentlemen, first, that an immense fraud was in view when these proposals—I think they are proposals—with accompanying bonds and oaths of sureties were sent to Mr. Clendenning. I wish to give you, in the first place, my explanation of this paper. See if I understand it. If you sent this paper to that officer or to that gentleman as a form to guide him in making up the bonds, you would only fill up that portion of the bond in giving him a sample which you wanted him to fill up, and you would fill it up in order to show him exactly how he was to fill it up; and you would leave out that part which was already filled up in the bond. That is exactly what was done in this case. There was not one of those bonds that had an oath of the surety or the names of the sureties, because they were unknown. The names were unknown, and the amounts that the postmaster would certify to, and so all that was left in blank in the bond sent. But this being only a sample, it was sent to him so that he might know how to fill up the bonds that were sent. Consequently that portion which was absolutely blank in the bond sent would be filled up as a guide to him, and that portion which was filled up in the bonds sent would be left blank in the guide, because he had nothing to do with that part. Now, that is all there is to it.

What was left out, as they claim? Why they claim that the name of the bidder was left out and the amount of the bid. It makes no difference. That is not the slightest evidence of fraud, is it?

What was the next thing? They were never used, never. No bond included in that bundle was ever accepted by the Government. No bonds were ever made, no contract ever based upon them, not a solitary cent taken from the Government by those papers. Why, then, this secrecy? Because when a man is in this business he does not want anybody else to know that he is bidding, in the first place; and, in the second place, he does not want anybody to know the amount of the bid. If the amount of the bid is put in, then the persons going security will know it, and they may tell. The postmaster who approves the security will know it, and he may tell. The object of the secrecy is not to defraud the Government, but to prevent other people finding the amount of the bid and then underbidding. That is the object, and it is the only object. And yet this little, poor, dried-up bond, soaked in the water of suspicion, swells almost to bursting in the minds of the counsel for the prosecution. There is nothing of it. It was never worthy of mention, in the first place. You will never think of it when you retire. It will never enter your minds; but if it does, remember that the object of the secrecy was simply as a precaution against other bidders, and had nothing whatever to do with the Government.

There is one other point. I believe Mr. Dorsey did say, in his examination-in-chief, that he did not talk to anybody about it, and it afterwards occurred that he did go and ask Mr. Edmunds whether what he had asked Clendenning to do was illegal or improper. To that contradiction you are welcome.

Mr. Ker gives the date of Boone's circular to postmasters asking for information, and says it was dated December 1, 1879. Thereupon Mr. Merrick corrects him, and says it was in 1878. The Court does the same. As a matter of fact, these circulars were dated December, 1877. Gentlemen, I just simply speak of this to show how easy it is for people to be mistaken. Those circulars were gotten up for the purpose of getting information before bidding. All the bids were put in in February, 1878. The circulars were sent out, I believe, in November and December, 1877. And yet upon that one point Mr. Ker is mistaken two years.

On page 4512 Mr. Ker states that Miner, in April, 1878, said to Moore that it all depended upon affidavits of the contractors, and that "they were all good affidavit men." The object of this, if it had an object, was to show that this conspiracy was entered into with Moore, and that S. W. Dorsey was a part of it in April, 1878. The evidence of Moore is that the conversation took place, not in April, but in July, 1878, at the city of Denver. And yet Mr. Ker tells you that it was in April. 1878. It is not, perhaps, a very material point, but it simply serves to show you the manner in which this evidence is repeated to you by the counsel for the prosecution.

At page 4537 Mr. Ker says that before J. W. Dorsey went West he made an arrangement with his brother to sell out his interest for ten thousand dollars; that he did this before he started West; that he did it before there was any service put on; and that these contracts were taken at such low figures; yet John W. Dorsey had raised his interest up to ten thousand dollars. Mr. Ker tells you that the evidence shows that before any service was put on and before John W. Dorsey went West he tried to sell out his interest for ten thousand dollars. Now, what was the object in making this statement, unless it was pure forgetfulness? Why it was to connect Vaile with this business some time in April, 1878.

On pages 4100 and 4102 J. W. Dorsey swears that he was here in Washington in November, 1878; before that time he had gone to the Tongue River route; he had come back from Bismarck; and it was then, not in April; it was then, not before he went West; it was then, not before any service was put on, that he talked with Vaile about selling out to him for ten thousand dollars; and it was in November that he left the instructions for his brother to sell to Vaile. It was not in April; it was not before he went West; it was not before any service was put on.

At page 4540 Mr. Ker states that—Dorsey held thirty-three routes, and there was not one of them, I suppose, that was not expedited to the fullest extent.

What evidence is there of that? Is there any evidence that any route of Dorsey's was expedited not mentioned in this indictment?

Did not Mr. Ker know whether the routes had been expedited or not? Did not I offer in this court to prove what was done with every solitary route we had? I say to the gentleman that the other routes were not expedited. I say to the gentleman that only two other routes were, and we were not interested in them. And I say also that they know the record, and they knew the record when this statement was made; but they may have forgotten it. But is it fair, gentlemen, for a prosecuting officer to state to you that he supposed all the routes of Dorsey were expedited? One of those in the indictment was not expedited; and not a route outside of the indictment belonging to Dorsey, in which he had an interest, was expedited. So much for that statement.

At page 4546 you are told by Mr. Ker that—Nobody ever heard of expedition on a route before.

We proved what form of contracts had been in the PostOffice Department for twenty years, and proved that in every one of them there was a clause for expedition. So much for that evidence, gentlemen.

At page 4546 Mr. Ker tells us that J. W. Dorsey testified—That the routes were taken so low as to cut out other people, but that they knew they were to be expedited, and they knew they were to be increased.

J. W. Dorsey testified upon that subject, and his testimony will be found at page 4085:

Q. Did you have an arrangement by which you should bid an extremely small amount on the routes, with the further understanding that the service was to be increased and expedited?—A. No, sir; I never thought of such a thing.

And in his entire testimony in chief and cross, I believe there is not another question on that subject.

On page 4549, referring to the letter of John M. Peck, which was in fact written by Miner, Mr. Ker says:

Cedarville ought to have had as many mails as the other points between, according to the order, but they were going to supply it only once a week. .

As a matter of fact, gentlemen, this letter was written on the 22d of October, 1878, and at the time the letter was written the mail, according to the contract, was carried only once a week on that route, and consequently Cedarville would have had exactly the same mail as any other point; that is to say, once a week.

Page 556 of the record shows that three trips a week were put upon this route to Loup City with a schedule of thirteen hours, but not until the 10th of July, 1879, nine months after this letter was written.

On page 4609 Mr. Ker, in commenting upon an affidavit on the Toquerville and Adairville route, reads from the evidence of John W. Dorsey, citing page 3945, and ends at this question and answer:

Q. It was done so entirely, was it not?—A. It ought to have been so.

Now, let me read you the balance:

Q. Was it not so done?—A. No, sir.

Q It was not?—A. No, sir.

Q For whose benefit was it done?.—A. He—Meaning Rerdell—stole five thousand dollars on that route, or very nearly that—four thousand nine hundred dollars on that very route.

Q. When did he steal that five thousand dollars?—A. About a year ago or a year and a half; I do not remember the time.

Q. From whom?—A. From Mr. Bosler and myself.

Q. At what time?—A. I should think in February, 1882.

The question now arises, did Mr. Rerdell take this money as charged? Read now from the record, at pages 734 and 735, and you will find in the last line of the tabular statement introduced in this case that on this very route four thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven dollars and eighty-three cents was paid to M. C. Rerdell as subcontractor on that route. We also find that it was paid on the 4th of February, 1882. This is the money that Dorsey swears Rerdell stole, and that gentleman never took the stand to deny it.

At page 4616, Mr. Ker, after going over all the evidence with regard to the affidavits as to the impossibility of the number of men and horses doing the service rendered necessary by the affidavit, comes to the following conclusion: That under the oath the proportion was, as nine to twenty-three; that under the oath of Johnson the real proportion should have been, and was, eight to twenty-two.

In other words, the real proportion, according to Mr. Ker's own statement, would have taken more money from the Treasury than the wrong proportion made under the fraudulent affidavit, and that was nine to twenty-three. Nine into twenty-three goes twice and five-ninths; that is, two hundred and fifty-five per cent, and a fraction. That is the fraudulent proportion. Mr. Ker says that the real proportion was not as nine into twenty-three, but as eight to twenty two. Eight into twenty-two goes twice and six-eighths; that is to say, two and three-quarters; that is to say, two hundred and seventy-five per cent. The fraudulent proportion, according to his claim, only gave us two hundred and fifty-five per cent. The real proportion, which Mr. Ker admits was right, according to the evidence of Johnson, would have given us two hundred and seventy-five per cent. In other words, we got twenty per cent, less under the fraud than we would under the evidence of Johnson that Mr. Ker admits to be correct. Finding that it is twenty per cent, less under the fraudulent affidavit than under Johnson's estimate, he shouts fraud.

On page 4617 Mr. Ker tells us that Sanderson "had no more to do with the route than you or I had." On page 731 I find that Mr. Sanderson drew all the money on the route from Saguache to Lake City, I believe, with one exception—the third quarter of one year—1878, it may be. He drew every dollar upon that route, anyhow, up to February 17, 1882, except for one quarter. And yet Mr. Ker stood up before you and said that Sanderson "had no more to do with the route than you or I had."

Let us see if we have any more evidence. I find on page 3271 a subcontract executed on route 38150, from Saguache to Lake City, by Miner, Peck & Company to Sanderson for the whole time until June 30, 1882. I find that subcontract is signed by John R. Miner and J. L. Sanderson. This contract was to be from the 1st of July, 1878, and was made the 15th of May, 1878, and here it is in evidence. The evidence is that the contract was made between Miner, Peck & Company and Sanderson; the evidence also is that Sanderson drew the pay. And yet Mr. Ker stands up before you and says that Sanderson "had no more to do with the route than you or I had."

The subcontract, gentlemen, states that Sanderson is to have the entire pay, and it was before the contract term began. So much for that.

Mr. Ker. When was it filed?

Mr. Wilson. That does not make any difference.

Mr. Ingersoll. "When was it filed?" There was a trial in my town of a suit against the city, I believe, for allowing a culvert to get filled up and flood a man's cellar. They brought in evidence to prove, don't you see, that the culvert was not filled up, and one witness swore that the day before the rain he saw a dog go through there. One of the jurors got up and said that he would like to ask a question; he said, "What was the color of that dog?"

On page 4631 Mr. Ker states that during the investigation by Congress—Contractors got out printed letters and sent them to every subcontractor upon every star route in the country, asking them to write to their members of Congress urging their members of Congress to vote for this appropriation.

On page 1346 is Rerdell's letter upon this very route, in which not one word is said about the contractor doing anything one way or the other. There is no evidence that any other letter was written on that route. I call your attention to it to show how the prosecution strained every possible point, and how they endeavored to patch and piece and putty and veneer this evidence. Mr. Miner wrote a letter (page 669). I do not remember any other evidence upon this subject. And certainly it would be impossible to write a milder letter than Mr. Miner wrote. He did not ask the people to get up petitions against reduction, or ask for more service. Here is what he says, and I will read you Mr. Miner's letter:

It will be well for the people of your section to send to the member of Congress from your district such petitions as will express their opinions on the subject of this reduction.

Truly, yours,

JNO. R. MINER, Ag't.

Could you write a milder letter than that, to save your life, and refer to the subject? Could you write a fairer letter than that, to save your life?

He does not say, "Get up petitions against it." He does not say, "Send those petitions to your member of Congress and tell him to do what he can to prevent it." Not one word of that kind.

Yet that is considered as evidence of fraud; that is considered as evidence of conspiracy.

The next point made is that Mr. Ker states, at page 4632, that Brady endeavored to bribe the members of Congress into making this appropriation by doubling every star route in the Southern and Middle States, and did so during the Congressional investigation. What are the facts? The deficiency bill passed April 7, 1880.. That appropriated money only for the purpose of carrying the mails up to June 30, 1880. The regular appropriation bill was passed at the same session, and appropriated money to carry the mails from the 1st of July, 1880. Now let us see if Brady doubled the trips in these Southern and Middle States during that investigation. On page 3393 Brady says:

Practically on July 1, 1880, we doubled up the entire service for all the Southern and Middle States.

This was after the deficiency bill had passed; it was after the money appropriated by that bill had been expended; and it was paid for out of the regular appropriation for the Post-Office Department.

Yet that was a bribe. It just shows that Congress by the regular appropriation indorsed the policy of Mr. Key to have a daily mail to every place where there was a county-seat.

At page 4652, on the route from Mineral Park to Pioche, there were two petitions, marked 17 K and 18 K. It is somewhat singular that the Government brought no persons whose names are on these petitions to show that they had not authorized their names to be signed thereto, but they brought persons to show that the signatures were not genuine.

On page 1621 the witness Wright swears that the names are the same on both petitions. He is then asked if he knows the signatures of any other people, and he says "Yes." He then says that the signature of John Deland is not genuine. He swears that he knows nearly every one of the people. He is then asked whether these signatures are in the handwriting of the people, and he replies that he thinks not. Then he is asked as to the signature of Cornell, and he says; That is not in his handwriting.

Here is his cross-examination, gentlemen: * * *

I asked him, "Do you know these people;" made him swear that he knew Mr. Street; that he knew the signatures of many; that he knew these people. I proved where they were living; that they are living in the country now, good, respectable, honest people. And yet the Government did not bring one man whose name had been written here to prove that he had not authorized it. Why? Because they could not. They knew by the testimony here that the petitions were absolutely and perfectly honest. And it is in that way that they seek to deprive men of their liberty. They did not call a man whose name appeared on those petitions to say that his signature was not genuine or not authorized. I proved that many of them are still living and first-rate men.

Now, gentlemen, you remember besides that, that Mr. H. S. Stevens, the delegate from that Territory, recommended the same thing asked for by those petitions (pages 1635, 1636), where it was admitted by counsel for the Government that the letters of Stevens were genuine. It is upon that same route that General Fremont also wrote a letter (page 1636). And I will show you that the names are exactly or substantially the same on 18 K as those found at pages 1638 and 1639.

Mr. Ker and Mr. Bliss both endeavored to show that there were no petitions on this route, and that it was simply done on a letter. If you will look at page 1603 you will find the evidence of Mr. Krider, who was postmaster at Mineral Park, in which he says there were petitions.

In order to show that there was a conspiracy between these parties, or between Dorsey and Vaile, or Dorsey, Rerdell, and Vaile, Mr. Ker called the attention of the jury to two letters, one written by Rerdell to the Sixth Auditor, and one written by Vaile. Here is a letter dated the 21st of August, 1880. It is introduced, of course, to show that there was a conspiracy at that time between Mr. Vaile and Mr. Dorsey. It was written by Mr. Rerdell to the Sixth Auditor:

To the Sixth Auditor:

Sir: H. M. Vaile was subcontractor on route 40104 during the first quarter of 1879. In the first settlement for that quarter Vaile was paid for certain expedited service—it was subsequently discovered that the expedition thus paid for was never performed—the department therefore, and very properly, too, charged back to the route the amount thus paid for expedition never performed, viz, some two thousand eight hundred dollars.

Meanwhile Vaile, who alone was in fault, had ceased to have any connection with the route—the charging back, therefore, fell on the wrong man, the man who was in no way responsible for the non-performance of the expedition, except so far as he stood between the department and the subcontractor.

It is true that this payment was made by the regular contractor to the subcontractor, but it is equally true that it was, in a measure, a compulsory payment. By the rules of the Post-Office Department it is made obligatory on the regular contractor to pay the subcontractor before the department will settle with him—it is not, therefore, a payment as between two individuals. The receipt is on the form prescribed by the Post-Office Department, and is witnessed by (the then) Postmaster Edmunds, as the rules prescribe. It is on file in the Post-Office Department, and I maintain that our covenants were fulfilled when we put the receipt on file. If Vaile had performed the service as he agreed he would do, and for doing which he received this money, we should have been reimbursed by a certificate of service from the contract office. Now, will you permit Vaile to take advantage of his own wrong, and thus enable him to defraud another man out of his money?

I refrain from discussing the question as to what would be the duty of the department if Vaile, who had received the money wrongfully, had ceased to have any connection with the department, because it is not pertinent to this issue; if it were, I could cite you to many authorities and precedents to the effect that even then it would be your duty to refund the money to me. But this is not necessary, because Vaile is still doing business with the department.

He is subcontractor on route 44156 for the full contract pay, which is twenty-two thousand dollars per annum, hence the department will have no difficulty in reimbursing itself for what was, in simple truth, an overpayment.

I think you will agree with me when I ask that this money be refunded to the subcontractor on route 40104 and charged to route 44156, because it is simply correcting an error. You have the same authority to charge it to one as you have to charge it to the other, and you have already charged it to me.

The law-merchant would experience no difficulty in adjusting a matter of this sort. The merchant who would refuse to correct an error of this character would be justly called a lame duck, and would be scouted from "'Change" Vaile was erroneously paid for the performance of a service which he never did perform. Therefore I ask that he be compelled to render unto Caesar the things that he ceasers.

Respectfully,

M. C. RERDELL.

Acting for himself and for the regular contractor on route 40104.

That is to show also, gentlemen, that there was a conspiracy between Vaile and Rerdell. Now, Mr. Vaile wrote a letter also to the same man. I will read it:

Washington, D. C., July 9, 1880.

Hon. J. McGrew:

Sir: In reply to yours of July 8th, relating to the Jennings case, I would state that I did not receive the money in manner and form as stated by one M. C. Rerdell, nor was the draft of J. W. Dorsey, on said route 40104, for the quarter named, to get an advance of money for myself or for my own use.

At the time I receipted for my pay as subcontractor on said route I did not, in fact, receive any money, but did so receipt that J. W. Dorsey might negotiate his draft on said route, and for no other purpose.

Although I was subcontractor of record on said route at the time named, I was not a subcontractor in my own behalf, but as trustee for J. W. Dorsey, S. W. Dorsey, Isaac Jennings, and others, to collect said money and pay it over as said parties should direct. I further state that all money that ever came into my hands from said route I did pay over to the parties named as trustee, as by them directed.

Acting as trustee of said Jennings, and believing that he had performed the mail service on said route as by him agreed, and in accordance with the laws and regulations of the Post-Office Department, I did pay said Jennings, on the 1st day of April, 1879, the sum of $1,257.73, a sum of money he was entitled to provided he had carried the mail three days per week on the schedule required, which I fully believed at that time he had done, and for a long time after.

I further state that I am informed that said Jennings is not responsible; that it would be utterly impossible for me to receive back the $2,800, or any part thereof; that in fact this sum of money sought to be collected of me, if collected for said Jennings's benefit, or go into his hands in addition to the sum he now has unlawfully, doubly remunerating him for his neglect of duty.

I further state that all the money collected on said route not paid to said Jennings was paid to liquidate the debts of J. W. Dorsey, S. W. Dorsey, and others previously contracted, and not one dollar ever remained in my hands.

I further state I believe both J. W. Dorsey and S. W. Dorsey are irresponsible, and it would be impossible for me to collect any part of said money from them. As above stated, said money came into my hand only as their agent or trustee, and at once paid out as they directed; that my subcontract was put on file simply to enable J W. Dorsey to negotiate his draft on said route, when in fact said Jennings was the real subcontractor. Said Jennings agreed to perform the service on said route strictly in accordance with the laws and regulations of the department, for the annual sum of $12,600.00, the duplicate of which contract was delivered over to S. W. Dorsey by myself, and which I believe is now in the hands of M. C. Rerdell, and which, or a copy thereof, I demand shall be filed with you in this case, that you may see what said Jennings agreed to do.

This is certainly a strange claim. Jennings agreed to perform mail service on said route. I believed he had done it, and paid him accordingly. It turns out long after he did not properly perform the service, but was attempting a swindle, and a deduction is ordered for not performing the service properly. Then this man, the guilty party, having got money from me, as trustee, wrongfully, as well as from the Government, and asks that the Auditor compel me to pay him the sum of $2,800.00, when, as I am informed, he is seeking to get this same deduction remitted.

Surely if he succeeded in all this he will make a good thing out of his rascality and I a good victim without remedy. I state again I did not hypothecate said draft for myself, did not receive one cent as subcontractor, but became the payee of said draft that said J. W. Dorsey might negotiate it, and I to dispose of the proceeds as he should direct, all of which I did. Therefore I request you not to compel me to pay the sum of money asked, but if I am liable at all let the parties seek their redress at law, where all the facts can be obtained and justice rendered me. And it is also well known that I am a man of means, and any judgment rendered against me could and would be collected, dollar for dollar.

I am, very respectfully,

H. M. VAILE.

That was introduced to show that at the time Vaile was in a conspiracy with S. W. Dorsey. Why did they introduce it? Simply for one line in it in which he says he was acting as the trustee of S. W. Dorsey. He was. How? Dorsey had advanced money. The routes were liable, and the persons who held the routes had agreed to refund it. The subcontracts were made to Vaile, and Vaile agreed out of the proceeds of the route to pay the debt to S. W, Dorsey. To that extent he was the trustee of S. W. Dorsey. Dorsey swears it. Vaile admits it, and we all claim it to be true. And yet they introduced that letter simply because that line was there. Now, gentlemen, I have read both of those letters, and I want you to remember them if you can, and tell me whether at that time Vaile and Dorsey were in a conspiracy together to defraud this Government. And yet the Government introduced this letter just to prove that one thing, and no more.

On the Julian and Colton route there is this peculiarity: The Government failed to prove the number of men and horses necessary on the original schedule for three-times-a-week service, and consequently we are left without any standard by which to judge; without any standard by which to measure.

On page 4685 Mr. Ker calls attention to the fact that the proposal marked 6 P, originally contained an offer to carry the mail at thirty-six hours for seven thousand seven hundred and twenty-two dollars additional, but he states that the thirty-six was rubbed out and twenty-six was put in its place.

That is, they offered to carry it in thirty-six hours for seven thousand and odd dollars, and then afterwards fraudulently, of course, rubbed out the thirty-six and inserted twenty-six. But they did not change the sum for which they offered to carry it. They offered to carry it in thirty-six hours for seven thousand seven hundred and twenty-two dollars, and afterwards they rubbed out the thirty-six and put in twenty-six, and then offered to carry it in twenty-six hours for seven thousand seven hundred and twenty-two dollars. The question arises, how did that hurt the Government? The question arises, was that a fraud? If it had been originally twenty-six hours and they had rubbed out those figures and put in thirty-six hours, then you might say the intention was to defraud the Government. But the proposition had to be accepted after that was done, and consequently in no event could the Government be defrauded by the change of the proposal before the Government accepted the proposal. I might say to a man, "I will let you have a house and lot for ten thousand dollars." He does not accept the proposal. Have I not the right on the next day to charge him twelve thousand dollars for it? Is that a fraud? If I tell him, "You may have it for ten thousand dollars," and he accepts, then, as an honorable man, I cannot change the proposal. But if I tell him he may have it for twelve thousand dollars and then afterwards tell him he may have it for ten thousand dollars, Mr. Ker calls that a fraud of two thousand dollars. If one of the jury should give me a contract to deliver one hundred horses for ten thousand dollars, and I should scratch out the one hundred and put in seventy-five, certainly you would not consider yourself defrauded. Or if I agreed to carry the mail in thirty hours for the Government for seven thousand seven hundred and twenty-two dollars, and then afterwards changed and said I would carry it in ten hours less time for the same price, can that be tortured into a fraud—unless I might be indicted for defrauding myself?

On page 4569 Mr. Ker says that Mr. Farrish, who was the subcontractor says:

I always carried the mail in from six to ten hours before expedition. I carried the mail from Greenhorn to Pueblo. I did not stop at Saint Charles.

On page 835 Mr. Farrish says he carried the mail for three months in 1881. That is the only time Farrish carried the mail. This route was expedited on the 26th day of June, 1879, and yet Mr. Ker says that Farrish carried the mail before it was expedited and carried it in from six to ten hours. Mr. Farrish did not carry the mail until about two years after it had been expedited.

On page 4768 Mr. Ker, speaking of the two affidavits on the route from Pueblo to Rosita, laughs at the idea that the proportion was the same in both.

Now, what is the proportion in both? One affidavit says that on the then schedule it would take eight men and horses; that is, the horses and men added together make eight, and that on the proposed schedule it would take twenty-four. Then they would be entitled to just three times the money they were receiving on the original schedule, because three times eight are twenty-four. Let me explain here what I mean by proportion. If I am carrying the mail with, say, four horses and two men, making a total of six, and if then that service is increased so that it takes twelve men and horses, I get twice the original pay; if it takes eighteen men and horses, I get three times the original pay. You understand that there is always a relation between the pay and the number of men and horses used. If I am using one man and one horse and am getting a thousand dollars for the service, and if it is expedited so that I have to use two men and two horses, I would get two thousand dollars. In the first affidavit they had eight men and horses. If they put up the service to what they were going to, it would take twenty-four. Three times eight are twenty-four. Then they would get three times the original amount of money. In the second affidavit he swears that it takes fifteen men and animals on the present schedule, and on the proposed schedule it would take forty-five men and animals. Three times fifteen are forty-five. Three times eight are twenty-four. You see that on both affidavits you get the same amount of money to a cent, because the proportion is absolutely and exactly the same. Yet Mr. Ker laughs at the idea of the proportion being the same. It took eight men and horses in the first affidavit on the present schedule, and twenty-four on the proposed schedule. There the contractor would be entitled to three times the original sum. In the next affidavit it took fifteen men and horses on the original schedule and forty-five men and horses on the proposed schedule. Again, he would be entitled to three times the original sum.

On page 4579 Mr. Ker says the oath was put in for three trips. By looking at page 867 we find that it was for seven trips and not three. There is nothing like accuracy.

On page 4580 Ker says that Brady had on the jacket before him the evidence that Hansom was a subcontractor at three thousand one hundred dollars a year, and the contract gave the contractor a clear profit of five thousand and forty-eight dollars. The fact is, that Brady's order was made on July 8, 1879. That order is on page 866. Hansom's subcontract was filed October 22, 1879, about three month's after Brady's order was made. And yet Mr. Ker tells you that on that jacket when Brady made the order he had notice of Hansom's subcontract. Unless he had the gift of seeing into the future he knew nothing about it. He would have had to see into the future three months in order to have had it before him at that time.

On page 4703 Mr. Ker says that the letter of J. W. Dorsey, written April 26, 1879, referred to the Perkin's affidavit as not putting the number of men and animals high enough. Let us see. Another case of arithmetic. The letter refers to Dorsey's statement transmitted with the letter. It could not be the way stated by Mr. Ker for the following reasons: The affidavit of Perkins said three men and six animals one trip a week on the then time. That makes nine. On one trip a week with the reduction to eighty-four hours, eight men and twenty-four animals would be required. That makes thirty-two. The proportion then gives three and five-ninths or three hundred and fifty-five per cent, increase of pay. That is the affidavit, he says, that Dorsey wrote out and said was not high enough, and then fixed up one that was. The affidavit that John W. Dorsey sent in the letter says that it will require for three trips a week on the then time four men and twelve animals, making sixteen; on the proposed schedule for the same number of trips eleven men and thirty-two animals, making forty-three. As sixteen is to forty-three—that is, two hundred and sixty-nine per cent, increase of pay. Now, that letter, he says, claims that the Perkins affidavit did not put it high enough. I say that he did not refer to the Perkins affidavit. He could not say that did not put it high enough, because that put it at three hundred and fifty-five per cent., and the affidavit he inclosed in the letter, put it at two hundred and sixty-nine per cent.—nearly one hundred per cent. less. According to Mr. Ker he was complaining that that affidavit was too low, and so he inclosed one, one hundred per cent, lower. That will not do. Besides all that the affidavit of John W. Dorsey is for forty-five hours, while the first affidavit, I believe, is for eighty-four hours. John W. Dorsey offers to carry it in forty-five hours for two hundred and sixty-nine per cent., and the other affidavit on the basis of eighty-five hours calls for three hundred and fifty-five per cent. Do you not see, gentlemen, it is utterly impossible to believe that?

On page 4738 Mr. Ker again falls into mathematics. He says that Mr. Brady allowed on the Bismarck route for three hundred men and three hundred horses.

I tell you this prosecution ought to go into the stock business. One hundred and fifty men and one hundred and fifty horses were called for by the affidavit. Now, Mr. Ker says when Brady doubled the trips he doubled the horses, and when he doubled the trips he doubled the men. That would make three hundred men and three hundred horses. If he had doubled the trips again he would have had six hundred men and six hundred horses, enough cavalry to have protected that entire frontier. Yet after all the Bismarck and Tongue River business, Mr. Vaile comes in and swears, on page 4062, that the loss on that route to Vaile and Miner was at least fifty thousand dollars; and Mr. Miner swears that the loss on the route was between forty and fifty thousand dollars. Vaile says if he had known at that time of the clause in the contract by which he could have gotten out of it he would have abandoned the route, but that he had not read a contract for ten or twelve years. Now, as a matter of fact, gentlemen, and it seems to me the prosecution ought to be perfectly fair, Brady allowed only forty per cent, of the affidavit made in regard to the one hundred and fifty men and the one hundred and fifty horses, and yet according to Mr. Ker he allowed for three hundred men and three hundred horses; instead of allowing for forty per cent, of one hundred and fifty men and one hundred and fifty horses, he allowed for one hundred per cent. more. That would have run the pay up, I should think, to about a million dollars. Mr. Ker also says that Mr. Vaile swears that he induced Brady to give an extension to August 15th, and thereupon Mr. Ker makes the remarkable statement that Vaile did not do it; that Boone did it; I am very thankful for the admission. From that it appears that Boone was more potent with Brady than Vaile was.

If he was, why did they have to get somebody close to Brady? Afterwards we are told by Mr. Ker that Mr. Boone was kicked out to make a place for Vaile, so as to get a man close to Brady.

Mr. Ker. Will you tell me what page it was I spoke about Boone?

Mr. Ingersoll. It was Mr. Bliss. It is Mr. Bliss's turn to explain now. The notes that I have were handed to me by another, and I supposed referred to Mr. Ker. Mr. Bliss said:

This, I think, can leave no doubt in the minds of any one that the extension was obtained by Mr. Boone.

Mr. Bliss says that on page 4899, and so I will relieve Mr. Ker of that charge.

Mr. Ker. I am glad to be relieved of something.

Mr. Ingersoll. I do not want to do any injustice to Mr. Ker; between Mr. Bliss and Mr. Ker I am perfectly impartial.

Mr. Ker attacks the affidavit made by Vaile on the Vermillion and Sioux Falls route. Let us get at the facts. The route was let as fifty miles long. That is the distance that was given in the advertisement by the Government. They wanted expedition on that route. The Government asked for it. Mr. Vaile asked if he could make the affidavit, and he made it, supposing the route was fifty miles long. He never had been over it. It turned out that it was about seventy-three miles long, and consequently the affidavit provided for too fast time. The affidavit called for ten hours. That made over seven miles an hour; or, including the stoppages, I presume about ten miles an hour. The difficulty arose out of the mistake in the distance. Vaile so swears, on page 4030. He also swears that he went to the department and there saw Mr. Brewer, who was in charge of that bureau, or at least of that business, and it was Brewer who suggested to him to make the affidavit. Mr. Vaile did not ask for any expedition on that route. Mr. Brewer spoke to him about it. Mr. Vaile swears that Brewer spoke to him first. Mr. Vaile swears that he made the affidavit at the instigation of Mr. Brewer. Mr. Bliss says Brewer is an honest man, and calls him honest Brewer. Why did he not call honest Brewer to the stand and let him deny that he asked Mr. Vaile to make that affidavit?

The Court. Yes.

Mr. Ingersoll. [Resuming]. If the Court please, and gentlemen of the jury, on page 4645 there is the letter from Miner to Carey.

John Carey, Esq.,

Fort McDermitt, Nev.

Dear Sir: One S. H. Abbott, who was postmaster at Alvord, I find, by accident, is writing to the department that you do not pay your bills, and that there is no need of anything more than a weekly mail.

I wish you would see this man at once and satisfy him; pay him whatever is reasonable and report to R. C. Williamson, at The Dalles.

I suppose that is what he is after. He knows nothing of the through mail, and probably a weekly is all he needs; but more likely he wants some money. He complained once before to the department that he had to make a special trip to Camp McDermitt to make his returns, and I sent him thirty dollars, and it was all right. Now, I suppose, he wants a little more money. Yours, &c.,

JOHN R. MINER.

That letter was introduced to show that there was a conspiracy between Miner and Brady; and yet when that man complained that the service was not put on at the time it should have been, and that he was postmaster, was forced to carry his returns to the nearest post-office, and consequently spent about thirty dollars, Miner sent him the money. Why? Because he and Brady were not confederates; because they were not conspirators. For that reason he sent the man thirty dollars. The letter says, "The man that was postmaster." When this letter was written Mr. Abbott was not postmaster; he had ceased to be postmaster. Yet they have endeavored to impress upon you the idea that when this letter was written to Abbott he was then postmaster. He had written a letter, stating that a weekly mail was all that was wanted, and that Mr. Carey did not pay his bills. Mr. Miner wrote to Carey on that account, "The man is trying to make trouble. He tried to make trouble once before, and we sent him thirty dollars. He is not postmaster now. He has no official position. Go and see him. Give him what is reasonable, and tell him to mind his own business." Why? If he had been in a conspiracy with Brady he would not care what Mr. Abbott wrote to the department. If he was absolutely certain there he would not care anything about it. But having no arrangement with the Second Assistant, having no arrangement of the kind set forth in the indictment, he did not want Mr. Abbott to write letters; he did not want Mr. Abbott to make trouble. That letter, instead of showing that there was a conspiracy, shows absolutely that there was not, and the letter was not written to him while he was an official. The man was not then postmaster. He simply had been.

The next point made by Mr. Ker is a very powerful point, that Mr. Vaile came from Independence, where the James boys came from, and where they steal horses. Suppose I should say that Mr. Ker comes from Philadelphia, the town that Mr. Phipps lives in, the man who stole the roof off of the poorhouse. Would there be any argument in that?

Mr. Ker says that J. W. Dorsey wrote in his letter that the profits would be one hundred thousand dollars a year. That was a mistake. I turn to the letter and I find that it says one hundred thousand dollars in the life of the contract, and not one hundred thousand dollars a year.

Mr. Bliss. Your Honor, I claim the right to call attention to the fact that Mr. Ker read the letter in full referring to the one hundred thousand dollars clear of expenses. He read it and then followed it by the statement of one hundred thousand dollars a year, which was obviously a mistake.

Mr. Ingersoll. That only makes it worse. After he had read the letter to the jury, and while the echoes of the letter were still in the court-room, he then said one hundred thousand dollars a year, while the letter said one hundred thousand dollars within the life of the contract. Upon such statements, gentlemen, they expect to strip a citizen of his liberty. [To counsel for the Government.] You will have some work to do in a little while. It may be that Mr. Ker forgets these things. I do not say how it happened.

Mr. Ker also tells you that Miner wanted to cut out S. W. Dorsey and J. W. Dorsey and Mr. Peck. Was that because he was a co-conspirator? He also tells you that Miner deserted his friend S. W. Dorsey. Was he at that time a conspirator? Mr. Ker tells you that S. W. Dorsey wanted to gratify his spite against Vaile and that the first thing he did after he got out of the Senate was to write that letter to the Second Assistant Postmaster-General against the subcontracts. Does that show they were co-conspirators? Did he want to gratify his spite because he had made a bargain with them by which they were to realize hundreds of thousands of dollars?

Mr. Ker also says that Miner's letter to Tuttle shows the conspiracy.

It is perfectly wonderful, gentlemen, how suspicion changes and poisons everything.

Let me read you the letter from which Mr. Ker draws the inference that there was a conspiracy. It is on page 885:

Washington, D. C., August 19, 1878. Frank A. Tuttle, Box 44, Pueblo, Colo.,

Dear Sir: Yours 14th received. We accept your proposition, provided (so that there shall be no conflict) that a friend of ours, who has recently gone to Colorado, has not made different arrangements before we can get him word.

The petition for expedition should be separate from the petition for increase of number of trips. We make no boast of being solid with anybody, but can get what is reasonable. Yours, truly,

MINER, PECK & CO.

You are told that is evidence of a conspiracy. Suppose the letter had been this way: "We boast of being solid. We can get anything, whether reasonable or not." That probably would have been evidence of perfect innocence. He writes a letter and says:

We make no boast of being solid with anybody, but can get what is reasonable.

They say that is evidence of conspiracy. Suppose he had written the opposite, "We do boast of being solid and we can get anything, whether it is reasonable or not." According to their logic that would have been evidence of absolute innocence. Whenever you are suspicious you extract poison from the fairest and sweetest flowers. Prejudice and suspicion turn every fact against a defendant.

On page 4557 Mr. Ker tells us that Vaile never saw Peck, and yet had the impudence to write that his subcontract was signed by Peck in person. The subcontract is in evidence here. Nobody pretends that it was not signed by Peck, and yet that is brought forward as a suspicious circumstance against Mr. Vaile, because there is no evidence that Mr. Vaile ever saw Mr. Peck. Is there anything in a point like that? "My contract was signed by Mr. Peck in person." He does not mean by that that he saw him sign it. The evidence here is that it was signed by Peck, and yet the fact that he says Peck did sign it, and the fact that he had never seen Peck, Mr. Ker endeavors to torture so that you will think he wrote what he knew to be untrue.

On page 3251 Mr. Ker says that Miner does not deny writing the letter marked 63 E. This letter was dated the 10th day of May, 1879, and was on one of the Dorsey routes.

Miner swears that he never signed a paper, never touched pen to paper on any of the Dorsey routes after the 5th day of May, 1879.

Now, gentlemen, after having made all these statements to you, and I have only taken up a few of them, these misstatements, these mistakes, Mr. Ker winds up by telling you it is the safer plan to find a verdict of guilty, because if you find them guilty wrongfully the Court will upset your verdict.

Gentlemen, you have sworn to try this case according to the law and the evidence. You are the supreme arbiters of this case. It is for you to decide upon this evidence, and for you alone. Yet you are told by Mr. Ker to shirk that responsibility. You are told by him to violate your oaths and find against these defendants, for the sake of certainty, and then turn them over to the mercy of the Court. That is not the law. These defendants are being tried before you. They have the right to your honest judgment. If you have any doubt as to their guilt you must find them not guilty or violate your oaths. You are told it is the safer way to find them guilty and then let them appeal to the Court for mercy! That doctrine is monstrous. It is deformed. Such a verdict would be the spawn of prejudice, and cowardice, and perjury. You cannot give such a verdict and retain your self-respect. You cannot give such a verdict and retain your manhood! If you have any doubt as to the guilt of these defendants you must say they are not guilty. You have no right to turn them over to the Court, no matter whether the Court is merciful or unmerciful. You must pass upon their guilt, and you must do it honestly.

I never heard so preposterous, so cruel a sentiment uttered in a court of justice. It amounts to this, gentlemen: If you have any doubt of guilt resolve the doubt against the defendant. If the evidence is not quite sufficient, find against the defendants and turn them over to the mercy of the Court. Why should we have a jury at all? Why should you sit here at all? Why should you hear this evidence, if after all you are to shirk the responsibility and turn the defendants over to the Court? You never will do it, gentlemen.

Now, gentlemen, I wish to call your attention to a few points made by Colonel Bliss. You must remember that Colonel Bliss has been very highly complimented by his associates as a kind of peripatetic index of this case, an encyclopedia of all the papers; that he never makes a mistake; that he recollects amounts with absolute certainty, and that he is infallible. Keeping all these things in your mind, I wish to call your attention to some statements that he has made. First of all, I will refer to a little of his philosophy, or law, and that is, that in every affidavit you should state not the number necessary on the then schedule, but the actual number, and that there could be no doubt about the number of men and horses used at the time when an affidavit was made, and that consequently anybody making an affidavit should put in the number then actually used.

Let us see how that will work. He says the oaths are false because they do not state the actual number of men and horses employed in carrying the mail at the time they were made. He says that the person making the affidavit swore to the number actually employed, and that where that number was not employed that fact of itself shows the affidavits to be false. I say that is not the law. The law calls for the number necessary, not the number actually employed. Let me show how easy it would be to cheat the Government on the principle laid down by the gentleman. I will show you how infinitely silly that is. Let me illustrate. Here is a route one hundred and fifty miles long, once a week. You know it is possible for one man and one horse for a little while to carry that mail and to go one hundred and fifty miles one way and one hundred and fifty miles the other, making three hundred miles in a week. You can take a magnificent horse and a good, stout, tough man, and you can do it.

The Court. Or a boy.

Mr. Ingersoll. Or a stout, tough boy.

The Court. A boy would be best.

Mr. Ingersoll. You do not need any boy. Just one man and one horse will answer. The man can ride the horse one hundred and fifty miles in three days, and then ride one hundred and fifty miles back in the next three days. All you have to swear to, according to Mr. Bliss, is the number actually used, and so you would come in and swear to two on this route. Now, when you are making an affidavit as to the number to be used on a schedule to be made, you cannot swear to the number actually in use, because they are not then in use. You have to swear to the number necessary. You have to swear to the number required.

Now, see. On a mail route one hundred and fifty miles long I would only want a good smart horse, and one good active man or boy. I would not need to carry it more than one week, because I could make the affidavit for that week, and then the question would be how many men and horses would be required for a daily mail on the same route. I would put in a reasonable number, and the difference between the number then actually used and the reasonable number to use would be the standard by which to fix my pay.

If you take the man and horse actually used, and then take the number that would reasonably be used, you would make a difference of a thousand per cent. And yet that is the doctrine laid down here to guide us as to these affidavits.

Let me tell you what the law is. It does not make any difference what you are really using at the time. You must swear to the number that would be reasonably necessary to carry the mail on the then schedule. You must swear to the number that would be reasonably necessary to carry the mail on the proposed schedule. In the first place, if you put a great deal of work on a man and horse, you must put the same proportion on man and horse in the second schedule. If you are easy on man and horse in the first schedule, you must be easy on man and horse in the second. The only object, gentlemen, is to keep the proportion, because you are to be paid according to the number of men and horses used.

Now, they say it would be necessary to go out there in order to tell how many men and horses would be necessary, and that the men who made these affidavits had never been on the routes. There was no need of being on the routes. I could give you the number required on any route two hundred or five hundred miles long. I could give you the number of men and horses reasonably required to carry the mail once, twice, three times, or seven times a week; and I could give you the number reasonably required to carry it at the rate of three miles an hour or five miles an hour or six miles an hour without going there. I need not go there for the purpose of the affidavit. I can take it for granted that the road is good and level, and I can keep exactly the same proportion and nobody can be defrauded. If you take the rule of Colonel Bliss it would be the easiest thing on earth to defraud the Government. That would be by taking the actual number in use and then taking the number necessary.

Oil page 4761 Mr. Bliss makes the point that according to law the Second Assistant Postmaster-General was not bound to allow according to the affidavits. He is right as to that. That is what Mr. Bliss says, and that is what John W. Dorsey swore he thought, and that is what Mr. Thomas J. Brady swore he did. He did not take the affidavit as a finality. Mr. Thomas J. Brady said that he took it for granted that the man, when he made the affidavit, thought it was true, and that the man, when he made the affidavit, swore to the best of his knowledge and belief. But Thomas J. Brady never swore that he considered himself bound by the affidavit. On the contrary, he swore that he had a standard in his own mind, and that expedition was to cost thirty dollars a mile, or something of that kind. He went by that standard, and he gauged the affidavits by it.

On page 4762 Mr. Bliss says that Brady admitted that he made no inquiry as to the truth of affidavits, and that he accepted them as absolutely conclusive. On page 3434 Mr. Brady swears:

I accepted their statement as conclusive so far as they knew.

Brady also swears that he had his standard in his own mind, as I said before, and that he had an opinion of his own, and that by that standard and opinion he was governed.

On page 4765 Mr. Bliss charges that Brady took the oath of Perkins on route 38113 as the basis for the expedition. Mr. Turner's calculation on file shows that that affidavit was not the basis of the calculation.

Mr. Bliss. Your Honor, allow me to say that subsequently I stated to the Court and to the jury distinctly that while the indorsement on the jacket recited the Perkins affidavit as being the one used, or the affidavit of the subcontractor, and while Mr. Brady transmitted to Congress that Perkins affidavit as the one upon which he acted, I still believed that the calculation showed that he used the other affidavit.

Mr. Wilson. He never made that statement until he made it during the progress of my argument when I was discussing that very point.

Mr. Bliss. You are mistaken.

Mr. Merrick. He made it while I was here and I was not here during Mr. Wilson's argument.

Mr. Ingersoll. If he has taken it back three times, that is enough. On page 4766 Mr. Bliss charges Brady with having two affidavits on the Pueblo and Greenhorn route, from John W. Dorsey, on the same day.

Mr. Bliss. Mr. Henkle called my attention to the fact that it was not the Greenhorn route, but the Pueblo and Rosita route, and I corrected it.

Mr. Ingersoll. Good enough. I did not know about his taking it back. I was not here at the time. The fact was, however, that only one affidavit was ever filed, and that was an affidavit, not by J. W. Dorsey, but by John R. Miner.

Mr. Bliss. There were two on the Pueblo and Rosita route by John W. Dorsey.

Mr. Ingersoll. We will come to them. You will get tired of them before we get through with them.

On page 4767 Mr. Bliss refers to two affidavits. The first affidavit, the one not used, calls for three men and seven animals on the then schedule. That makes ten. On the proposed schedule of eighty hours it called for nine men and twenty-seven animals. That makes thirty-six. The proportion then in this affidavit is 3.6, that is, the pay would be 3.6 times the original pay. In the second affidavit five men and fifteen animals, twenty in all, are called for on the then schedule, and on the proposed schedule twelve men and forty-two animals. The proportion there is 2.7. So that the affidavits, leaving out the fractions, which are substantially the same, stand in this way: By the first the contract price would have been multiplied by three and the contractor would have had three times the original pay, and by the second he would have had twice the original pay. Substituting an affidavit at only double the pay is called a fraud, because they withdrew an affidavit for treble the pay. That is what Mr. Bliss calls a fraud. He says still that it is a fraud.

Now, then, there were two affidavits, and these two affidavits, gentlemen, Mr. Bliss well knew were filed on different schedules. The first affidavit was filed on a proposed schedule of eighty hours. The second affidavit was filed on a proposed schedule of fifty hours. The affidavit agreeing to carry the mail in fifty hours offered to do it at double the pay. The affidavit on eighty hours wanted three times the pay, or substantially that. One was 3.7 and the other was 2.6. Just think of trying to make that a fraud on the Government. Suppose they had filed a third affidavit and offered to carry it for nothing. That would have been carrying a fraud to the extreme.

Mr. Bliss. Your Honor, with reference to that, I said, expressly referring to these two affidavits: It is not a question of proportion. The question is whether the mere existence of those double affidavits did not give Brady conclusive notice that the man who could make those affidavits was not a reliable man, because no matter what the time was to which it was to be increased, he stated the number necessary on the then schedule, as so and so in one affidavit and in the other he stated the number differently. I referred to it solely in that connection, as the language shows on the page referred to.

Mr. Ingersoll. For instance, a man writes, "You owe me five hundred dollars according to my books," and writes the next day, "I have made a mistake. You don't owe me anything." Mr. Bliss insists that the second letter would show that the man was not to be relied upon. That is his idea of honesty. If in the first letter he had written that I did not owe him anything, and in the second letter I did, that might be suspicious. But when in the first he writes that I owe him and in the second that I do not, there can be no suspicion as to his honesty. In the first affidavit this man stated so much, and in the second affidavit he put it one-third less. That simply shows the man was paying attention to it and wanted to make an honest offer. And yet everything in this case is poisoned with prejudice and suspicion.

Another point: Mr. Bliss, on page 4770, says that on the Pueblo and Rosita route the number of trips was seven and that there was no increase. Upon that statement he bases an argument of fraud. The argument is that there was no increase of trips. Now, on page 866, the order shows that in the first place there was one trip a week and there were six trips added. That makes seven. The original pay was three hundred and eighty-eight dollars. Six trips were added, and the value of the six trips, which gave two thousand three hundred and twenty-eight dollars of additional pay. Yet Mr. Bliss tells you that there was no increase of trips. As a matter of fact, six trips were added, and that was all that could be added.

Mr. Bliss. Were they added coincidently with the affidavit for expedition?

Mr. Ingersoll. You say they were not added; I say they were.

Mr. Bliss. No, sir; I said at the time of the expedition there was no increase of trips and the affidavit was based upon the seven trips.

Mr. Ingersoll. I say that at that time there was an increase.

Mr. Bliss. Your Honor, the point is this: I think I am right in saying that the increase of trips took place after the expedition. That is my recollection about it. I have not referred to the record. I think Colonel Ingersoll will find that is so.

Mr. Ingersoll. We will see whether you are right. At the time the affidavit was made there were just three trips, and afterward there were four trips added. Let us get it exactly right. I read from page 866:

Date, July 8, 1879. State, Colorado.

Number of route, 38134.

Termini of route, Pueblo and Rosita.

Length of route, fifty miles.

Number of trips per week, one.

Mr. Bliss. I see you are right. The trips were increased.

Mr. Ingersoll. When anybody gives it up I will stop. That is fair and that is honorable.

Now, the next point. On page 4771 Mr. Bliss says that the oath on the Toquerville and Adairville route was made for seven trips, although the order only gave them six trips, of course the inference being that they got as much pay for six trips as they were entitled to for seven trips. On page 3290 the original order was for one trip. Two trips were added. Look on page 949 and you will find that more trips were added. The second order increased four trips, and that made seven in all; and yet Mr. Bliss makes the statement that there were only six. That is another mistake.

Another point. On page 4772 Mr. Bliss states that Mr. Rerdell spoke in his testimony about J. B. B. I have referred to that. I have referred before to the claim that Rerdell was sustained by the testimony of Mr. Bissell. As a matter of fact, I do not remember that Mr. Rerdell ever said one word in his testimony as to charging anything to J. B. B.

Ninth point. At page 4778 Mr. Bliss states that Dorsey admitted in his letter to Anthony Joseph that the average rate for mail service on star routes was only five dollars a mile. Mr. Dorsey says in his letter no such thing. He says the "average cost of horseback service"; he does not use the language employed by Mr. Bliss, "The average rate for mail service on star routes," but he says, "The average cost of horseback service." That is a small point, but it shows how anxious the gentlemen are to get the thing fully as big as it is.

Tenth point. At page 4783 Mr. Bliss says that Brady cut off forty-nine thousand dollars of increase on the Mineral Park and Pioche route on the 22d of January, 1879, because the mail bills showed so little business. That is another mistake. The order cutting off the forty-nine thousand dollars was made on the 22d of January, 1880, not 1879. I mention this simply for the sake of accuracy.

Eleventh point. At page 4785 Mr. Bliss says that the mail bills on the Silverton and Parrott City route showed that Brady ran the service up from seven hundred and forty-five dollars to fourteen thousand nine hundred dollars, and that the fourteen thousand nine hundred dollars was afterwards increased to thirty-one thousand three hundred and forty-three dollars and seventy-six cents. The record shows nothing of the kind (see pages 1894-5). The original pay was one thousand four hundred and eighty-eight dollars (page 1854). The pay under the order of June 12, 1879, was six thousand five hundred and twelve dollars and twenty-eight cents (page 1855). No other increase was ever made. On page 1855 is the increase and expedition, being in all fourteen thousand eight hundred and eight dollars and sixty three cents. The original pay was one thousand four hundred and eighty-eight dollars. A little change was made in the route that brought it up to one thousand seven hundred and three dollars and sixty-five cents. That, together with the expedition, makes a total of sixteen thousand five hundred and twelve dollars and twenty-eight cents. And yet Mr. Bliss told you that it was thirty-one thousand three hundred and forty-three dollars and seventy-six cents. So that this encyclopædia of the papers made a mistake, in one year, of fourteen thousand eight hundred and thirty-one dollars and forty-eight cents. For the whole contract time it would be a mistake of forty-five thousand dollars. And yet, strange as it may appear, that mistake was made against the defendants. Well, let us go on.

Twelfth point. On page 4800, bottom line, Mr. Bliss says:

They got so much in the way of offering petitions that Mr. Rerdell being told by Stephen W. Dorsey, upon this route from Pueblo to Greenhorn, to go to work and alter the petitions, inserted the words "and faster time."

As to this petition, 7 B, in which are the words "and faster time," George Sears swears, at pages 829 and 830, that it is in the same condition now as when it was signed by him, he thinks. Thereupon Mr. Bliss told you that he was mistaken in the paper. You must recollect these things.

Mr. Bliss. Are there not two petitions there altered?

Mr. Ingersoll. That is on another route. There were 7 B, 11 B, and 12 B. 7 B was the written paper, and you introduced 11 B and 12 B. One said "quicker time," and one said "on faster schedule," and yet in the very next paragraph they asked to have it run in eight hours. Mr. Rerdell had to admit that he put in the words without knowing what the petition called for, and that Dorsey instructed him to put them in.

Mr. Bliss. Your Honor, in the very same paragraph, the very line, where I said "faster schedule," I called attention to the fact that the words were unnecessary.

Mr. Ingersoll. That is not the only point. The point is, who wrote "faster time"?

Mr. Bliss. That is not what I said. You have not given the whole sentence.

Mr. Ingersoll. You cannot expect me to read your whole seven days' speech. That would be too much. This is what you said:

They got so much in the way of altering petitions that Mr. Rerdell being told by Stephen W. Dorsey, upon this route from Pueblo to Greenhorn, to go to work and alter the petitions, inserted the words "and faster time."

That is it exactly.

Mr. Bliss. Then follows this:

He inserted "and faster schedule," "on quicker time," though there was not any necessity for doing that, because if they had gone further down, after some argument in the petition, to the request for expedition, they would have seen that there was no necessity for that little forgery up there.

Mr. Ingersoll. That is a magnificent admission. "There was no necessity for" putting that in. I am glad he admits that. He would ask you to believe that S. W. Dorsey, a man of intelligence and brains, would ask to have a petition forged, altered, interlined, without knowing what was in that petition. It will not do, gentlemen.

Thirteenth point. At page 4810, Mr. Bliss says that McBean told Moore, in reference to route No. 44140, Eugene City to Bridge Creek, "that he could carry all the mail in his pocket."

Now, as a matter of fact, Mr. McBean does not state any conversation with Moore covering this route. That was another mistake. No matter.

Fourteenth point. At page 4814, Mr. Bliss, in speaking of the Ojo Caliente route, says the service in fact never was performed in fifty hours; that the evidence of that is conclusive. Now, let us see. Here is a jacket on page 3008, and that jacket shows that out of seventy-eight half trips, expedition was lost on twenty-three and made on fifty-five. Yet Mr. Bliss tells you it never was made. The jacket on page 3040 shows that expedition was lost on twelve half trips and made on sixty-six. And yet Mr. Bliss says it was never made. The jacket on page 3056 shows that at the time they were carrying seven trips a week, nineteen expeditions were lost out of one hundred and ninety-two half trips. And yet Mr. Bliss says the fifty-hour schedule never was made. Another mistake.

Mr. Bliss. That is long after the time I was referring to. As to the other point, I simply repeat it.

Mr. Ingersoll. It will not help it to repeat it. For every expedition lost on this route or any other the Government did not pay. When the expedition was lost, the pay was deducted; when the expedition was made the pay was given, and not otherwise. You see, gentlemen, how they have endeavored to get the facts before you; what a struggle it has been over all these obstacles—lack of memory, the immensity of this record—how they have climbed the Himalayas of difficulty; how they have gone over the Andes and Rocky Mountains of trouble to get at the facts!

Fifteenth point. On page 4820 Mr. Bliss states that there could not have been legally allowed, on the evidence on The Dalles route, on expedition over $4,144. As a matter of fact, the evidence does not cover the whole route as to the number of men and horses used. The Government never proved the number of men and horses necessary to carry the mail over the whole route, but only a part. Mr. Ker admits that the evidence is defective in that regard. When you have no standard, gentlemen, you cannot measure.

Sixteenth point. On page 4820 Mr. Bliss, in speaking of the route from Eugene City to Bridge Creek, says that, taking the undisputed facts as they were, before and after the expedition, Brady could not legally have allowed more than $2,991.23. The evidence is (page 1343) that Wyckoff was the subcontractor from July, 1878, to 1880. Powers first carried the mail in 1880. The route was increased and expedited in June, 1879. Mr. Powers never carried it from the expedition. Mr. Wyckoff was the only man who did that, and Mr. Wyckoff was not called. Consequently there was no evidence as to the number of men and horses used on either schedule. That left the gentleman without a standard and without a measure.

Seventeenth point. On page 4820 Mr. Bliss says that on the Silverton and Parrott City route the oath was made for seven trips a week on the present schedule, when it ought to have been two trips on the old schedule and seven trips for the new schedule. As there is no evidence as to the number of men and horses used on the old schedule, of course there is no evidence in this record to impeach that oath; you cannot find it.

Eighteenth point. On page 4822 Mr. Bliss states that after the passage of the act of April 7, 1880, there were two increases upon the White River route. The fact is there was just one after the passage of that law. Of course a little mistake like that does not make much difference in a case of this magnitude.

Nineteenth point. On page 4824 Mr. Bliss states that Raton was put on the Trinidad route April 24, 1879 (Page 1031 ). The office was embraced on the routes July 1, 1878. The first order in reference to it was made June 6, 1878. It was put on the route from July 1, 1878, increasing the distance twenty-three miles. Yet Mr. Bliss tells you that it was put on the route April 24, 1879.

Mr. Bliss. Is not that the date of the order?

Mr. Ingersoll. It may have been the date of your order.

Mr. Bliss. Is not that the date of the order in the case?

Mr. Ingersoll. I do not know anything about that. I give you the exact facts.

Twentieth point. On page 4825, Mr. Bliss, in speaking of the Ojo Caliente route, charges that by the order increasing the trips on this route in February, 1881, there was paid from the Treasury illegally two thousand and eleven dollars and forty-six cents. As a matter of fact had we been paid for that entire quarter it would have amounted to seven thousand one hundred and thirty-nine dollars and forty-one cents. The pay was not adjusted until April 22< 1881 (page 731). The amount that was then paid was not seven thousand one hundred and thirty-nine dollars and forty-one cents, but it was three thousand seven hundred and twenty-seven dollars and twenty-two cents. It was not for the entire quarter, but simply for the actual service rendered. The quarterly pay for the preceding quarter, before the expedition, was three thousand three hundred and fifty-eight dollars and twenty-six cents; showing that we received only for that quarter an excess, on account of expedition, of three hundred and sixty-eight dollars and ninety-six cents. But he told you that we got illegally two thousand and eleven dollars and forty-six cents. That is a small matter.

Twenty-first point. On page 4897, Mr. Bliss says in effect that Dorsey undertook to state that he kept no books; that he was doing a business amounting, I think he says, to six million dollars a year, and yet he kept no books. On the contrary, Dorsey swore that he did keep books; on the contrary, he swore that Kellogg was his book-keeper. Kellogg swore that he did keep the books. Torrey swore that he was his book-keeper, and kept the books. And yet Mr. Bliss stood up before this jury and said to you that Mr. Dorsey wanted you to believe, or stated that he kept no hooks of that immense business. It will not do. No books but the red books, I suppose, were kept.

Twenty-second point. At page 4883, Mr. Bliss says that in regard to one of Vaile and Miner's routes (Canyon City to Fort McDermitt) there were large profits, amounting to twenty thousand dollars a year. Then he says eighty thousand dollars during the four years. And yet Mr. Bliss knew at that time that that expedition lasted only eleven months. Trying to fool the jury about sixty-two thousand dollars.

Twenty-third point. On page 4815 Mr. Bliss states that the fines on the Bismarck and Tongue River route, during Brady's administration, were only thirteen thousand dollars. If you will look at page 727 of this record, where the table is put in evidence as to the fines, you will find that he deducted from the pay twenty-nine thousand two hundred and twenty-four dollars. Mr. Bliss made a mistake of sixteen thousand two hundred and twenty-four dollars. But in a case like this that is not important. Gentlemen, you know you cannot always be accurate.

Mr. Bliss is an accurate man, as a rule. He has been called the index of this business for the Government. Twenty-fourth point. On page 4987 Mr. Bliss says:

The one fact of the evidence of the payment of money by Dorsey to Brady remains the same whether the books were put out of the way by Dorsey or by Rerdell. That is the great central point, so far as the books were concerned; and as to that the testimony is absolutely uncontradicted.

Mr. Brady swears that Dorsey never gave him a dollar. Dorsey swears that he never had a money transaction with Brady amounting to one cent. Mr. Rerdell does not pretend to swear that he knows of Mr. Dorsey having paid a dollar to Mr. Brady. He does not pretend to swear that he knows of any one of these defendants having paid one dollar to Mr. Brady. And yet Mr. Bliss will tell you that the fact that Dorsey paid Brady money is uncontradicted.

Mr. Bliss. I did not intend that, Colonel Ingersoll. I do not think it is capable of that interpretation.

Mr. Ingersoll. What did you mean?

Mr. Bliss. As to the statement being in the books it is uncontradicted.

Mr. Ingersoll. Let me see. He now turns and says he did not mean the money, he meant the books. The evidence is overwhelming on our side that the books did not exist. When you deny the existence of the book I take it you deny the existence of any item in it. It is a question whether any such books ever existed, gentlemen. Rerdell swore in the affidavit of June 20, 1881, and he swore to that affidavit three times hand-running, that no such books existed. He swore substantially the same thing on the 13th of July, 1882. He told Mr. French that no such books ever existed. He told Judge Carpenter that no such books ever existed. He stated to Bosler that no such books ever existed. And now this gentleman says the evidence is uncontradicted that Brady was charged in those books. That is a good deal worse than the other. Let us go on.

Twenty-fifth point. At page 4962 Mr Bliss says that Mr. Dorsey, according to his own statement—Had brought Rerdell up and led him to infamy.

Did Dorsey make any such statement? Did Mr. Dorsey, gentlemen, in your presence, swear that he had brought Rerdell up? Did he, in your presence, swear that he had led him to infamy? Did he, in your presence, swear that he had done anything of the kind? I have got the exact words.

Who, according to his own statement, he, Dorsey, had brought up, had led to infamy, and who, according to his own statement, had stated that MacVeagh had told a lie.

A curious use of the English language. I believe it is in that connection, though, that he speaks about Mr. Dorsey having the impudence to go to the President of the United States. That is not a very impudent proceeding. In this country a President is not so far above the citizen. In this country we have not gotten to the sublimity of snobbery that a citizen cannot give his opinion to the President; especially a citizen who did all he could to make him President; especially a citizen in whom he had confidence. Not much impudence in that. I do not think that during the campaign General Garfield would have regarded it impudent on the part of Mr. Dorsey to speak to him. I do not believe in a man, the moment he is elected President, feeding upon meat that makes him so great that the man who helped put him there cannot approach him, and every man who voted for him helped to put him there. I am a believer in the doctrine that the President is a servant of the people. I have not yet reached that other refinement of snobbery.

Mr. Bliss. In point of fact, Colonel Ingersoll, I made no such statement. Now let me read the passage on the very page you refer to.

Patched up the affidavit of Mr. Rerdell, addressed it to the President, admittedly went to the President with it, and then had the impudence to come here and malign the character of General Garfield by saying that upon that affidavit of an accused man, instead of seeking a trial, he would have removed two members of his Cabinet.

I meant nothing about the impudence of going to the President.

Mr. Ingersoll. He had the impudence then to come here and malign Garfield by saying that upon that statement he would have turned out two members of his Cabinet. That is Mr. Bliss's idea of impudence; and yet, upon the testimony of the same man, he wants to put five men in the penitentiary.

Mr. Bliss. Not upon the sole testimony, I suppose.

Mr. Ingersoll. Not upon the soulless testimony. Now, I think that Mr. Dorsey had a right to go and see Mr. Garfield. I think he had a right to take that affidavit with him. General Garfield was told what this man had said concerning Mr. Dorsey. He had the right to take that affidavit of that man with him so that General Garfield, or the then Attorney-General rather, might know how much confidence to put in the statement of that man. He had a right to do that. If he found in this way that his Attorney-General and his Postmaster-General were seeking to have a man convicted by means not entirely honorable, then it was not only his privilege, but it was his duty to discharge them from his Cabinet. But I am not saying anything in regard to them now, because they are not here to defend themselves.

Mr. Bliss. I want to correct myself. Further down on that page I see I did refer to the impudence of this man going to Garfield.

Mr. Ingersoll. Well, as Mr. Bliss has been fair enough to state it, I will not follow up my advantage. On another page Mr. Bliss says that the idea that Mr. Vaile did what he did for Miner out of any sympathy is "too thin." Mr. Bliss cannot believe that Vaile became Miner's friend so suddenly, but he thinks it highly probable that they conspired instantly. That is his view of human nature. Friendship is of slow growth; conspiracy is a hot-house plant. Gentlemen, is that your view of human nature, that a man cannot become the friend of another suddenly? Whenever he does become his friend the friendship has to be formed suddenly, does it not? There is a first time to everything. A moment before it did not exist; a moment afterwards it is dead very suddenly.

There was a boy came to town one morning and met an old friend. The old friend asked the boy, "How is your father?" He says, "Pretty well, for him." "How is your mother?" "Pretty well, for her." "Well, how is your grandmother?" "She is dead." "Well," says the old man, "she must have died suddenly." "Well," said the boy, "pretty sudden, for her."

Whenever one man becomes the friend of another's, a moment before that he was not, and a moment after he was. It must be sudden. But I imagine that there was a friendship sprang up between Vaile and Miner, and I will tell you why. They have been partners ever since. You, gentlemen, have had the same experience a thousand times. It is not necessary to conspire with a man in order to like him. Neither is it necessary to like him to conspire with him. Men have conspired without friendship a thousand times more, probably, than they have formed friendships without conspiracy.

Mr. Bliss says that because Miner failed to produce the power of attorney that Moore swore was given to him when he went West, the jury have a right to infer that instructions to get up false petitions were in writing and were included in that power of attorney. Mr. Moore did not swear to the contents of that power of attorney. Do you think that it is within the realm of probability that a man ever gave a power of attorney to another and inserted in it: "You are hereby authorized to get up false petitions; you are further authorized to have them so written that you can tear them off and paste others on?

"N. B. You will make such contracts with all contractors.

"P. S. Don't tell anybody."

There was another witness in this case, Mr. Grimes (page 808). Not the one that wore the coat—All buttoned down before—but Mr. Grimes, postmaster at Kearney. He came all the way here to swear that he stopped using mail bills on the route from Kearney to Kent because he was so ordered by a letter from the Post-Office Department. Then it was discovered that he did not have the letter with him; he went home to get the letter, but he never came back any more.

We introduced Spangler (page 341) from the inspection division of the Post-Office Department; I think he was in charge of that division. He swore, as a matter of fact, that there never were any mail bills on that route at all.

Mr. Carpenter. He was in charge of the mail bills on that route.

Mr. Ingersoll. The mail bills on that particular route. That man Grimes was brought clear here to prove that he stopped using mail bills, and then we proved that there never were any mail bills used on that route for him to stop using. I do not suppose that that man was dishonest. These people just got around him and talked to him until he "remembered it." They just planted the seed in his mind, and then came the dew and the rain and the lightning until it began to sprout and in time blossomed and bore fruit—mail bills. When we come to find out that there never were any mail bills used, away went Mr. Grimes.

On page 4969 Mr. Bliss says:

They have not, up to this moment, dared to state under oath, I think, that those books are not in their possession.

On page 3784 Dorsey swears that he never received any such books. Never saw any such books. He swore again and again that he never heard of any such books.

Mr. Bliss. I stated distinctly that the defendants had not stated that in the form required to excuse them from the production. I stated that distinctly.

Mr. Ingersoll. All right; away goes that.

On page 4983 Mr. Bliss says:

Is it not an absurdity to suppose that Dorsey would leave Rerdell in charge of his business from July, 1879, to August, 1880, and then on from that time until the close of the contract term in August, 1882; leave all the business in that way, and then through Bosler settle the accounts with Mr. Rerdell and have no knowledge in any way, not only of the entries contained in the books which Rerdell kept, but have no knowledge that he kept any books whatever? Is it not absurd to suppose any such thing? These ten routes represented an income of two hundred and fifty-odd thousand dollars a year, or a total business, including income and outgo, of five hundred thousand dollars a year, for three years, going no further than that. These ten routes alone represented transactions amounting to half a million dollars a year. There were one hundred and thirty routes and Mr. Dorsey took one-third in value if not in number. If the value was the same, Mr. Dorsey took not less than forty routes. As ten routes involved a business of one million five hundred thousand dollars in that period, the forty routes involved in that proportion transactions amounting to six million dollars.

You made a calculation on the supposition that all the routes were expedited the same as those in the indictment, and when you made that calculation you knew they were not expedited.

Mr. Bliss. I object, your Honor, to his making any such statement as that. In the first place, it is not evidence; and in the second place, which is of more importance, it is not true. I did not know any such thing, and I do not know any such thing.

Mr. Ingersoll. Do you say now that the other routes of his, to the number you talked of, were expedited?

Mr. Bliss. I am not on the stand to be cross-examined now. But I do say to your Honor that there is no evidence of that in this case. And then I go beyond that, and say that I did not know those things then and I do not know them now.

Mr. Ingersoll. Very well; he made the argument on the supposition that all the routes were expedited. I say that not one of them was expedited in which Mr. Dorsey had an interest.

Mr. Bliss. There is no evidence on that subject.

Mr. Ingersoll. Is there any evidence of what you say?

Mr. Bliss. I put a supposititious case; you have stated a fact.

Mr. Ingersoll. I will put another supposititious case, and mine is that the other routes were not expedited.

The Court. That is the right way to meet it. Counsel ought not to turn to counsel on the other side and make an appeal to his knowledge in regard to matters not in evidence.

Mr. Ingersoll. I know, but he said he did not know it. Then I asked him, as a matter of fact, if he did not know—

The Court. [Interposing.] He stated his supposition, and you met that supposition—

Mr. Ingersoll. [Interposing.] I am always glad to get information. Now, then, I will go to another point, and that is the $7,500 check. Mr. Bliss speaks of that check at page 4997, and he says:

There is a question raised as to whether it was drawn in Mr. Rerdell's presence.

I do not think there was. How could such a question be raised, gentlemen? The check was made payable to M. C. Rerdell, or his order. On the back of the check is Mr. Rerdell's name, put there by himself. He is the only indorser. And yet Mr. Bliss tells you that there is a question raised as to whether the money was drawn in Mr. Rerdell's presence or not. The check shows, and the evidence is absolutely perfect, that the money was paid to Rerdell in person. The question is this: Whether it was drawn in Mr. Rerdell's presence. If it was paid to him in person, I imagine that he was in that neighborhood at that time. The check was written by him, everything except the signature of Dorsey. It was drawn to Mr. Rerdell, or order, and indorsed by Rerdell himself. There was no other indorser. So that it is absolutely certain that he drew the money in question. And yet Mr. Bliss says the question is whether it was drawn in Rerdell's presence or not.

Mr. Bliss continues and states that the money went to S. W. Dorsey. Did it? Mr. Dorsey, on page 3965, states the circumstances. He was packing to go away. He had not the time to go to the bank himself. He had the check written payable to Mr. Rerdell, or order, and he signed it. Rerdell went to the bank, got the money, brought it back and put it in his carpet-sack. That is the testimony.

Now, Mr. Bliss says:

No evidence was given as to what Stephen W. Dorsey was wanting just at that time with seven thousand five hundred dollars in bills.

According to Mr. Rerdell, he wanted that money to give to Mr. Brady. That is what Mr. Rerdell intended to swear. But when he found that that check was made payable to him, and indorsed by him, then they had to take another tack. They dare not say then, "That is the check." They dare not say then, "That is the money." Rerdell had forgotten at the time he swore that that check was payable to his order. When he told his seven thousand dollar story to MacVeagh he forgot about that check. When he told it to the Postmaster-General, if he did—I have forgotten whether he did or not—he forgot about that.

Now, gentlemen, I will call your attention to the part to which I really wish to direct your attention. It is an admission by the Government, an admission by Colonel Bliss; it is in these words, on page 4997, speaking of this very thing:

However that may be, they themselves put in a check here for seven thousand five hundred dollars, drawn about the time Mr. Rerdell spoke of, the money upon which admittedly went to Stephen W. Dorsey, though there is a question raised as to whether it was drawn in Mr. Rerdell's presence or whether it was not drawn by him. But the money went to Stephen W. Dorsey, and there was a promise made to show you what was done with that seven thousand five hundred dollars. But, like many another promise in this case, it remains unfulfilled to-day. No evidence was given as to what Stephen W. Dorsey was wanting just at that time with seven thousand five hundred dollars in bills.

Mr. Dorsey offered to tell you what he did with it, and you said you did not want it; you did not want to know when he was on the stand. He offered to tell you what he did with the money, and you would not take his statement. Hear what he says:

Mr. Dorsey was not taking seven thousand five hundred dollars in bills to the West.

How do you know? Who ever told Mr. Bliss that he was not taking seven thousand five hundred dollars to the West? He must have got that from Mr. Rerdell. May be that is the reason they would not allow Dorsey to tell, because before that time they had been informed that he would swear that he took the seven thousand five hundred dollars to the West. How else did Mr. Bliss find this out?

It is not in the evidence, not a line. Somebody must have told him. Who could have told him? Nobody, I think, except Mr. Rerdell. Is it possible, then, that Mr. Bliss was afraid that Mr. Dorsey would swear that he took it West? And was he afraid also that you would believe it? I do not know. He did not want him to state. Now here is what I want to call your attention to:

After all the talk about that evidence, all the talk about the seven thousand dollars, all the talk about the seven thousand five hundred dollar check, Mr. Bliss at least, admits to this jury:

Of course all that transaction might have occurred precisely as Mr. Rerdell testified, and there might have involved no corruption on Mr. Brady's part.

If, then, it may have occurred exactly as Rerdell swore, and involved no corruption, certainly it might have occurred as Mr. S. W. Dorsey swore and involved no corruption. I will go on now with a little more from Mr. Bliss:

The drawing of the money and going to Mr. Brady's room might have been a mere accident, as a call there to attend to some other business.

Of course, that is reasonable. I might go the bank and draw five thousand dollars, and then I might stop in the Treasury Department, but that is no evidence that I am bribing the Secretary of the Treasury. I might step over to see the President; that would be no reason to believe that I bribed the Executive.

Of course that is not conclusive. It is only a little straw in this case, as showing a transaction of that kind involved in connection with all the evidence you have in this case—A little straw evidence of Mr. Brady's acts, and particularly as at the time when that occurs evidence in connection with the large increases which Mr. Brady was then ordering; evidence in connection with the books, and the evidence they bear; evidence in connection with the declarations of Brady to Walsh—evidence all consistent.

And then he adds this piece of gratuitous information:

Mr. Dorsey was not taking seven thousand five hundred dollars in bills to the West.

How does he know? How did he find that out? And has it come to, this? Has all the testimony upon that point—has the confession of Rerdell to MacVeagh and James shrunk to this little measure—that it is "only a straw"? Has it shrunk to this measure that Mr. Bliss admits that the whole thing might have been exactly as Rerdell swears, and yet have been perfectly innocent? Has it shrunk to this little measure? The Government would not tell us—I presume the Government will not tell us, what check it was, the proceeds of which were taken by Mr. Dorsey to Mr. Brady. Neither will they say whether that sum was made up in one check or by adding together a number of checks; and, if so, what number?

At page 295 Mr. Bliss told you, in his opening speech, that Rerdell had on one occasion gone with Mr. Stephen W. Dorsey to the bank, and that seven thousand dollars had been drawn; that he had gone with Dorsey to the door of the Post-Office Department, or to Brady's room, at the time—he would not undertake to say which—Mr. Dorsey stating to him that he intended to pay that money to Mr. Brady, and that he (Mr. Dorsey) then went in. But when they come to put this man on the stand he will not swear that Dorsey ever told him that he intended to pay the money to Brady. Probably that part of the statement, that Dorsey told him that he was going to pay that money to Brady, can be found in the affidavit made before Mr. Woodward, in September, and repeated in the affidavit made at Hartford in November. But it is not in evidence here.

Now, we brought all the checks that we had given on Middleton's bank, with the exception of two, I believe, that amounted to some hundred and odd dollars. We gave the Government counsel notice that there were two others.

Among those checks was this one for seven thousand five hundred dollars. There were many others. I asked the gentlemen to pick out their check; they would not do it. I asked the gentlemen to pick out the checks; they did not do it. And now if we had failed to produce checks that were important in this case, the Government could have produced the books and clerks of Middleton & Company, and shown exactly the checks we drew upon that bank that month. They did not do it. As a matter of fact, I offered all the checks on all the banks I could think of that we had any business with in any way, except one, and that turned out to be the German-American Savings Bank, and it turned out that that went into bankruptcy eight months before this business; so there is no trouble about that. Why did they not pick out the checks upon which they claimed that the money was drawn that was paid to Brady?

Mr. Rerdell, on page 2254, in speaking of the money, swore that money was charged to Brady on the stub. He says that Dorsey told him, "You will find the amount on the stub of the check-book." The jury will notice that he speaks of the "amount," the "stub," and the "book," all in the singular. That was followed, I believe, by about six pages of discussion, and everybody who took part in that discussion, the Court included, spoke of the sum of money as an "amount," upon a "stub," in a "checkbook."

I call attention to 2254-'55-'56-'57-'58-'59. On all those pages it is spoken of as a stub of a check-book, or amount on a stub in a check-book. After the discussion was closed, then the witness began to talk about "books," "checks," "stubs," and "amounts." Why did he do that?

His object was to get the evidence broad enough—checks and check-books enough—to fit their notice, to the end that they might get possession of all the check-books, and of all the amounts on all the stubs.

What more? The discussion convinced Mr. Rerdell that it would be far safer to say "stubs" than "stub"; that it would be far better to say "check-books" than "checkbook," and far better to say "amounts" than "amount"; because he would have a better chance in adding these up so as to make six thousand five hundred dollars, or seven thousand dollars, or six thousand dollars, than to be brought down to one check, one amount, and one stub-book. So he went off into the region of safety, into the domain of the plural.

Now, the last point—at least for this evening—so far as Mr. Bliss is concerned, I believe, is about the red books. Mr. Bliss tells you that Mrs. Cushman was telegraphed to from the far West. There was a little anxiety, I believe, on the part of Rerdell about the book, and he telegraphed her. She found it there in the wood-shed, you know, hanging up, I think, in the old family carpet-sack—I have forgotten where she found it—and she put it away. Now, there is a question I want to ask here, and I know that Mr. Merrick when he closes will answer it to his entire satisfaction; I do not know whether he will to yours or to mine: How does it happen that Mrs. Rerdell never saw that red book? How does it happen that Mrs. Rerdell, when she was put on the stand, never mentioned that red book? How does it happen that she never heard of it when her husband went to New York to get it; when everything he had in the world, according to his idea, was depending upon it; when it was his sheet-anchor; when it was the corner-stone of his safety? And yet his wife never heard of it, never saw it, did not know it was in the wood-shed, slept in that house night after night and did not even dream that her husband's safety depended on any book in a carpet-sack hanging in the wood-shed. She never said a word about it on the stand, not a word. Gentlemen, nobody can answer that question except by admitting that the book was not there and did not exist.

But perhaps I have said enough about the speeches of Mr. Ker and Mr. Bliss. Of course, their business is to do what they can to convict. I do not know that I ought to take up much more time with them. I feel a good deal as that man did in Pennsylvania who was offered one-quarter of a field of wheat if he would harvest it. He went out and looked at it. "Well," he says, "I don't believe I will do it." The owner says, "Why?" "Well," he says, "there is a good deal of straw, and I don't think there is wheat enough to make a quarter."

So now, gentlemen, if the Court will permit, I would like to adjourn till to-morrow morning.

Now, gentlemen, the next witness to whose testimony I will invite your attention is Mr. Boone. Mr. Boone was relied upon by the Government to show that this conspiracy was born in the brain of Mr. Dorsey; that these other men were simply tools and instrumentalities directed by him; that he was the man who devised this scheme to defraud the Government, and that it was Dorsey who suggested the fraudulent subcontracts. They brought Mr. Boone upon the stand for that purpose, and I do not think it is improper for me to say that Mr. Boone was swearing under great pressure. It is disclosed by his own testimony that he had eleven hundred routes, and that he had been declared a failing contractor by the department; and it also appeared in evidence that he had been indicted some seven or eight times. Gentlemen, that man was swearing under great pressure. I told you once before that the hand of the Government had him clutched by the throat, and the Government relied upon his testimony to show how this conspiracy originated. Now I propose to call your attention to the evidence of Mr. Boone upon this subject.

On page 1352 Mr. Boone swears substantially that on his first meeting with Stephen W. Dorsey—that is, after they met at the house—he said to Dorsey that he (Boone) would be satisfied with a one-third interest. Now, the testimony of Boone is that Mr. Dorsey then and there agreed that he might have the one-third interest.

Mr. Dorsey says it is not that way; that he told him that when the others came they would probably give him that interest, or something to that effect.

Mr. Boone further swears that when J. W. Dorsey did come there was a contract—or articles of agreement you may call them—handed to him by J. R. Miner, purporting to be articles of partnership between John W. Dorsey and himself, and that he signed these articles; that that, I believe, was on the 15th of January, 1878, and that it was by virtue of that agreement that he had one-third. It was not by virtue of any talk he had with S. W. Dorsey that he got an interest, and you will see how perfectly that harmonizes with the statement of Stephen W. Dorsey.

Mr. Dorsey's statement is: "I cannot make the bargain with you, but when John W. Dorsey comes I think he will, or they will." It turned out that when John W. Dorsey did come in January he did enter into articles of partnership with A. E. Boone, and did give him the one-third interest. So the fact stands out that he got the one-third interest from John W. Dorsey and not from Stephen W. Dorsey. If the paper had been written and signed by Stephen W. Dorsey that would uphold the testimony of Boone. If Boone had said, "I made the bargain with Stephen W. Dorsey," and the articles of co-partnership were signed by him, I submit that that would have been a perfect corroboration of Boone. Stephen W. Dorsey swears that the bargain was made with John W. Dorsey, and you find that the agreement was signed by John W. Dorsey, and not by Stephen W. Dorsey. I submit, therefore, that that is a perfect corroboration of the testimony of Stephen W. Dorsey.

At page 1544 Mr. Boone says that, as a matter of fact, all contractors endeavored to keep what they were doing secret from all other contractors. Think of the talk we have heard about secrecy. If the bidders upon any of these routes did not want the whole world to know the amount they had bid, that secrecy was tortured into evidence of a criminal conspiracy. If John W. Dorsey did not want the world to know what he was doing, if Mr. Boone wanted to keep a secret, these gentlemen say it is because they were engaged in a conspiracy to defraud the Government, and crime loves the darkness. What does Mr. Boone say? As a matter of fact, that all contractors endeavored to keep what they were doing secret from all other contractors where they feared rivalry. Of course that is human nature.

Mr. Boone further says that he never knew of one contractor admitting even that he was going to bid. He always pretended, don't you see, that he was not going to bid. He wanted to throw the other contractors off their guard. He did not want them to imagine that he was figuring upon that same route, because if they thought he was, they might put in a much lower bid. He wanted them to feel secure, so that they would put in a good high bid, and then if he put in a tolerably low bid he would get the route. That is simply human nature.

Boone further says that always when a letting came on he had his bids in; that contractors keep their bids secret from rival contractors, not for the purpose of defrauding the Government, but for the purpose of taking care of their business. Now, gentlemen, when men make these proposals and keep their business secret—as it turns out that in these cases they were keeping their business secret—the fact that they are so doing is not evidence going to show that they are keeping that business secret because they have conspired. Have you not the right to draw the inference, and is it not the law that you must draw the inference, that they kept their business secret for the same reason that all honest men keep their business secret?

At page 1545, Mr. Boone, swearing again about his talk with Mr. Dorsey that night after the arrangement was concluded, says that he—Dorsey—told me to be careful of Elkins, because Elkins was representing Roots & Kerens, large contractors, * * * the largest in the department, at that time, in the Southwest.

And yet that evidence has been alluded to as having in it the touch and taint of crime, because S. W. Dorsey said to Boone to say nothing to Elkins. Who was Elkins? He, at that time, as appears from the evidence, was the attorney of Roots & Kerens; and who were they? Among the largest, if not the largest contractors in the department; that is, the largest in the Southwest.

Mr. Boone stated that the letter of Peck to S. W. Dorsey requested him to get some man who knew the business to look after the bids or proposals. Now, I want to ask you, gentlemen, and I want you to answer it like sensible men, if Stephen W. Dorsey got up a conspiracy himself, why was it that Peck wrote to him asking him to get some competent man to collect the information about the bids—that is, about the country, about the routes, about the cost of living, about wages, the condition of the roads, and the topography of the country?

If it was hatched in the brain of Stephen W. Dorsey, how is it possible, gentlemen, that a letter was written to him by Peck asking him to get a competent man to gather that information? Mr. Boone swears that he had such a letter. Mr. Boone swears that Dorsey showed the letter to him. Mr. Boone swears that, in consequence of that letter, he went to work to gather this information. Did Mr. Dorsey do anything about gathering information? Nothing. Did he give any advice? None. Did he ask any questions? Not one. Did he interfere with Mr. Boone in the business? Never.

You know that was a very suspicious circumstance. I believe there was a direction given that letters be sent to James H. Kepuer. That was another suspicious circumstance. Mr. Boone swears that he was also in the mail business; that he did not want the letters to go some place; that he had to give at the department an address; that thereupon he chose the name of James H. Kepner, his step-son, so that all the mail in regard to this particular business would go in one box, and not be mingled with the mail in reference to his individual business or the business represented by the firm to which he belonged. What more does he swear? That neither Dorsey nor any one of these defendants ever suggested that name, or ever suggested that any such change be made; that it was made only as a matter of convenience; that it was not intended to and could not in any way defraud the Government.

Now, Mr. Boone has cleared up a little of this. He has cleared up the letter; he has cleared up the charge of secrecy; he has cleared up the charge that we had the letters addressed to James H. Kepner & Co.; he has shown that everything done so far was perfectly natural, perfectly innocent, and in accordance with the habits of men engaged in that business.

Now I come to the next thing (page 1550). The next great circumstance in this case, the great suspicious circumstance, was that the amount of the bid was left blank in the proposals. The moment they saw those blanks in the bids they knew then that the Government was to be defrauded, and they brought Mr. Boone here for the purpose of showing that that was done to lay the foundation for a fraud. What does Boone swear? He swears that he always left that part of the proposal blank; always had done so; had been engaged in the mail business for years, and never filled that blank up in his life, in which the amount of the bid should be inserted. It was not left blank to defraud the Government, but to prevent the postmasters and sureties, or any other persons, finding out the amount of the bid. Away goes that suspicious circumstance.

After the bids had been properly executed and came back into the hands of the contractors, from the time the figures were put into those routes, what does he say they did?

We slept with them until we could get them to the department.

He says they never allowed anybody to see them after the amount of the bid had been inserted; that they would not allow anybody to see the amount of the bids; that it was left out, however, only for self-protection, and for no other reason. That is the Government's own witness. He is the man they brought to show that this blank in the bid was a suspicious circumstance. He is the man they brought here to show that because Stephen W. Dorsey had told him to say nothing to Elkins, that injunction of secrecy was evidence of a conspiracy.

At page 1552, Mr. Boone, in speaking of these same things, says that however they were made, whether the name of the bidder or the route was put in, or whatever he did—that is, Boone—he did not do it for the purpose of defrauding the Government. They say to him, "Don't you know that you left out not only the amount of the bid, but the name of the bidder?" He says, "Whatever I did, whether I left out the amount of the bid or the name of the bidder, I did not do it for the purpose of defrauding the Government; I had no such idea, no idea of defrauding the Government by leaving any blank or any blanks." He did the work. Stephen W. Dorsey left no blank; A. E. Boone left every blank; and yet they brought him forward to prove that that was the result of a conspiracy; and after he comes upon the stand he swears, "I left those blanks myself; I always left them in proposals exactly in that way; and whether I left out the amount of the bid or the name of the bidder, I did not do it to defraud the Government; I did it simply to protect myself, as I had the right to do." So much for that. That is gone.

So, speaking of these other proposals (the Clendenning proposals) what does Mr. Boone say—the witness for the Government, the very man who got up those proposals, the man who wrote them, the man who wrapped them up, and sealed them? What does he say? "Those proposals were not gotten up for the purpose of defrauding the Government; I did not send them to Clendenning for that purpose." That is the end of that. No conspiracy there.

The object, don't you see, gentlemen, was to show by Boone that he acted under the direction of Dorsey; that Dorsey was responsible for everything that Boone did; and that although Boone was guilty of no crime in leaving the bid blank, still if he did it by authority of Dorsey, Dorsey had an ulterior motive of which Boone was ignorant. Let us see.

At page 1554, Mr. Boone swears that Dorsey never told him at any time or any place that he wanted any blanks left. And yet they were endeavoring by that witness to saddle that upon S. W. Dorsey. But that witness swears that Dorsey never even told him that he wanted any blanks left in any paper, proposal, bid, or bond. He says that Dorsey never at any time or place told him (Boone) that he (Dorsey) wanted any blanks left, or any proposals of any particular form printed, to the end that a fraud might be perpetrated upon the Government—not a word.

And, gentlemen, I am now in that space of time where they say this conspiracy was born. At page 1567, before Miner got here, Mr. Boone swears that Dorsey told him that he would advance money for the other defendants, and Mr. Boone swears that after he got here he never asked Dorsey for a dollar except through Miner; that Dorsey never gave a dollar except through Miner.

What more? This is the witness that is going to establish the guilt of Stephen W. Dorsey. Stephen W. Dorsey never told Boone at any time that he had any interest whatever in those mail routes. Boone never heard of it. Dorsey never told him to print a proposal with a blank; never told him to leave a blank after it was printed; never told him to do anything for the purpose of defrauding the Government in any way at any time. This is extremely good reading, gentlemen, when you take into consideration that this is the witness of the Government, their main prop until the paragon of virtue made his appearance upon the stand.

Page 1558. Another great point: That in preparing the subcontracts, Dorsey having it in his mind to conspire against the Government, or really having conspired, according to their story, wanted a provision in a subcontract for increase and expedition.

Why, it strikes me, gentlemen, that that is evidence of honesty rather than dishonesty. If these subcontracts were to hold good during the contract term, and if in the contract given to the contractor by the Government there was a clause for increase and expedition, why should not the subcontract provide for the same contingencies that the contract provided for with the Government? That looks honest, doesn't it?

It was advertising the subcontractor that the moment he signed his subcontract the trips were liable to be increased and the time was liable to be shortened, and that if the time was shortened or the trips increased the pay was to be correspondingly increased. But I will go on with the testimony.

Page 1558: In preparing the subcontract Mr. Dorsey instructed Boone to provide for an expedition clause. That was a suspicious circumstance. What for? To conform to the expedition clause in the contract with the Government. If making it like the Government contract is evidence of conspiracy, the fact that the Government contracts have that clause is evidence that the Government conspired with somebody. It is just as good one way as the other. The Government made a contract with the contractor, the contractor made one with the subcontractor, and the contractor so far forgot his duties, so far forgot his moral obligations, that he made it just the same as his contract with the Government. Gentlemen, is there any depth of depravity below that? Absolutely copying the contract that the Government was going to make with him, and treating the subcontractor, so far as the contract was concerned, as the Government had treated him, he (Boone) prepared a clause which he thought filled the bill, and which he still thinks, I believe, would have been better to use than the other. When he showed that to Stephen W. Dorsey, Dorsey suggested another form. It was the same thing exactly, but in different words. There was the testimony I have read to you, and now here is what Mr. Bliss states about it at page 4865:

But Stephen W. Dorsey, away back there, knew sufficient about expedition to appreciate the importance of keeping for the contractors thirty-five per cent, and giving to the men who were performing the service only sixty-five per cent.

Why not? Is that a crime? Suppose I agreed to carry the mail four years for $10,000 a year and I subcontract with another man. Have I not the right to get it carried as cheaply as I can? I just ask you that as a business proposition. Or has every mail to treat this Government as though it was in its dotage? Must you do business with the Government as though you were contracting with an infant or an idiot? Must you look at both sides of the contract? That is the question. The Government, for instance, advertises for so much granite, and I put in a bid which is accepted; at the same time I know that I could furnish that granite for twenty-five per cent. less. Is it my duty under such circumstances to go and notify the Government that I have cheated it, and that I would like to have it put the contract down? There may be heights of morality that would see the propriety of such action, but it is not for every-day wear and tear. Very few people have it; it scarcely ever comes into play in trading horses. Must we treat the Government as though it were imbecile? I say it was a simple business transaction. The Government advertises for proposals to carry the mail; I make my bid for $10,000, and we will say that my bid is accepted. Now, I admit that I could carry it for $5,000 and make money.

Am I criminal if I go on and perform the contract as I agreed and draw the money? Or suppose the people along the route do not want it expedited and increased, and so I talk to them about it; I go to Mr. Brown and say, "Mr. Brown, you are living in this smart, thriving town, and you need a daily mail." I go to the next village and I say, "Why, gentlemen, you will never have a town here until you have a daily mail; I am the fellow now carrying the mail." And I keep talking about it, you know, and finally get a fellow to get up a petition, or I write one myself, and send it around, and say to them, "Gentlemen, what you want is more mail, faster mail; the mail is the pioneer of civilization, gentlemen; have a daily mail, and along the line at once towns and villages and cities will spring up, and all the hillsides will be covered with farms, and school-houses will be here, and wealth will be universal." Any crime about that. Every railroad has been built just that way. Every park has been laid out in every city by just such means. Nearly every street that has been improved has been improved in that way, by men who had some interest in the property, by men who were to be benefited by it themselves, and who ought to be benefited. Should the men that get the public attention in that direction be benefited, or the men who do nothing? I say that the men who give attention to the business have a right to be benefited by it. And yet here is the crime, gentlemen. And then we only gave these fellows sixty-five per cent, and took thirty-five ourselves, because we were bound to the Government to fulfill the contract, as was explained to you so admirably, so perfectly, by Judge Wilson. The contract was to run for four years, and I believe in a certain contingency for six months thereafter. We had to carry out the contract, whether the subcontractor carried out his contract with us or not.

Now, this is what Mr. Bliss says:

So, after a large mass of subcontracts had been struck from the press, which gave to the subcontractors all the increase—There never was a subcontract that gave to the subcontractors all the increase; there is no evidence that there ever was such a subcontract, he—That is, Stephen W. Dorsey—directed them to be put back on the press.

I should think he would. If he found any subcontracts were printed that gave to the subcontractor all the increase, I do not wonder that he had them destroyed.

Here you get, we will say, a contract for ten thousand dollars for one trip, with the agreement that if there are two trips the compensation shall be twenty thousand dollars. Thereupon you make a contract with a subcontractor, and you agree in that subcontract that he shall have all the increase. Of course, you want that made over again; of course, you would not make that kind of a subcontract.

He directed them to be put back on the press, and this provision giving the subcontractor his money struck out and this other clause put in.

Gentlemen, that is an entire and absolute mistake. There is no such evidence, there never was in this case, and I take it there never will be. The evidence was—and you remember it; and you remember it; and you remember it; and you [addressing different jurors]—that Stephen W. Dorsey allowed to the subcontractor sixty-five per cent, of the expedition, and that same subcontractor provided what he should have for one trip, and what he should have for two trips; that is to say, what he should have for increase; and it provided at the same time for sixty-five per cent, on expedition. Mr. Boone swears it; others swear it. Not only that, but it is printed in the record again and again and again. Why did Stephen W. Dorsey do that? I can tell you why: He did not. Why did Stephen W. Dorsey do that, if it was not because his fertile imagination had already conceived the plan of defrauding the United States, and he was making an arrangement by which that fraud could be consummated? How would that help him consummate a fraud? Suppose he struck out all the per cent, to the subcontractors; suppose he had not had any subcontract printed; suppose the subcontract was printed, and printed on purpose to deceive and defraud the subcontractors; how does that show that he was trying to defraud the United States? Why, if it proves anything it proves the other, that he had not entered into a conspiracy by which he could get the money from the United States, but had endeavored to get it from the subcontractors. If it proves anything it proves that. But the reason it does not prove anything is because the statement is not correct.

Now, just see how a conspiracy can be built of that material. A man that can do that can make a cover for Barnum's Circus with one postage-stamp; he can make a suit of clothes out of a rabbit-skin; he can make a grain of mustard seed cover the whole air without growing.

That is given as an evidence that Dorsey had conspired. There is not a thing on the earth that he could have done that would not prove conspiracy just as well as that—just exactly—no other act. Humph! That is the way they build a conspiracy.

Why not take another step? Why not have a little bit of ordinary good hard sense? On the 17th day of May, I believe, 1878, the act was passed allowing the subcontractor to put his subcontract on file. Now, that contract ought to provide for all the contingencies of the service, so that if the trips were increased the Government would know how much to pay that subcontractor; so that if the time was expedited the Government would know how much to pay the subcontractor. The subcontract ought to have been made in that way, and it would be perfectly proper to make it in that way.

I once went to see a friend of mine who had the erysipelas and who was a little crazy. I sat down by his bedside, and he said, "Ingersoll, I have made a discovery; I just tell you I am going to be a millionaire." Said I, "What is it?" He says, "I have found out that if four persons take hold of hands after they have had a hole made in the ground and put a piece of stove-pipe in it, and then run around it as hard as they can from left to right, a ball of butter will come out of the pipe." Now, I think that is about as reasonable as the way conspiracies are made, according to Mr. Bliss.

Now, we come to Mr. Boone (page 1560). He says that the action he had taken was upon his own responsibility, and that at no time had any papers been gotten up with any view of defrauding the Government. That was good.

I am like the Democrat who said, after hearing the returns from Berks County, "That sounds good." Then, here is a question asked him:

Q. I understood you to say that the contract was made between you and somebody, fixing your interest in all this business?—A. Yes, sir.

Q. Do you recollect about the date of that?—A. I think it is on the day John W. Dorsey got here in Washington.

On page 1561 he swears that at the time Boone made that contract with John W. Dorsey he and Dorsey had not conspired to defraud the Government in any way, nor did they ever do so after that contract was made. When was that contract made? It was made on the 15th day of January, 1878. Who made it? John W. Dorsey of the one part, and Albert E. Boone of the other. And they tell exactly what that contract was for. Here is the contract, on page 1561, and this shows that the statement of Stephen W. Dorsey, that the matter was deferred until John W Dorsey should come, is absolutely correct:

That the parties to this agreement shall share in all the profits, gains, and losses as follows: John W. Dorsey shall have two-thirds and Albert E. Boone, share one-third.

Now, gentlemen, there was the original partnership agreement. Let us see if that was ever dissolved.

The next contract was made on the 12th of September, 1878.

Now, therefore, in consideration of one dollar in hand paid, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged, I hereby, sell, assign, and transfer to Albert E. Boone all my said two-thirds interest in the routes in the name of said Boone in the States of Texas, Louisiana Arkansas, Kansas, and Nebraska, and in the name of said Dorsey in the States of Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas.

The reason he did that was because Mr. Miner had made a contract with Boone to that effect; and probably I had better read that now so that you will have it exactly and know what we are doing. I read from page 1569;

Washington, D. C, August 7, 1878.

Whereas A. E. Boone has this day, for the purpose of saving a failure in the routes in the name of John R. Miner, John M. Peck, and John W. Dorsey—"For the purpose of saving a failure," recollect. Although Stephen W. Dorsey, according to the prosecution, was a conspirator, and although John W. Dorsey was another, and Peck was another, yet on the 7th day of August, 1878, "for the purpose of saving a failure," they made this: assigned to John R. Miner his one-third interest in the routes in their names, now, therefore, I, John R. Miner, agree that John W. Dorsey shall assign his interest in routes in the name of A. E. Boone in Kansas and Nebraska, Texas and Louisiana, and Arkansas; in the name of John W. Dorsey, in Texas, Louisiana, and Kansas. The latter clause not guaranteed.

JOHN R. MINER.

Now, he said to Mr. Boone, "I have got to have another man come in; we haven't got the money to run these routes; I have got to get somebody with us; if you will go out, I will agree that John W. Dorsey will assign to you his two-thirds interest in all the routes in Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas. I will agree that John W. Dorsey, although he has a two-thirds interest in all these routes, shall assign them to you, A. E. Boone, and they shall thereupon become your property." That agreement was made on the 7th of August, 1878; and then, as I read you before, on the 12th day of September, Miner made that promise good, and John W. Dorsey did assign to Boone his two-thirds interest in all the routes that Miner said he would. Then Boone was out of it. He had no more to do with Miner, Peck & Co., and no more to do with John W. Dorsey; he went his road and they went theirs. He went out in consideration that John W. Dorsey would give him (Boone) two-thirds of all the routes that he before that time had one-third in. Then Miner took in Mr. Vaile, because he had the money to go on with the business.

Page 1562, still talking about Mr. Boone. There is another very suspicious circumstance that was brought up by the prosecution. These bids were put in in different names, and that was looked at as a very suspicious circumstance. What does Boone say about that? He says that the object in bidding in separate names was not to defraud the Government, but was to have the service divided up and not to bid against each other. That was reasonable. The arrangement was simply to keep from injuring themselves; it was not made to defraud the Government, but it was made so that they might not by accident injure each other. It was a common thing for members of a firm to bid in that way, and it is a common thing for persons to organize themselves for the purpose of bidding and running contracts, and when they thus bid they always bid in their individual names. The fact that we bid in our individual names was taken as a circumstance going to show that we had conspired to defraud the Government, and a witness they bring forward to prove that fact swears that it has been the custom for all firms to bid in their individual names. Away goes that suspicion. The coat-tail of that point horizontalizes in the dim distance.

Page 1563. The point was made, gentlemen, that we bid on long routes with slow time, knowing—understand, knowing—that the service would be increased and that the time would be shortened. The only word I object to there is the word "knowing." That we bid on long routes with slow time thinking that the service would be increased and the time shortened was undoubtedly true. That we bid expecting that the service might be increased and the time shortened is undoubtedly true. That when we bid we took into consideration the probability of the service being increased and the time shortened is undoubtedly true. The only difference is the difference between thinking and knowing; between taking into account probabilities and making the bid because we had made a bargain with the Second Assistant Postmaster-General. That is the difference. Let us see what Boone says about it. I read from page 1563:

On all service of three times a week and under there is a chance for improvement in getting it up to six or seven times a week.

Everybody who has ordinary common sense knows that! If I bid on service for once a week there is a great deal better chance for getting an increase of trips than if there were seven when I started. Everybody knows that. There is about six times as good a chance.

All contractors consider that—That chance—in their bids, and bid lower on one, two, and three times a week service than on a daily service—Why?—because the chances are the route will be increased.

Boone swears on the same page that he always did that himself; that he always had done it. Yet that is lugged in here as evidence of a conspiracy.

There is a great deal better chance for expedition when a route is let at two or three miles an hour, than when it is let at six or seven.

Of course there is. The slower it is let the better chance of getting it expedited. The faster it is let the less chance of getting it expedited. There is no need of bringing a man here to show that. You know that. If you thought there was more money in expedition and increase than on the original schedule, you would, as I insist, bid on such routes as the advertisement showed the time was to be slow and the service infrequent upon. Now, gentlemen, to take advantage of such a perfectly apparent thing as that will not do. You have heard a good deal about star routes, gentlemen. Every one of you by this time ought to make a pretty good guess.

Postmaster-General; every one of you. If you do not know all about this subject, you never will.

The Foreman (Mr. Crane). We ought to be good lawyers, too.

Mr. Ingersoll. You also ought to be good lawyers, at least on this subject! I do not know that you have all the testimony in your minds, as there have been so many misstatements made, but if you ever are to know anything on this subject you know something now; and if you, Mr. Foreman, or you Mr Renshaw, were to-morrow to go to work to bid on some star routes you would bid on the longest routes, on the slowest time, and with the most infrequent trips. You would do that. Then would you say, "That is evidence that we have conspired"? Has a man got to be so stupid that he will not take advantage of a perfectly plain thing in order to escape the charge of conspiracy? If you were to put your money in land in the Western country you would not go where the country was settled up, and give one hundred dollars an acre for land. You would go where you could get laud for two, or three, or four, or five dollars an acre, and say, "There is a chance for land to rise." That is not conspiracy. So if you were going to bid on mail service you would bid where the time is slow, or the route long, and the service once a week. Then you would say that the country might grow, that railroads might be built and that they might get the service up to seven trips a week; and that instead of going on two miles an hour may be they would want to make it seven miles an hour. That is the service to make money on. Is it a crime to make money? Is it a crime to make a good bargain with the Government? I suppose these gentlemen of the prosecution made the best bargain they could with the Government themselves. Is it a crime? I say no. Is a man to be regarded as a conspirator because some outsider thinks he got too good a bargain? That will not do. Boone says he always did that. Of course he did. He says another thing. These gentlemen say that we did not go above three trips, and that is another evidence of fraud. They say we did not bid on any route with more than three trips a week. Mr. Boone tells you, on page 1565, that the department never advertised for four trips a week. That is the reason I think they did not bid on any of these. He also swears that they never advertised for five trips. That is a good reason for our not taking any routes with five trips, is it not? There were not any advertised. The Government did not offer to let us have any. That is a good reason for not taking any of them. The Government had not any of that kind. After you get beyond three trips Boone swears that the next number is six or seven; never four, never five. Don't you see? And yet it is a very suspicious circumstance that we did not bid on any four-trip routes, or any five-trip routes; that we stopped at three. Why did we stop at three? Because if we had not stopped at three we would have had to go to six. Why did we not go to six? Because at six trips a week we would have been obliged to put up too much money, and to put up too many certified checks. It required too many men to go on the bonds. That is the reason. Gentlemen, if there had been a conspiracy it would have been just about as well for us to bid on six or seven trips to get the expedition of time. If there had been a conspiracy to make money, and it had been understood by the Second Assistant Postmaster-General, he could have just as well given us routes with seven trips a week, and put the service up to seven, eight, nine, or ten miles an hour, and he could have done that in the thickly-populated parts of the country; if it had been the result of a conspiracy.

Let me read more from what Mr. Boone says on page 1565:

The proposals that I destroyed were upon routes of at least six times per week.

How did he come to destroy them? Another suspicious circumstance against Dorsey! Boone said when he went into the business he just took the bidding-book and commenced at A, and was going right straight through to X, Y, and Z, and make a bid, I believe, on every route that was in the book. I think that is his testimony. Boone says:

I was going on without instructions. I was going on without authority from anybody, working on the bids.

He thinks it was the same day that Miner got here, or the day afterwards, and he—I suppose meaning Dorsey—came up to the room and saw what the witness was doing. He was making up bids for every route in the advertisement, going right along with big and little, when Dorsey said there was a mistake. No proposals were to be made for over three times a week or for routes under fifty miles. When Miner came into the room witness asked what was the reason of that. I say upon this point that Stephen W. Dorsey never said a word about it, and that Boone is mistaken. But he says he asked Miner the reason. What did Miner say? Did he say to him, "It is because we have got a conspiracy? We have got it fixed with the Second Assistant Postmaster-General"? No. He said this, he said for fear of failure in getting bonds; that they could not get the bonds for all the service and could not get certified checks for all the service. Boone was going clear through the book from preface to finis. They could not get bonds for all the service and could not get certified checks for all the service. You remember that for all the service over five thousand dollars they had to put up five per cent., I think, in certified checks. Now, there was an immense volume, of three or four thousand routes and he was going to put in a bid on every one of them. That is what Boone was going to do. He did not understand the conspiracy at that time. Miner explained to him, "We cannot get the certified checks. We cannot get the bondsmen." He did not tell him, "Good Lord, my friend, you don't understand the terms of the conspiracy. We are taking no such service as that. We are taking none over three times a week, because, don't you see, we want the chance for increase. We want the lowest. If we can find any service where the horses agree to stand still, that is the service to take. You must look over the terms of the conspiracy and have some sense about it."

Boone says he was starting in, taking the advertisements, going right through the territory, all over that country, and bidding on every route, not missing one. He never saw Stephen W. Dorsey do any work on the bids. The proposals sent down to the postmasters in Arkansas, including those to Clendenning, he (Boone) fixed himself and sealed them. Gentlemen, there is no evidence that Mr. Dorsey, as I understand it, ever saw one of those papers, but simply the form that was written out by Boone that was sent to Clendenning with instructions what to do with the proposals. That I understand to be the evidence. They proved by Boone that Dorsey never saw them; never wrote them; never ordered them to be written; never ordered a blank to be left unfilled. And yet, gentlemen, he was the man whom they say had brooded over this conspiracy; the man that gave to it life and form. He is the man that used Boone and John W. Dorsey and Peck and Miner as instrumentalities and tools.

What more? Did Boone take those bonds up to Dorsey and show them to him? He says that he did not open them; that he did not show them to Dorsey. That is what Mr. Boone swears. Surely Mr. Boone is an honorable man, stamped with the seal of the Department of Justice. He did not even show them to Dorsey. Dorsey never saw anything except the form after Boone had made it out. I showed you that form on yesterday, I think, marked 16 X. That is the only thing that Dorsey saw. He did not know what blanks were left in the bonds, or whether any were left. He never gave any orders about them, and never saw them. Yet the prosecution want you to hold him responsible as a conspirator for those bonds.

What more, gentlemen? Those bonds were never used. Nobody was ever defrauded. Not a proposal was put in the Post-Office Department. They never came to life. Dead! No contract, says Mr. Boone, was ever awarded on those proposals, even the proposals sent back, unless it was a contract to him, Boone. That is what he swears. And yet Dorsey is to be held responsible.

Let us hurry along, gentlemen. See how Dorsey came to do this. How did that arch-conspirator, as they claim him to be, happen to write that letter to Clendenning? On page 1567 Boone says that he suggested to Dorsey that he had better send a note with the proposals to Clendenning. Boone suggested it. He was not a conspirator, but he suggested it. Dorsey was the conspirator, but never dreamed of it. How fortunate for a conspirator to have an innocent man think of the means of carrying out a conspiracy; never thinking of crime, but having it all suggested by perfect innocence and then crime taking advantage of it. That is the position! He suggested that Dorsey would better send a note with the proposals to Clendenning. I will read from page 1568:

Q. Was there not danger that he would be declared a failing contractor? Was it at that time the practice of the department if a man, for instance, had fifty contracts and failed on one to declare him a failing contractor on all?—A. No, sir; but they would declare him a failing contractor on that one route and suspend his pay until he paid up the loss to the Government—just my case now, exactly.

Q. That was one of the reasons that you had. Now, you were informed at that time that they had not the money to carry this on.

When, as a matter of fact, did you go out of the concern?—A. The 8th day of August, 1878.

Q. Was S. W. Dorsey then in Washington?—A. No, sir; he was not. He had been gone ten or twelve days.

Now, then, we come to August 7, 1878, the time that Mr. Boone went out. He did it for the purpose of saving a failure on the routes in the names of Miner, Peck, Dorsey, and himself. That is what he went out for, and that is his only reason. On page 1570 Mr. Boone swears that so far as he knows neither John W. Dorsey, John R. Miner, John M. Peck, nor Stephen W. Dorsey had any arrangement with the Second Assistant Postmaster-General to increase the service; none whatever.

Boone went out on the 7th day of August, 1878. S. W. Dorsey was in New Mexico. He did not return here until about the time Congress assembled in December. Boone swears that he then learned from S. W. Dorsey that he, Dorsey, did not know that Boone was out of the concern; did not know that he had left on the 7th day of August, 1878. Now, gentlemen, if Stephen W. Dorsey was the main conspirator, if he was doing this entire business, is it possible that A. E. Boone went out on the 7th day of August, that John W. Dorsey assigned his interest in all the routes mentioned in the agreement, and John R. Miner took in Vaile, and the service was put on those routes by the money furnished by Vaile, that all that was done and yet Stephen W. Dorsey never heard of it and did not even know that Boone was out, did not even know that Vaile was in? Besides that, gentlemen, as I told you, Dorsey was not here. He was in New Mexico. He was in utter ignorance of this entire business, and yet they claim that he was the directing spirit.

Mr. Boone further testifies, on page 1571, that Brady showed him a telegram from the postmistress at The Dalles, saying that the service was down. When I read that I thought may be that was where Moore got his hint to swear that he telegraphed to find out what was done with that service. Boone further swears that Brady said that it must be put on; that he said it could not be put on at the contract price, and that Brady told him, "I advise you to telegraph and put it on at any price," and that unless all the service was on by the 15th day of August he would declare the contractor a failing contractor on every route the service was down upon. That is what Brady told him. Stephen W. Dorsey was not here. According to the testimony of Moore he knew when he went away that the service in Oregon was not put on, but he abandoned it, and paid no attention to it. He happened to meet Miner at Saint Louis, and told him, I believe, "There are my notes for eight thousand five hundred dollars. That is all I will do. I am through! I have already advanced thirteen or fourteen thousand dollars. I will not advance another dollar." Why did not Miner tell him, "If you are not going on with this conspiracy I am going home"? Why didn't Miner tell him then, "What did you get up a conspiracy like this for, just to abandon it"? Why did not Miner say to him, "This is your child. I became a criminal at your suggestion. I entered into this conspiracy because you urged me to, and now after we have got the routes, you are going to abandon it"? Why did he not say to him, "Dorsey, if you are not going on with this conspiracy I am going back to Sandusky"? Did Dorsey at Saint Louis treat it as his bantling? or did he say to Miner, "This is all I will do"? Did he mean for himself? No. "All I will do for you."

Certainly he would not have made the threat to Miner that he would not do anything more for himself. He then said to Miner, "I am through!" Miner knew at that time that Stephen W. Dorsey had not the interest of one solitary dollar except the money he had advanced. Stephen W. Dorsey, according to the testimony of this prosecution, knew when he left this city that the routes were not in operation in Eastern Oregon. He went away knowing that J. W. Dorsey and John R. Miner and John M. Peck were in danger of being declared failing contractors. Yet he never even called on Brady to see about it. He never asked to have the time extended a minute. He never took the least interest in the business. He started for New Mexico, and went by way of Oberlin, Ohio. He happened to meet Miner in Saint Louis, and for Miner's sake, for Peck's sake, for John W. Dorsey's sake, and not for his own sake, he gave them some notes to the extent of eight thousand five hundred dollars that they could have discounted, and said to Miner then and there. "That is the last dollar. That is the last cent." What more did he do? He abandoned the whole business. He went to New Mexico. He never wrote about it; he never spoke about it; he never received a dispatch concerning it until the following December, when he came back to Washington, and then for the first time found that Boone had gone out and that Vaile had come in. What more? Although he was interested to the extent of thirteen or fourteen thousand dollars, he did not know until he came back in December that his security had been rendered worthless. He found that out then for the first time. That is a fine model of a conspirator. Reading again from Boone's testimony, on page 1371:

Fully a month and a half of the time had been taken up by the Congressional investigation, and we—That is to say, Miner, Peck, Boone, and the rest—did not know what to do with the service. We dared not to move. We expected that the contracts would be taken from us.

Do you tell me that under such circumstances, if Stephen W. Dorsey had conceived this thing, he would have gone off and left it? Do you tell me, with the entire business trembling in the balance, without the money to put the service on, at the mercy of Thomas J. Brady, that if Stephen W. Dorsey had gotten up that conspiracy, and also put in thirteen or fourteen thousand dollars, he would have gone away and left it, and told Miner and the others, "I will have no more to do with it," and leave it so effectually and so perfectly that he did not even know that Boone had gone out and Vaile had come in until the following December, when he came here to take his seat in the Senate?

On page 1580, again quoting from Mr. Boone:

The fact—Here is something that rises like the Rock of Gibraltar. It is one of those indications of truth that rascality never had ingenuity enough to invent:

The fact that Dorsey refused to advance any more money on account of this business was taken into consideration by me when I made up my mind to go out.

Do you want any better testimony than that, that Dorsey did refuse to advance any more money?

Don't you see how everything fits together when you get at the facts? How naturally they all blend and harmonize when you get at the facts. Now, here is some more from Mr. Boone:

If I had not gone out the service would have undoubtedly failed, unless they got the money to put it on. When Mr. Dorsey declined to furnish any more money or to indorse any more notes, there was nothing else to do but for me to go out and let somebody else come in who had the money.

That is a witness for the Government, and yet at the time that happened they say there was a great conspiracy; that the Second Assistant Postmaster-General was in it; that a Senator of the United States was in it; and that these other men were simply tools. It will not do, gentlemen. If that had been the case Stephen W. Dorsey would have remained here. He would have gone to Mr. Brady and said, "I must have time," and Mr. Brady would have given him all the time he desired, because, according to this prosecution, it was their partnership business. Brady had ten times as great an interest as Stephen W. Dorsey. According to the testimony of Mr. Rerdell, Brady had an interest of thirty-three and one-third per cent., and according to the testimony of Rerdell and Boone, Dorsey only had an interest of seven-eighths of one per cent.

That means, as I understand it, according to their testimony, thirty-three and one-third per cent, of the gross expedition; not profits, but of the gross expedition. That is what they swear. When he gave on a route an expedition of, say, six thousand dollars, two thousand dollars would go to Brady each year. In other words, thirty-three and one-third per cent, of the money paid for expedition went to Brady.

Mr. Walsh testified and gave the exact figures, and called the amount, if the Court will recollect, sixty thousand dollars, and twenty per cent, he said of that is twelve thousand dollars. That had to run, he says, for three years, and that made thirty-six thousand dollars. That is the testimony in this case, gentlemen. If you should have a row of men as long as the row of kings that Banquo saw, stretching out "to the crack of doom," and they should swear to it, I should still die an unbeliever; but that is their testimony. Dorsey ran away and left his conspiracy and Brady would not attend to his own business. Now, I read again from Boone:

With regard to the preparation of circulars, the sending of them to postmasters, the printing of proposals, the printing of bonds and subcontracts, there was nothing done differently from what I had always done before.

Recollect that. He is a Government witness. Dorsey in a conspiracy got Boone to help him, and in helping him Boone did nothing different from what he had always done before. There is not much left of this case, gentlemen, but I will keep going on just the same. Mr. Boone swears that he followed the regular custom and practice of doing business.

Then, there is another suspicious circumstance. At the bottom of the contracts published by the Government, for the purpose of informing contractors as to how the bonds or contracts are to be signed, and exactly what is to be done by each person, there are a lot of instructions.

Mr. Carpenter. On the proposals.

Mr. Ingersoll. On the proposals. When they got up the proposals of their own, they, understanding the business, left off all those directions that the Government put upon its forms. Why? Those directions were put there for the benefit of men who did not understand the business. These men did understand the business, and consequently it was nonsense for them if they had to have the printing done, to put on the bottom of the contracts two or three paragraphs of directions to themselves. They understood exactly how to do it without the directions.

Who left them off? Stephen W. Dorsey? No. John W. Dorsey? No. He had nothing to do with it. Miner? No. He had nothing to do with it. Who left them off? Boone says he did. Was he instructed to do it? No. Did it take a conspiracy to leave them off? No. He left them off for two reasons, and good ones, too. One was to save the expense of printing. That was a good reason. There was no conspiracy needed for that. The other was, that knowing how to perfect the proposals, and understanding all those instructions, there was no need of having them printed for their benefit.

Next, on page 1582. What instructions as a matter of fact did Mr. Boone receive from Mr. Dorsey, if he received any? The question arises, upon what subject? In reference to what particular point? Boone says on this page that he received no instructions from Dorsey in reference to the business except in regard to the subcontract blanks.

That is the one subject on which he received any instructions from S. W. Dorsey. I have shown you that those instructions were in the interests of honesty and fair dealing. Those were the only instructions he received. On every other subject there is not a word. Why? Here Boone gives the reason. "I did not require any." Why? Because he understood the business himself. What else? "I was to go ahead and do whatever was necessary to be done." He did it without consulting anybody. He did it in his own way. He did it as he thought best for all concerned. Now, gentlemen, there will be an effort made to convince you that Stephen W. Dorsey did everything during all that period. If you are told that, when you are told it remember what I tell you now: that Mr. Boone swears that he did it himself; that he attended to the entire business, and that he was instructed by Dorsey in no particular except as to that one blank, and that I have clearly demonstrated was in the interests of honesty and in the interests of the subcontractor, so that the subcontract might agree with or be similar to the contract made with the Government. That is all.

Now we come to another point. You must recollect that Mr. Boone got out the circulars. Mr. Boone sent to all the postmasters to know about the roads and the price of grain and the price of labor, about the snow in winter and the rain in the spring. He got all that up. He went through the bidding-book originally and made the bids. He it was who prepared most of these proposals. He did all the work until Miner came. S. W. Dorsey did not do any of it. Boone never saw him working upon or touching the proposals. What S. W. Dorsey did he did at Boone's request. What he did he did at Miner's request. What he did he did simply because he was a friend. Boone attended to it all. Now, what does Boone say on page 1584? He swears that so far as he knew there never was any conspiracy on the part of these defendants with him, with each other, or anybody else, in reference to these routes, or any route bid for and awarded to them during that time. There was no conspiracy to defraud the Government in any way. That is what the Government witness swears to—a man brought here to stain the reputation of Stephen W. Dorsey. That is what a Government witness swears; swearing, too, under pressure; swearing, too, under circumstances where the Post-Office Department could strip him of everything he had on earth; swearing under circumstances where if he did not please the Government they could pursue him as they have pursued us. Perhaps I had better read what he says. I read from page 1583 of my examination:

Now, then, so far as you know, Mr. Boone, was there any conspiracy on the part of any of these defendants with you, or with anybody else, to your knowledge, in respect of these routes mentioned in the indictment or of any routes bid for and awarded to them during that time—any conspiracy to defraud the Government in any way?

And he answered:

No, sir.

That was a Government witness, acquainted with all the transactions during that time. He was swearing under the shadow of power, with the sword hanging over his head, and yet he swears he never knew or heard of any such thing.

Let us go on. On page 1589 he swears that Mr. Dorsey told him to fix the blanks and make them up and to write what he wanted done in Arkansas, and that while he, Boone, was engaged in so doing he said to Dorsey, "Had you not better write a note so that I can attach it to the blanks?" And Dorsey did so. Dorsey told him to fill up what he wanted in Arkansas, and what was necessary to be executed there, and he did so.

Boone indicated exactly what he wanted put in. I showed you the Clendenning bonds yesterday and showed you just what Boone did. He filled up the blanks that he wanted to have filled down there. Of course, the blanks that were already filled in he did not want interfered with. That is what he says. There is another part of his testimony. I want to call the attention of the gentlemen to it. "I hand you," said they, "32 X." Mr. Bliss did the handing. What was that? That was the Chico letter. What did they want to introduce that for? To show that S. W. Dorsey was interested personally in these routes in 1878. That was a magnificent piece of testimony for them to show that Dorsey in 1878 was writing to Rerdell to watch the advertisement of these routes. So they introduced that letter. Mr. Boone looked at it. He was a Government witness. The noose was around his neck and the other end of the rope was in the hands of Mr. Bliss. What did Mr. Boone say? "Mr. Dorsey never wrote that letter." Then said Mr. Bliss to him, "That is not Mr. Dorsey's writing?" And Mr. Boone said "No, sir." And at the same time threw the forged scrap away contemptuously. What else? On April 3, 1878, Mr. Dorsey was here.

Mr. Merrick. Was Mr Dorsey here at that time?

Witness. He was here, sir; and I was in communication with him on that very day.

That is the evidence of a Government witness; a man who was depended upon to show that not only my client, but that Mr. Miner entered into a conspiracy in the fall of 1877 to defraud this Government. I want you to remember one thing which I was about to forget. Mr. Ker, I believe, spoke six or seven days and I do not remember of his having mentioned the Chico letter. He acted as if it had a contagious disease. He was followed by Mr. Bliss in another week, but he did not mention the Chico letter; at least I have never happened to read it in his speech. Both of them are as dumb as oysters after a clap of thunder. Not a word. They did not, either of them, have the courage to refer to it. They did not have the nerve to ask you to believe it. I tell you one thing, gentlemen, I would either admit that it was a forgery, or I would swear that it was genuine. I would do something with it. I would not allow that paper, blown by the wind, to scare me from the highway of the argument! I would do one thing or the other. I would either admit that Mr. Rerdell forged it, or I would insist that it was the handwriting of Stephen W. Dorsey. Why was it left where it was, gentlemen? They could not get anybody to swear that it was Dorsey's handwriting. That is all.

Now we will take the next step. They had so much confidence in that witness that they concluded they would prove the pencil memorandum by him. They had such a clutch on him. So they stuck that up to him. Recollecting the position he was in, recollecting the danger, recollecting all that might probably follow speaking the truth, here is what he says:

Everything above "profit and loss" in that memorandum favors the handwriting of S. W. Dorsey.

What else?

And everything below favors the handwriting of M. C. Rerdell.

Fit conclusion for a Government witness, brought here to show that Stephen W. Dorsey was the arch-conspirator. And they ended the witness; dismissed him from the stand, after he had shown that Dorsey did not conspire; after he had shown that he himself fixed the subcontracts, with the exception of only one; after he had shown that he himself filled out the blanks to send to Clendenning; after he had shown that he did everything without being advised by S. W. Dorsey, and then he swore that their principal witness was a forger. Then they dismissed him. That was the end of the Government witness who was to brand the word "conspirator" upon the forehead of Stephen W. Dorsey's reputation. But instead of putting "conspirator" there, he put the word "forger" upon the principal witness for the Government. Magnificent exchange! Now, gentlemen, you know as well as I do that Mr. Boone knew all that was happening during that entire time. You know as well as I do that he did not swear anything for the defence that he could help swearing.

What else? Mr. Bliss, on page 303, says that:

Parties conspiring make an informal verbal agreement.

When did we make that agreement? When does the testimony show that we made an informal verbal agreement? Who were present at the time? Where were we? Do you recollect the number of the house? Do you recollect the day of the month? Has any one of you ever had in his mind which side of the street that was on? What town was it in? Could you locate it if you had a good map? I do not care whether it is informal or formal. Did we make one? In order to make a verbal agreement you have to use some words. Is there any evidence as to the words we used? Not a word that I have heard, not a word.

What else? He says that this is necessarily secret and intended to be secret. The first thing done was that Dorsey told it to Moore. Then, for fear it would get out, J. W. Dorsey told it to Pennell and to thirty fellows around the camp-fire out in Dakota. And there was a suspicion in Brady's mind that somebody might hear of it, and so he told Rerdell. He says, "Get the books copied; this is a secret thing." Then Dorsey wrote it to Bosler, and he was so awfully afraid that it would get out that he kept a copy of the letter. You see, Mr. Bliss says the object was to keep it secret. Then Miner and Vaile told it to Rerdell for fear he would not believe it when Brady told him. They were bound the thing should not get out. Yes, sir. And then Rerdell, just bursting with the importance of keeping that secret, told it to Perkins and Taylor; went away out there for that purpose. And then Moore, he gave it away to Major and McBean for the purpose of keeping it secret. Then Miner told Moore. From whom did they keep it secret? Nobody in God's world but Boone. He is the only fellow that nobody told. Boone went through it all, saw all the plan and heard all the whispering, and he is the only man in the country, I think, that did not suspect it. And on the 7th day of August he left the concern because there was not a conspiracy, and admits to you that if he had had even a suspicion of it he would have staid—staid or died.

Now, was there ever a conspiracy published so widely, that one end of the country kept so secret from the other? Was there ever a conspiracy like that, the news of which ran through the West like wild-fire, while the fellows at the East never heard of it? Everybody knew it out on the plains. All you had to do was to subpoena a fellow that wanted to come to Washington, and he would remember it. And yet that is the evidence that the prosecution desires you to believe. I do not believe it. I do not think I ever shall. But then they promised so much at the beginning, and they have done so little in many respects.

Something had to be said, and so Mr. Bliss, on page 265, in a little burst of confidence to the jury, says:

At least one United States Senator was the paid agent of these defendants.

Who was the Senator?

Mr. Bliss. Did I say that, sir?

Mr. Ingersoll. Look at page 265 and see whether you did.

Mr. Bliss. Read all that I said there.

Mr. Ingersoll. I will do that.

But we shall show to you that at least one United States Senator, urging such increase, was the paid agent of these defendants.

Mr. Bliss. I then went on and said we should show it if you put him on the stand.

Mr. Ingersoll. Yes, if we furnished you the evidence.

Mr. Bliss. No, sir; that is not what I said.

Mr. Ingersoll. Why didn't you produce the Senator?

Mr. Bliss. Why didn't you put him on the stand?

Mr. Ingersoll. How did I know what Senator you meant?

Mr. Bliss. Did you have two?

Mr. Ingersoll. No, sir; and we did not have the one. If you could have proved it, it was your duty, as the attorney of the United States, to do it, and if you did not do it, you did not do your duty in this case.

Mr. Bliss. Whose name is expressed in the memorandum?

Mr. Ingersoll. Why did you not say that to the jury? You dared not do it. That is like what was said here the other day before this jury, and taken out of the record. We will come to it. These are the gentlemen who did not wish to stain the names of citizens. These are the gentlemen who did not wish to bring anybody into this case that had not been indicted. And yet Mr. Bliss, in his opening, said that he would show you at least one Senator who was the paid agent of these defendants; and now, having failed to do it, he stands here before you and asks whose name was on the pencil memorandum, meaning that J. H. Mitchell was the paid agent of these defendants.

Ah, gentlemen, I would not, for the sake of convicting any man on this earth, stain the reputation of another in a place and in a way where that other could not defend himself. I would not do it. I do not think there is any crime beyond that. It is as bad to stab the reputation as it is to stab the flesh; it is as bad to kill the honor of the man as to put a dagger into his heart.

There are so many things in these papers that I would never get through, if I commented upon them all, if I talked forty years. I now refer to page 4509. I have to change from one of these lawyers to the other. Now, on this subject of subcontracts, showing how we are endeavoring to cheat and defraud the Government, Mr. Ker says, at page 4509:

Acting upon Stephen W. Dorsey's advice he put in this clause giving the subcontractors sixty-five per cent, of the increase. I want you to remember the sixty-five per cent., because I will show you some subcontracts with that amount in, but I do not want you to think for one moment that the subcontractors ever got a dollar out of it.

Gentlemen, the evidence is that the subcontractors were paid the amount mentioned in their subcontracts. I believe all of them are on file in this case, and on all that were filed in the department the money was paid directly to the subcontractor. And yet Mr. Ker tells you that he does not want you to think for a moment that the subcontractors ever got one dollar out of it. Is it possible, gentlemen, that there is any necessity for resorting to such statements? Can you conceive of any reason for doing it, except that they are actually mistaken, except for the fact that they know they have not the evidence to convict these defendants?

We are not begging of you. We are not upon our knees before you. But we do want to be tried according to the evidence and according to the law. We do not want your mind, nor yours, nor yours [addressing different jurors] poisoned with a misstatement. We want to be tried, and we want the verdict rendered by you when every fact is as luminous in your mind as the sun at mid-day. We want every fact to stand out like stars in a perfect night, without a cloud of doubt between you and the fact. That is the kind of a verdict we want. We want a verdict that comes from a clear head and a brave heart. We do not want a verdict simply from sympathy. We want a verdict according to the evidence and according to the law. And when the verdict is given we want every one of you to say, "That is my verdict; I found it upon the evidence and upon the law; dig beneath it and you will not find used as the corner-stone a misstatement, or a mistake, or a falsehood; it stands upon the rock of fact, upon the foundation of absolute truth."

Do you know that if I were prosecuting a man, trying to take from him his liberty, trying to take from him his home, trying to rob his fireside and make it desolate, and if I should succeed and afterwards know that I had made a misstatement of the evidence to the jury, I could not sleep until I had done what was in my power to release that man; and after he was released, or even if he were not released, I would go to him when he was wearing the prison garb, and I would get down on my knees and beg him to forgive me. I would rather be sent to the penitentiary myself, I would rather wear the stripes of eternal degradation, than to send another man there by a misstatement or a mistake that I had made. That is my feeling. I may be wrong.

It may be that I am guilty, according to Colonel Bliss, of sneering at everything that people hold sacred. But I do not sneer at justice. I believe that over all, justice sits the eternal queen, holding in her hand the scales in which are weighed the deeds of men. I believe that it is my duty to make the world a little better, because I have lived in it. I believe in helping my fellow-men. I do no not sneer at charity; I do not sneer at justice, and I do not sneer at liberty. And why did he make that remark to you, gentlemen? Is it possible that for a moment he dreamed that he might prejudice your minds against the case of my client, because, I, his attorney, am not what is called a believer? Is it possible that he has so mean an opinion of a Christian that a Christian would violate his oath when upon the jury, simply to get even with a lawyer who happened to be an infidel? Is that his idea of Christianity? It is not mine; it is not mine. I stand before you to-day, gentlemen, as a man having the rights you have, and no more; and I am willing to work and toil and suffer to give you every right that I enjoy. And I know that not one of you will allow himself to be prejudiced against my client because you and I happen to disagree upon subjects about which none of us know anything for certain. I do not believe you will. And yet, that remark was made, gentlemen—I will not say that it was made, but may be it was—hoping that it would lodge the seed of prejudice in your minds, hoping that it might bring to life that little adder of hatred that sleeps unknown to us in nearly all of our bosoms. I have too much confidence in you, too much confidence in human nature to believe that can affect my client.

Now, gentlemen, there is no pretence, there is no evidence that every subcontractor did not get the per cent, mentioned in his subcontract, except one, and that was Mr. French, on the route from Kearney to Kent; and the evidence there is that Miner settled with him, I believe, and gave him a certain amount of money in lieu of expedition. That is the solitary exception.

Now, gentlemen, I come to a most interesting part of this discussion, and I hope we will live through it. In the first place, what is a conspiracy? Well, in this case, they must establish that it was an agreement entered into between the persons mentioned in this indictment, or two of them, to defraud the Government. How? By the means pointed out and described in the indictment. While it may not be absolutely necessary to describe the means, I hold that if they do describe them, tell how the conspiracy was to be accomplished, they are bound by their description; they must prove such a conspiracy as they describe. If a man is indicted for stealing a horse and the color of the horse is given, it will not do to prove a horse of another color. If they describe the offence they are bound by the description.

Now, this is a conspiracy entered into, as they claim, by the persons mentioned in the indictment, to do a certain thing. What is the object of the conspiracy? To defraud the Government. And, gentlemen, I believe the Court will instruct you that the conspiring is the crime. The object of the conspiracy is to defraud the United States. What are the means? According to this indictment false petitions, false oaths, false letters, false orders. What I insist on is that the means cannot take the place of the object; that the means cannot take the place of the conspiracy described. When you describe a conspiracy by certain means to defraud the Government, and set out the means so that the Second Assistant Postmaster-General is a necessity, then you cannot turn and shift your ground, and say that it was not the conspiracy set out in the indictment, but that it was a conspiracy to do some of the things recited as means in the indictment; you cannot say that it was not a conspiracy entered into with the Second Assistant Postmaster-General, but was a conspiracy entered into with some others to make a false petition or a false affidavit. The ostrich of this prosecution will not be allowed to hide its head under the leaf of an affidavit. They must prove, in my judgment, the conspiracy that they describe in the indictment, and none other.

Now, what else? You must be prepared, gentlemen, when you make up a verdict, if you say that there was a conspiracy, to say when it was entered into and who entered into it. And I suppose when you retire, the first question for you to decide will be: Was there a conspiracy? Has any conspiracy been established beyond a reasonable doubt? If you say yes, then the next question for you to decide is, who conspired? Who were the members of that conspiracy?

After you do that there is one other thing you have to do: You have to find that one of the conspirators, for the purpose of carrying the conspiracy into effect, did something; that is called an overt act. You have to find, that at least one of them did something to effect the object of that conspiracy. You must remember, gentlemen, that the overt act must come after the conspiracy. In other words, you cannot commit an overt act and make a conspiracy to fit it; you must have the conspiracy first, and then do an overt act for the purpose of accomplishing the object of that conspiracy. The conspiracy must come first, and the overt act afterwards. You all understand that now.

Now, this indictment is so framed that the earliest time within the life of the statute of limitations for an overt act is the 23d day of May, 1879. Why? The indictment charges that as the day, the conspiracy was entered into. Any overt act in consequence of that conspiracy must have been done after the 23d of May, 1879. Now, get that in your heads, level and square. The conspiracy, according to this, is not back of the 23d of May, 1879, and any overt act done, in order to be considered an overt act, must be done after the date of that conspiracy. If they prove any act done before that time, it shows that it was not an overt act belonging to the conspiracy mentioned in the indictment. If it is an overt act at all, it is an overt act of another conspiracy entered into before the date mentioned in this indictment, and consequently will not do for an overt act in this case. Now, I want you all to understand that.

I forget how many overt acts are charged in this indictment; some sixty or seventy, I think. And understand me, now, gentlemen, no matter what date they fix to an overt act in the indictment, no matter whether there is any date to it or not in the indictment, if it turns out to have been done before the time fixed for the conspiracy it is dead as an overt act: it is good for nothing. The overt act is the fruit of the conspiracy; the conspiracy is not the result of the overt act. Now let me make a statement to you, so that you will understand it.

Every petition, every letter, every affidavit, upon which orders for expedition were based, was filed before the 23d of May, 1879, except on two routes—Toquerville to Adair-ville and Eugene City to Bridge Creek. If that is true, then not a solitary petition filed in this case can be considered as an overt act; and a conspiracy without an overt act is nothing; it simply exists in the imagination; it is an agreement made of words and air, and never was vitalized with an act done by one of the conspirators for the purpose of giving it effect. Recollect that every petition, every affidavit, every letter filed, was filed before the 23d day of May, with the two exceptions I have mentioned. That is the date when the conspiracy came into being. And consequently an overt act must be after that time.

Now,'when they came to write this indictment, why did they not tell the truth in it? I do not mean that in an offensive sense, because a man has the right to write in that indictment what he wants to. That is a matter of pleading. But why did they not tell the facts? Why did they put in the indictment that a certain petition was filed on the 26th day of June, when they had the petition before them and knew that it was filed in April, 1879? Why did they put in that indictment that a certain affidavit was filed on the 26th or 27th of May, I think it was, when they knew that it was filed in April or March? Why? Because if they had put that in the indictment the indictment would have been quashed, so far as their overt acts were concerned. The Court would have said, "I cannot allow you to put on paper that a man entered into a conspiracy on the 23d of May, and then did an act to carry that conspiracy into effect in April before that time. I cannot allow you to do that, because that is infinitely absurd, and pleadings have to be reasonable on their face." But you see they stated that this was done after the conspiracy. They had to do it or they would be gone. I believe there is no dispute about this law that if they describe the overt act—and they must describe it, because it is a part of the offence—that is, the offence is not complete without it—they must prove it exactly as they describe it.

If they describe it with infinite minuteness, they must prove it with infinite minuteness. If they set out that an affidavit was written on bark, they must produce a bark affidavit. If they were foolish enough to say it was written in red ink they must produce it in red ink. If they allege that an oath was sworn to twice before two notaries public they must produce an oath sworn to twice. They are bound to prove exactly what they charge, and if they were too particular about it that is their fault, not ours.

I say that all these, with the exception of the two routes I have named, were filed too early to play any important part in this case. Now, I will come to those routes. Remember, that every overt act must be after the conspiracy. There are two exceptions, and those two exceptions include petitions and affidavits. And there is a splendid kind of justice in the way this thing is coming out, so far as that is concerned.

The petitions filed on the Toquerville route and on Bridge Creek route, I believe, are genuine; I believe the Government admits that they are honest; and they were not attacked except upon one point, and that was that a daily mail did not mean seven times a week. The point made by the Government was that a daily mail meant six trips a week—that is, where you have them every day. We took the ground that daily mail meant a mail every day, and that in the Western country, as here, they have seven days in a week.

We contended that you cannot have a daily mail without having seven trips a week. I think that was the only point made against these petitions—that they were for a daily mail, and that somebody put in a figure 7.

No petition for increase of service alone was ever attacked by the Government in this case, except 25 L, on The Dalles route, and 20 H and 29 H, on the Canyon City route. 25 L was filed April 23, 1879. That was one month before the conspiracy had life. Consequently that is mustered out of this case as an overt act.

23 L was filed June 27, 1879, and is in time, provided it had been a dishonest petition. And it is the only petition filed on the date alleged in the indictment, and it was not attacked. It was signed by the business men of Baker City, and is set out, I believe, on page 1617.

20 H was filed May 7th. That is not in time. That is gone.

29 H has no file mark, and never was proved. So that goes.

All the allegations as to false petitions for increase of service—and by that I mean additional trips—are shown to have been genuine, honest, true petitions.

There are but two affidavits, one correctly described. Both were made by Peck. Mr. Bliss admits that Peck had nothing to do with any of these routes after April 1, 1879, and both of them were made by Peck, and were sworn to before that date.

The affidavit on the Toquerville route was filed by M. C. Rerdell, who swears that he was not in any conspiracy to defraud the United States; that he was not in a conspiracy with Vaile and Miner and John W. Dorsey, nor with anybody else. It was filed by the subcontractor of record, M. C. Rerdell, and it is the same route on which Mr. Rerdell, by virtue of his subcontract, appropriated about five thousand dollars of money belonging to other people.

The other exception is on the Bridge Creek route, and, strange as it may appear, that was also filed by Mr. Rerdell.

And, strange as it may appear, it has not been successfully impeached as to the men and horses necessary under the existing and proposed schedule. The overt act is not proved, because the oath is not proved to be false, and because Peck and Rerdell, according to Mr. Bliss's admission and according to Rerdell's oath, were not in the conspiracy, and the overt act has to be done by one of the conspirators, of course.

The Court. I understood—I do not know whether I have been under a delusion all this time or not—that the indictment charged that these affidavits and false petitions were the means by which the conspiracy was to be carried into execution; that they were not the overt acts. If they had been set out as overt acts in the indictment, the Court would have seen that they antedated the time, and if an objection had been made to them the Court would not have received them as overt acts. The reason why they have been admitted and regarded as in the case all along, to my mind, was that they were acts tending to prove, so far as they tended to prove anything, the nature of the combination between these parties anterior to the 23d of May.

Mr. Ingersoll. Before the conspiracy.

The Court. Before the conspiracy. So that whatever character belonged to that association anterior to that time, if it was continued on after that time, carried out with overt acts done subsequently to that time, they were properly received as evidence going to establish the conspiracy—not as overt acts, but as means to show the character of the combination amongst the parties anterior to that date.

Mr. Ingersoll. That saves me a great deal of argument. Now, I understand, gentlemen, that the Court will instruct you that you cannot take any petition, any letter, any oath, any paper of any kind that was filed or written or used prior to the 23d of May, 1879, as an overt act; that all that that evidence is for is to show you the relation sustained by the parties before that time.

The Court. Yes; you are right.

Mr. Ingersoll. Now, that saves a great deal of trouble.

There are on the Toquerville and Adairville route, and on the Eugene City and Bridge Creek route, petitions filed after the 23d of May, 1879, set out in indictment as overt acts. I shall insist, if the Court will allow me, that if there is no evidence that those petitions were dishonest, no evidence going to show that they were not genuine, those petitions cannot be used as overt acts for the reason that they are charged in the indictment as false and fraudulent petitions. So, gentlemen, I take that ground, that as to the petitions filed after the 23d day of May on the only two routes left for these gentlemen to find overt acts upon (Eugene City to Bridge Creek, and Toquerville to Adairville), if those petitions have not been proved to be false they cannot be regarded as overt acts for the reason that they were described in the indictment itself as false and fraudulent petitions. It is perfectly clear, is it not?

What else have we left? A couple of affidavits. Who made them? Mr. Peck. When? Before the 1st day of April, 1879, and Mr. Bliss admits that from that time on he never had anything to do with this business. Mr. Rerdell filed them, and Mr. Rerdell swears that he was never in any conspiracy; and Mr. Bliss admits that Peck, after the 1st of April, had nothing to do with this business. That substantially knocks the bottom out of that dish.

Now, they attacked the affidavit on the Bridge Creek route, but they did not succeed in showing that it was not an honest affidavit.

Now, gentlemen, after what the Court has decided I want to call your attention to another thing.

Do not forget what the Court has decided—that all these things are not overt acts, but that they simply show the relations of the parties.

Now, if you go and find Vaile and Miner getting up petitions on their routes, and you also find Dorsey getting up petitions on his routes, then they claim that that is the result of an agreement between them. That is not the law. Neither is there in that the scintilla of common sense. If I find you plowing in your field and your neighbor plowing in his field, I have no right to draw the conclusion that you have conspired to plow or to help each other. But if I find your neighbor and you plowing in your field, and I afterwards find you and your neighbor plowing in his field, I have the right to conclude that you have swapped work and that you have something in common. If I find you plowing in your field and your neighbor walking behind you sowing grain or dropping corn, and then I find you in the fall shucking out the corn together, and I find your neighbor taking half of it to his barn and you taking half of it to your barn, I make up my mind that you have had some dealings on the corn question.

Now, we find that on May 5, 1879, these parties absolutely divided, and after that, when Vaile and Miner got up a petition on their route, Dorsey did not help them; and when Dorsey got up one on his, Vaile and Miner did not help him. That shows what the relations of the parties were. Does that show that they were then in a conspiracy? Does it show that they had any conspiracy before that time? They had separated their interest; they had ceased to act together; one did nothing for the other. If there had been a conspiracy before that time that conspiracy died on the 5th of May, 1879; and if it did, then there is no possibility of any conviction in this case, no matter what the evidence is—not the slightest.

Now, I want you to understand that ground exactly. I am not begging the question. I am not afraid to meet every point, every paper, every scratch, in this case. But I want you to understand it. All those things were allowed for the purpose of showing the relations of the parties, the relations that the defendants sustained to each other; and the evidence is that they sustained no relations to each other after 1879; that each went his own road to attend to his own business in his own way. That is the evidence.

Now comes the next point. What are the overt acts in the indictment? Really they are the orders made by Mr. Brady, unless you take this poor little affidavit made by Peck and filed by Rerdell.

Then comes the next point. You cannot treat anything as an overt act unless it was made by one of the conspirators. Is there any evidence in this case that Mr. Brady ever conspired with anybody? Not the slightest. And unless he conspired with us, any other made by him cannot be regarded as an overt act in this case. I think everybody will admit that. Unless Brady conspired with us, and we with him, any order of his cannot be regarded as an overt act.

I ask you, gentlemen, what evidence is there in this case that Mr. Brady ever conspired with any of these defendants? I will answer that question before I get through, and I think I will answer it to your entire satisfaction.

I will go a step further in this case, and I may go a little further than the Court will go. I say that when they state in that indictment that an order is made for the benefit of Miner, Vaile, and Dorsey, and the evidence is that it was made for the benefit only of Vaile and Miner, that is a fatal variance, and it cannot be treated as an overt act for any conspiracy. And when the indictment charges that an order was made for the benefit of S. W. Dorsey, and Vaile, and Miner, and it turns out that it was made for the sole benefit of S. W. Dorsey, I claim that that is a fatal variance.

Gentlemen, I was going through all these overt acts and all these terrible false claims. But the decision of the Court has utterly and entirely relieved me from that duty. So I will turn my attention to another person.

The next defendant to whom I may call your attention is Mr. John W. Dorsey. It is claimed that John W. Dorsey was one of the original conspirators; that he helped to hatch and plot this terrible design. Let us see what interest John W. Dorsey had. You have heard me read the agreement he made, have you not, with Miner? Now, let me read to you the agreement that he made on the 16th day of August, 1878. Now, we will find out what interest John W. Dorsey had in all this conspiracy. On the 16th of August, 1878, there was no reason for telling any lie about it. They could not get on the routes in August, 1878; they had not the money, and so they took in Vaile. At that time, gentlemen, there was no reason for their writing anything in this paper that was not true, not the slightest. And I take it for granted that most people tell the truth when there is no possible object in telling anything else, if their memory is good:

4th. The profits accruing from the business shall be divided as follows: From routes in Indian Territory, Kansas, Nebraska, and Dakota, to H. M. Vaile, one-third.

To John R. Miner, one-sixth; to John M. Peck, one-sixth; and to John W. Dorsey, one-third.

From routes in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, and California, to H. M. Vaile, one-third; to John R. Miner, one-third; to John M. Peck, one-third. [Page 4014.]

And to John W. Dorsey nothing. The entire interest of John W. Dorsey in the whole business was one-third of the profits on routes in the Indian Territory, Kansas, Nebraska, and Dakota. This was signed by H. M. Vaile, John R. Miner, John M. Peck, and John W. Dorsey, and I believe these are all admitted to be the genuine signatures of the parties.

The only routes mentioned in this indictment in which John W. Dorsey on the 16th day of August, 1878, had any interest whatever were: Kearney to Kent in Nebraska, Vermillion to Sioux Falls in Dakota, and Bismarck to Tongue River in Dakota. Remember that, gentlemen. That is very important. The evidence is that he sold out his interest in the following December, made a bargain for ten thousand dollars, and the evidence is that he received the money, and the evidence is that after that he never had any interest in the profits, no matter how much was made. And yet these gentlemen say that he was part and parcel of a conspiracy formed on the 23d of May, 1879. Long before that time he had sold out every dollar's interest he had, and had no more interest in it than though he had never existed. He got his ten thousand dollars; that was all. Now let us see what he did when the routes were divided.

Mr. Merrick. When did you say he sold out and got the money?

Mr. Ingersoll. The bargain was made in December, and his brother wrote to him at first that Vaile would not give it to him, and then that he would. Don't you recollect the two letters you asked Dorsey so much about?

It had been agreed to once, and then after S. W. Dorsey came out of the Senate John W. Dorsey was paid ten thousand dollars, and Miner swears that the division was absolute, perfect, and complete; and that nothing was signed by one for the other after the 5th of May, 1879.

Mr. Bliss. Miner does not say when. He swore that he, signed no papers after the 5th of May, 1879.

Mr. Ingersoll. He says that he signed no papers for the other side, and that the other side signed none for Vaile and Miner.

Mr. Davidge. You are talking of two different things.

Mr. Ingersoll. I will show you after awhile that you are wrong, as I always do. I never made a mistake on you yet.

The only routes mentioned in this indictment in which John W. Dorsey on the 16th day of August, 1878, had any interest whatever were from Kearney to Kent, in Nebraska; Vermillion to Sioux Falls, in Dakota; and Bismarck to Tongue River, in Dakota. And I will say right here that if at any time I do injustice to Mr. Bliss or anybody else, if it is pointed out I will take it back cheerfully, and if it is not pointed out, and they show that I did it, I will get up and admit it and say that I was mistaken.

Mr. Bliss. You will have a great deal to admit.

Mr. Ingersoll. Very well, I will do it, for I have the courage of conviction, and I have the courage to say that I am mistaken when I am.

Now, the evidence is that John W. Dorsey sold out his interest for ten thousand dollars, and that he received the money, and that after that he had no interest in the profits when the three routes were divided, and the only three were the ones I have mentioned.

On the first route, from Vermillion to Sioux Falls, John W. Dorsey was the subcontractor and he gave Mr. Vaile the entire pay for all increases and all expeditions. John W. Dorsey had the right to subcontract, and Mr. Vaile had the right to make the contract. The statement on page 726 shows simply that John W. Dorsey never drew a dollar upon that route. That is one route fairly and squarely disposed of. Understand, I cast no imputation upon Mr. Vaile for having the contract and for getting the money. When I come to it I will show you that he had a right to.

The next route is from Kearney to Kent. John W. Dorsey had an interest in that route, according to the agreement of August 16th, of one-third. You will see from page 726 of the record that the first quarter John M. Peck got the money, two hundred and forty-five dollars and six cents. John W. Dorsey was entitled to one-third of that, if it was profit. The next quarter was paid on the 22d of January, 1879—that is, for the fourth quarter of 1878, and that was paid to H. M. Vaile. And never another solitary cent was paid to anybody in such a way that John W. Dorsey was entitled to any part or portion of it. That gets that route out of trouble, so far as John W. Dorsey was concerned, no matter what the increase may have been after that, no matter what the expedition was, no matter whether French carried it for nothing, no matter what happened to Cedarville or that city of Fitzalon; it was no interest to John W. Dorsey, no matter whether the road ran direct from Fitzalon to Cedarville or not. He was entitled to one-third of the profits on one payment to Peck, and that payment was two hundred and forty-five dollars and six cents; whether he ever got it I do not know.

Let us see how he came out on the next route, from Bismarck to Tongue River. He went out there to build stations. I will come to that in a little while. Now, I call attention to page 727. The third quarter from July 1 to September 30, 1878, was paid November 8, 1878, to H. M. Vaile. Never a solitary dollar on the route was paid to John W. Dorsey, according to this record, if you can rely on these books.

That is the state of the case on these three routes. And yet it is solemnly averred in the indictment that all the orders on these routes were made for the joint benefit of John W. Dorsey and others. Now, before another payment was made the division of the routes had been completed, and John W. Dorsey sold out his interest in these routes and all others for ten thousand dollars. So that he never received a dollar upon the Bismarck route and the Vermillion route except as it is included in the gross sum of ten thousand dollars which he received for his entire interest, and that entire interest is described perfectly in the contract of August 16, 1878. Now, it John W. Dorsey had no interest in any route except as stated in the contract, of course nothing was done upon any other route for his benefit; nothing was done in which he, by any possibility, had the slightest pecuniary interest. How were the petitions filed for his benefit? How were the affidavits made for his benefit? How were the orders made for his benefit? He had no interest; he had parted with it, and had nothing more to do with it than the attorneys for the prosecution in this case.

It is claimed by Mr. Bliss that when John W. Dorsey sold out he agreed to make the necessary papers for the routes, and he tried to impress upon your minds the idea that the bargain was that John W. Dorsey knew that for ten thousand dollars he had to commit perjury and forgery and several other cheerful crimes, from time to time, as he might be called upon by the gentlemen who had been his co-conspirators.

J. W. Dorsey frankly and cheerfully swore that he agreed to make the necessary papers. He did not swear that he agreed to commit any frauds, perjuries, or forgeries. Nothing of the kind. He agreed to execute, of course, the necessary legal papers—the papers that, as contractor, were necessary for him to make to vest title of the route in the person to whom he had sold—just the necessary papers that would allow the man who had paid him for the route to draw the money from the Government if he performed the service.

Now, what were the papers? I say right here, gentlemen, that under the law as it was then, under the law as it is now, it is impossible for a contractor to assign his contract so as to be relieved from responsibility to the Government; the Government will not permit it. The Government will permit him to make a subcontract, and that is what John W. Dorsey did; that is one of the things he agreed to do. In order to make that subcontract absolutely certain; in order to put it beyond his power to do anything with it, that subcontract was made for the entire pay, for the entire increase and expedition. And what more? In order to make that absolutely perfect, so they would not have a loop-hole anywhere, he signed blank drafts upon the Post-Office Department for the entire pay of every quarter during the contract term. And then, if they were fined—and nobody knew how much they would be fined—they had the right to fill up that order for the amount due them from the Post-Office Department after deducting fines.

He sold out in March, 1879. The regulation or order making it necessary for the contractor to make an oath as to additional stock and men was not in existence, was not a binding law or regulation, until the 1st day of July, 1879. When he sold out in March, unless he were gifted with prophecy, he would not know what the regulation of the 1st of July following would be.

Now, there were two affidavits made by John W. Dorsey on route 38134, Pueblo to Rosita. Around those affidavits Mr. Bliss hovered and Mr. Ker remained. John W. Dorsey testifies that he received one of those affidavits in the morning and swore to it, and that it was filled up when he swore to it. Mr. Bliss and Mr. Ker, I believe, both say that it was not filled up.

Mr. Bliss. Where does Mr. Dorsey say that it was filled up when he swore to it?

Mr. Ingersoll. I have not the page here, but I will give it to you. He swore that a dozen times, that he never swore to any blank affidavits.

Mr. Bliss. I undertake to say that it cannot be found in his evidence.

The Court. He testified that he received them both by mail, and that the second one was contained in a letter which said that there was an error in the first, and the second was sent for the purpose of correcting that error.

Mr. Ingersoll. There could not have been any error in the first unless it had been filled up. You cannot make an error in blank. On page 4838, Mr. Rerdell swore that he left this city on the 17th or 18th of April for the West, and then he adds, "I think on the 18th." Then the Government brought the hotel-keepers from Sydney, Nebraska, and from Denver, and from some other place, nearly as many witnesses as you had about the paper pulp. And they proved that Rerdell was beyond the Missouri River on the 21 st of April.

Now see what Mr. Bliss says on page 4914:

And yet, gentlemen, it is beyond dispute that as early as the 15th of April, 1879, Mr. Rerdell had left this city and gone West.

Why did he have it stated on the 15th, gentlemen? I will tell you. Oh, I tell you the human mind is a queer thing when it gets to working. John W. Dorsey was in Middlebury, Vermont; if a letter had been sent from here on the 15th, it certainly would have got up there before the 21st. So they wanted Rerdell out of this town as early as possible, so that it would make it highly improbable that it would take a letter from that time to the 21st to get to Middlebury. Now, the evidence is that he left here, he thinks, on the 18th. When did the letter get up there? I think the 20th or 21st.

Mr. Davidge. There was a Sunday intervened.

Mr. Ingersoll. They say, gentlemen, that there is no evidence that the blanks were filled, and yet John W. Dorsey swears that he received a letter stating that the first affidavit was erroneous, and the second one was sent to him to correct it. How would you correct one affidavit in blank by another affidavit in blank? How did he ever get those affidavits? I will tell you. We will have that little matter settled. Here is what Rerdell swears on page 2232:

Q. When did you return from that visit?—A. I returned about the 5th of May.

Q. State whether or not after you returned, you found blank affidavits among the papers connected with the business?—A. Yes, sir.

Q. How many did you find?—A. Well, there were several blank affidavits of John W. Dorsey's and several of John M. Peck's. I don't know how many there were.

Q. Were they blank affidavits?—A. Well, sir, they were blank affidavits similar to that one I sent, leaving out the number of men and animals in each case.

Q. Did they purport to have been sworn to?—A. Yes, sir.

Q. Were those affidavits among the papers when you left here to go West?—A. Some of them were. I think those of Peck's were here, probably four or five, or half a dozen, and I had made out, before I left here, a lot of them and sent them to John W. Dorsey. In the mean time, when I returned here, John W. Dorsey was here.

Mr. Rerdell swears that just before he went away he sent the affidavits to John W. Dorsey, and the only question between them is, were they in blank, or were they filled. John W. Dorsey swears that they were filled, because when he received the second he received a letter stating that there was an error in the first, and that error had been corrected in the second. The last nail in the coffin of that doctrine.

Mr. Ingersoll. [Resuming.] May it please the Court and gentlemen of the jury, before finishing what I am about to say in regard to the two affidavits of John W. Dorsey I will now call your attention to a statement made by Mr. Bliss, on page 304, in his opening speech to you:

Mr. Dorsey, while Senator, was, I think, chairman of the Committee on Post-Offices, and chairman of the subcommittee in charge of all the appropriations. That brought him, of course, directly in connection with the Post-Office Department and its officials, and gave him, as we all understand, necessarily, from the nature of the case, the possession of some exceptional power over officials of the department—greater power than a Senator would have when occupying som'-other position.

That statement was made to you, gentlemen, for the purpose of making you believe that while Senator Dorsey was a member of the Senate he was also chairman of the PostOffice Committee, and of the subcommittee having power over the appropriations, and that he not only took advantage of being a Senator, but by virtue of being chairman of that committee had exceptional power over the officials of the Post-Office Department. He was trying to convince you that, finding himself chairman of that committee, finding himself with this power, he thereupon entered into a conspiracy.

What evidence did the Government offer upon that point? Nothing. Did Mr. Bliss at that time suppose that Mr. Dorsey was chairman of that committee? The records were all here. The Government had plenty of agents to ascertain what the fact was; and yet, without knowing the facts, Mr. Bliss stated to this jury that he believed that; that Dorsey was chairman of the Post-Office Committee and of the sub-committee; wanting to poison your minds with the idea that Mr. Dorsey had taken advantage of having held that position. Now, the only evidence upon that point I find on page 3992, and that is the evidence of Mr. Dorsey himself. He is asked, Were you a member of the Post-Office Committee in 1877? No. In 1878? No. Or chairman of the subcommittee? Here is what he says, that he had not been on that Post-Office Committee "for nearly two years" prior to July 1, 1878. And yet an attorney representing the United States, representing the greatness and honor, the grandeur and the glory of fifty millions of people, for the purpose of poisoning your minds, there made that statement without knowing anything about it or without caring anything about it. I thought I would clear that point up the first thing this morning.

Now we will go on with the affidavits. You know these terrible affidavits that were sworn to in Vermont. It was stated that the first affidavit was wrong and that the second affidavit was substituted for the first. Now, if the second affidavit took more money out of the Treasury than the first affidavit you might say that there was a sinister motive, a dishonest motive in withdrawing the first and substituting the second, unless it appeared clearly that the second was true. But suppose it turns out that the substitution did not take an extra dollar from the United States? Then what motive do you say they had in doing it? Was it a motive to steal something, or was it a motive simply to be correct? What other motive could there have been?

Now, let us see. The first affidavit said three men and twelve animals; for the expedition, seven men and thirty-eight animals; and the proportion was exactly three hundred per cent—that is, three times as much. Now, then, they put in another affidavit. The second affidavit says two men and six animals. That makes eight. And on the expedited schedule six men and eighteen animals, which makes twenty-four; and three times eight are twenty-four; exactly the same. Three times fifteen are forty-five, and three times eight are twenty-four, and the amount of money drawn under the second affidavit is precisely the same that would have been drawn under the first affidavit.

Now, do you pretend to tell me that they took the trouble to withdraw the first affidavit and put in the second affidavit because they were trying to defraud somebody? On the contrary, they took that trouble because there was a mistake made in the first affidavit and they wanted to correct it, not for the purpose of getting more money, but for the purpose of getting a correct affidavit.

Mr. Crane (foreman of the jury). Was not that first affidavit interlined?

Mr. Ingersoll. No, sir.

If there had been any fraud about it, would they not have withdrawn the paper? They had a right to withdraw it. Yet they left the paper there; they left it there as a witness. Why? Because it did not prove anything against them; it only proved they desired to be correct.

My recollection is there were erasures in both affidavits. Let us find them. Before I get through I will endeavor to show you that every erasure and interlineation is an evidence of honesty instead of dishonesty. What are the numbers of these affidavits? [Examining the papers.] They are number 4 C and 5 C. Route 38134. I will read them.

Hon. Thomas J. Brady,

Second Assistant Postmaster-General:

Sir: The number of men and animals necessary to carry the mail on route 38134 on the present schedule is three men and twelve animals. The number necessary on a schedule of ten hours, seven times a week, is seven men and thirty-eight animals.

Respectfully,

JOHN W. DORSEY,

Subcontractor.

There does not appear to be any erasure or interlineation or anything else in that affidavit. Now, here is the other one:

Hon. Thomas J. Brady,

Second Assistant Postmaster-General:

Sir: The number of men and animals necessary to carry the mails on route 38134 on the present schedule, seven times a week, is two men and six animals. The number necessary on the schedule of ten hours, seven times a week, is six men and eighteen animals.

Respectfully,

JOHN W. DORSEY,

Subcontractor.

That is the second affidavit. The first was withdrawn. That is, they had permission to withdraw it, and in the second affidavit is the interlineation "seven times a week," isn't it? That is simply an interlineation, because there had been an omission to state the service that was then being performed or that was to be performed.

Mr. Crane (foreman of the jury). That has puzzled me a good deal, to understand the motive of those two affidavits.

Mr. Ingersoll. There certainly could not be any motive for putting in seven or three times a week, for this is simply to make it agree with the truth. If I give a note to a man for five hundred dollars and should happen to write in the word "hundred" and not the word "five," and then should take it back and write in the word "five" above it, that is not a sign of fraud.

Will somebody give me number 18 K; I just happened to see something there which may be worth something, or may not.

Now, gentlemen, here is a petition marked 2 A, that Rerdell swears that the words "schedule thirteen hours" were written in by Miner. In one of these papers I happened to see the word "schedule." Just notice the word "schedule" on this paper [exhibiting to the jury,] and then have the kindness to look at the word "schedule" in this other one [exhibiting to the jury,] and see whether you think one man wrote them both. Rerdell says he wrote the word "schedule" in that one [indicating,] and that Miner wrote the word "schedule" in this other one [indicating.]

Now, gentlemen, there is another charge against John W. Dorsey, on route 38145, and upon that route he made two affidavits. In the first affidavit he swore it would require three men and seven animals on the schedule as it then was, and that makes ten; that with the proposed schedule it would take eleven men and twenty-six animals, making thirty-seven. Now, if it took ten on the schedule as it then was, and thirty-seven on the proposed schedule, then the Government, which accepted that affidavit, would have to pay him three times and seven-tenths as much, which is the relation between ten and thirty-seven. The proportion then is three and seven-tenths. On the first affidavit his pay would have been twelve thousand nine hundred and thirty-five dollars and fifty-two cents a year.

Now I come to the second affidavit, which said that for the schedule as it then stood ijt would take twenty men and animals. On the proposed schedule he said it would take twelve men and forty-two animals, making fifty-four. Now, the ratio of the second affidavit was as twenty is to fifty-four. The ratio in the first affidavit was as ten is to thirty-seven, so that under the second affidavit, which they say was willful and corrupt perjury, he got eight thousand four hundred and fifty-seven dollars a year instead of twelve thousand nine hundred and thirty-five dollars and fifty-two cents. There were three years for the contract to run, and a little over. Under the first affidavit he would have received thirteen thousand nine hundred and ninety-two dollars and seventy-five cents during the contract term more than he took under the second. An affidavit was put in there that he thought was erroneous. He withdrew that affidavit and put in a second one. If he had allowed the first to remain and they had calculated the amount on the first he would have received thirteen thousand nine hundred and ninety-two dollars and seventy-five cents more than he did under the second affidavit. But he withdrew the first and put in the second, and took from the Treasury thirteen thousand nine hundred and ninety-two dollars and seventy-five cents less, and they charge that as a fraud, as an evidence of conspiracy and perjury. Now, that is all there is against John W. Dorsey.

On page 4090 John W. Dorsey swears that General Miles wanted to know how far apart he (Dorsey) was building the stations on the Tongue River and Bismarck route. Let us turn to page 4090. You know they were trying to prove that when John W. Dorsey went out there and built the ranches that he was going to build them about fifteen or seventeen miles apart, because it was claimed that they knew there was to be increase and expedition. You remember that. Now, when John W. Dorsey came upon the stand he swore that when they went out there they started to build those stations, I believe, somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty or thirty-five miles apart, as they could get water. Then he swore that when he went himself over, I think, to Miles City, where General Miles was, that General Miles asked him how far he was building his stations apart. John W. Dorsey told him. Then General Miles gave him his advice. Now, I want to read this to you. I asked him this question:

Q. When you got to Fort Keogh did you go to see General Miles?—A. Yes, sir.

Q. Did you have any conversation with him in regard to this route, with regard to the needs of the country for mail service; and, if so, what was it? A. I told him all about the business generally. He seemed to understand it pretty well. He wanted to know how far apart we were building stations. I told him. He wanted to know how often the mails would run, and I told him it would be weekly service, I thought. "We have been pent up here two or three years," he says, "with mails from eighteen to twenty days apart, reaching us by the way of Ogden and Bozeman." And he says, "We can get it in seven or eight days over this line." And now I would like to say that he did not say that he knew there would be an increase, but he said he should like to have it increased to three trips a week, or daily, and fifty hours' time. I told him there was no use to try to get it at all; that it could not be done at present; that nobody knew the distance through that country; that we expected to have it measured; that it was claimed by everybody that it was a good deal more than two hundred and fifty and probably over three hundred miles, and nobody would undertake to carry it. Said I, "If you extend it the contractor can throw up his contract and you will be without any mail." He said, "We are going to ask for what we want, but we will take what they will give us."

"Your stations are too far apart; you can't run any fast time with your stations so far apart; you want more stations, and nearer together." The result was that when I went back I met Mr. Pennell, who had built the stations thirty to thirty-five miles apart, and going back we put in intermediate stations. We only carried out lumber enough from Bismarck to build eight or nine stations, for the windows, &c.; we did not think of building any more at that time. Mr. Pennell says the order was to build the stations seventeen to twenty miles apart in going out. That is no such thing. There was not a station built going out closer than thirty to thirty-five miles.

Q. What, if anything, did General Miles say that convinced you that you ought to build stations nearer together?

Then he testifies that on account of what he said he did this, and that he had no instructions from Washington.

That is the testimony. Mr. Bliss endeavored to frighten the witness by stating in his presence that he (Bliss) did not believe General Miles would swear to any such thing, judging, of course, from the conversation that he (Mr. Bliss) had had with General Miles. Notwithstanding that threat, John W. Dorsey, confident that he was telling the truth, knowing that he was telling the truth, told his story, and the Government never brought General Miles to contradict him.

Now, the next thing about John W. Dorsey is the conversation that he had with some men in July or August out on the road, that I have spoken to you about before. Nothing could be more perfectly improbable. It may be that he did tell some man that he was a brother of Senator Dorsey, and, perhaps, he did say that if he got into a tight place or hard up for money he could borrow money from his brother. I do not know what he may have said on that subject. But, gentlemen, there is not a man on this jury, not one of you, who has the slightest suspicion that John W. Dorsey at that time told those men substantially that his brother was in a conspiracy with the Second Assistant Postmaster-General, and that he, John W. Dorsey, was also a conspirator. There is not one of you who believes that, not one, and you never will. Why not? Because it is so utterly and infinitely unreasonable and absurd. Now, that is the evidence against John W. Dorsey. My attention is called to one other point in his case, and so I will call your attention to it.

Mr. Bliss, gentlemen, on page 243, in speaking of the two affidavits on the Pueblo and Rosita route, says:

We find this extraordinary condition of things. On route 38134, from Pueblo to Rosita, which, I think, is the same route upon which the obliging Mr. John W. Dorsey, as I have just stated to you, was allowed to make the affidavit instead of Mr. Miner.

Now, he goes on to describe these two affidavits, and then he says:

Those two affidavits were before Mr. Brady, made by John W. Dorsey on the same day, and yet Mr. Brady chose to pick out one or the other of them and say, "I believe that as the absolutely conclusive statement of the number of men and animals that are now in use upon that route, and upon that affidavit I will make my order taking from the Treasury thousands of dollars of money." You will see that the first affidavit made the number two men and six animals, making eight as the number of stock and carriers then in use; but the other one called for three men and twelve animals, making fifteen as the number then in use, and, therefore, according as he accepted one or the other, by the rule of three, to which I called your attention just now, there would be twice the amount of money allowed from the Treasury under the one affidavit that there would be under the other.

Just think of that, gentlemen. The number of men and animals then in use has nothing to do with the number of men and animals stated in the other affidavit; those amounts bear no relation to each other. The number of men and animals in use in the first affidavit, and the number that would be necessary on the next schedule, do bear a relation to each other. The number of men and animals on the second affidavit on the then schedule bears relation to the proposed number on the proposed schedule, and not to the number on the other affidavit. And yet Mr. Bliss stood right before you, with those two affidavits that would take the same amount of money out of the Treasury, to a fraction, precisely the same—not the difference of the billionth part of a farthing—and stated to you that one would take twice as much money from the Treasury as the other. You will think that he is as defective in mathematics as in law. I say to you now that the amount that would be taken out of the Treasury on those two affidavits is precisely the same.

I did not think that anybody could excel Mr. Ker in mathematics, but Mr. Bliss bears off the palm. He bean, off the palm even in misstatement, and bears off the palm in mistake. The two affidavits would call for the same amount of money precisely, and yet Mr. Bliss stands up before you and says there is twice as much on one as the other. Now, what is that for? That is to prejudice you: that is all.

Gentlemen, you saw John W. Dorsey; you heard his testimony; you know whether he is a man to be believed. It is for you to judge whether he is honest or dishonest, and I leave his testimony with you. It was direct; it was to the point; and his manner on the stand was absolutely and perfectly honest.

Now, there is another point made. You know you have to think of these things as you can, and step on them and then go on. Another point is made, and it was urged by Mr. Bliss day after day. And what is that? That Mr. Brady took the affidavits of all these men as absolutely true; that he allowed them to fix the limit of the money they would take out of the Treasury; that he allowed interested men to make the affidavits, and then he took the affidavits as absolutely true; that he allowed the contractors themselves to fix the sum they would seize. Now let us see what that is. Mr. Brady swears that he regarded the affidavit as the honest opinion of the man who made it, but not as necessarily true; that he had a standard of his own. Your views upon all such questions, gentlemen, will depend upon which side of human nature you stand—whether you are a believer in total depravity, or whether you think there is a little virtue left in human nature. If you stand on the side of suspicion, if you allow the snake of prejudice to forever whisper in your ear, why, your idea will be that every man is a rascal; and whenever he does a decent action you will say, "This action is a little velvet in the paw for the purpose of covering the claw of some devilment that he has in store." If you judge from that side you can torture any act, no matter what it is, into evidence of guilt. But you may judge from the other side and say that men, as a rule, are decent; that they would rather do a kind act than a mean thing; that they would rather tell the truth than tell a lie. I tell you to-day that there is an immensity of good in human nature. There are hundreds and thousands and millions of men to-day who are honest, who would not for anything stain the whiteness of their souls with a lie. They are laboring-men, it may be, working by the day for a dollar or a dollar and a half, and only taking enough of it to keep life and strength in their bodies and giving the rest to wife and child. And there are battles as grand as were ever won by a celebrated general, and just as bravely fought, with poverty day after day; and the man who fights the battles gains the victory and goes down to the grave with his manhood untarnished. You know it, and so do I. And yet you are all the time told to suspect everything, no matter what it is. There is a flower there; ah, but there is a snake under it! Always making that remark; accounting for every decent looking action by a base motive. That is not my view of human nature.

Now, Mr. Brady says that he had a standard of his own; that he let these men make their statements, and he took their statements as being what they believed to be the truth. And why not? Suppose I say to a man, "What will you take for that horse?" And the man says, "That horse is worth a hundred dollars." Suppose he goes and swears to it; that would not make any difference in the price I would give for the horse, not a bit. You see I am not buying an affidavit, I am buying a horse. So, when Brady says to the contractor, "What will you carry the mail at six miles an hour for?" and the man says "Twenty-five thousand dollars," and he swears to it, Brady is not buying the affidavit; it is the service. If he does not believe the service is worth that much, he says, "I can't do it," and that is all. But they say "No; that is not what Brady did."

Now, as a matter of fact, there are nineteen routes in this indictment, and I believe eighteen of them were expedited. I have made a calculation for the purpose of showing that the amount to be paid was a matter of bargain; that it was a matter talked over between the parties; that it was the result of agreement, and that Mr. Brady did not take the affidavit as the actual amount, and that they were not bound to take the amount that he actually said. Now, I have deducted what was allowed from what could have been allowed on the affidavits, and I find that the price did not depend upon the affidavits. I find that there was a difference between the amount called for by the affidavits and the amount granted of over three hundred thousand dollars. And yet these gentlemen say to you that Brady allowed the men who made the affidavits absolutely to fix the amount. Gentlemen, that will not do. It was a matter of agreement, a matter of bargain, the same as any other agreement or any other bargain.

Now, gentlemen, suppose they had had a conspiracy and said, "We want to get all the money we can out of the Treasury." They would have agreed upon a per cent.; they would have had all those affidavits showing substantially the same per cent., wouldn't they? Because they would have wanted harmony in it. They would have said, "It won't do for you to make an affidavit on that route with one thousand two hundred per cent., on this route with five hundred, on that route with two hundred and twenty per cent., and on the other route with three hundred and forty per cent. That won't do; that is nonsense; we are in a conspiracy and we want all these things to agree and harmonize." And the result would have been that they would have had about the same per cent, in all those affidavits. And yet those affidavits vary in per cent, all the way from two hundred and twenty to one thousand two hundred. They say, "Result of conspiracy." I do not look at it in that way.

It is also claimed that the persons who sold out—that is to say, John M. Peck and John W. Dorsey—agreed to make the necessary papers that the other parties required. That being so, why should not affidavits have been made in blank? Now, I ask you if the other parties were willing to swear to anything that these men would write, why were they made that way? Why not avoid the suspicious circumstance of blanks and put the amount in at first, knowing that the men would not hesitate to swear? Of what use was it, gentlemen, to have an affidavit suspiciously made, to have blanks suspiciously left, when the men were willing to swear to any numbers they would put in? Why did not the parties who made the affidavits write in the amounts? Does not that very fact, that blanks were left, show that they were to take the judgment of the men who were to do the swearing? Why would they leave blanks? Why did they not fill them up at the time and have them sworn to?

Why were they not continuously written? That is another point, if this was a conspiracy. Guilt is always conscious that it is guilty. Guilt is always suspecting detection. Guilt is infinitely suspicious. Guilt would make all the papers as nearly right as possible. Guilt would look out for erasures. Guilt would abhor blots. Guilt would have avoided having blanks filled in with different colored inks. Guilt would want everything fitting everything else, nothing to excite suspicion. Innocence is negligent. The man with honest intentions is the one that does not care. But the guilty man does not travel in the snow. He wants no tracks left.

Now, another thing: The fact that no effort was made to have the affidavits in the same handwriting, no effort to have the blanks apparently filled at the same time, that they were interlined, that there were erasures—all those things tend to show that the parties were honest in what they did. It was just as easy to have one without an erasure as with it; ii was just as easy to have one continuously written as to have the blanks filled up; just as easy to have one without any interlineations as with it. And yet these parties, knowing that they were conspirators (according to these gentlemen), Mr. Brady occupying a high and responsible position, were so careless of their reputations, that they did not even endeavor to make the papers passable upon their face.

Another thing: These very routes were investigated by Congress in 1878—this very business. If the parties at that time had been conscious of guilt, why were any suspicious papers left on file? Why were not others substituted that had no suspicious interlineations, no suspicious erasures, no suspicious blanks that had been filed? Why were these very affidavits at that time reported to Congress?

The first investigation was in 1878, and on account of that investigation the contractors for about a month and a half were left. Then there was another investigation in 1880.

Mr. Merrick. Is there any evidence that they were all reported to Congress?

Mr. Ingersoll. I think so; I think that is here in the record. I understand the evidence to be that it was all reported to Congress.

Mr. Merrick. The investigation of 1880 was general, and not as to these particular routes.

Mr. Ingersoll. In 1878 there was a special investigation growing out of these Clendenning bonds and out of the Peck bids, and out of the connection that they said Stephen W. Dorsey had with this business. That is what it grew out of. Now, in the light of that investigation, let us take it for granted for one moment that according to their statement the parties had conspired. If anything on earth would make them afraid about papers I think it would have been that investigation; and yet no effort was made to conceal one, not the slightest.

Then we will go another step. General Brady was Second Assistant Postmaster-General. All these papers were absolutely in his power. He could have called for them at any time. Every suspicious paper could have been destroyed or an unsuspicious one substituted for it.

Now, I want to know if it is conceivable that General Brady, under these charges, when the new administration came in, under the threat of the Government, would voluntarily leave those papers upon the files if they had been dishonest and he knew it?

Take another step. So far as we have learned from the prosecution I believe there is one paper claimed by them to have been lost. They do claim that there was a second affidavit on the Bismarck and Tongue River route. One is gone and one remains. Which remains? The affidavit for one hundred and fifty men and one hundred and fifty horses. It seems to me absolutely capable of demonstration that we did not take the one that is gone. Had we been going to take anything we would have taken the one for one hundred and fifty men and one hundred and fifty horses, and left the other. But the other, about which nobody ever did complain, was taken, and the one upon which they build their great argument of fraud upon that route was left. And then it turned out that General Brady only allowed forty per cent, of that affidavit.

Now, this prosecution was not begun in a moment. It was talked about for weeks and months, I might almost say for years. Talk, talk, talk in the papers everywhere. These men were not suddenly charged with this offence. They understood it; they knew it. I think I have been engaged in this suit, or suits growing out of this business, for two years. It was a matter of slow growth. Mr. Brady retired, I believe, some time in April, 1881, knowing at that time that these charges had been made and that the charges were being pressed. Mr. Dorsey knew it at the same time. All these defendants knew it. Now they say that at that time we were in conspiracy with Mr. Brady, and they say that at that time we were in conspiracy with Mr. Turner. We had the papers in our power.

Now, if Mr. Dorsey was wicked enough to conspire, if Mr. Brady was villainous enough to conspire, I ask you whether they would have left behind the evidence of their conspiracy? Why were the papers left? Because General Brady never dreamed that one of them was dishonest.

Why did not Vaile and Miner, John W. Dorsey and Peck and Stephen W. Dorsey ask for the papers? Because they believed every one to be honest, and they had no use for them. They were willing that the Government should make out of them what it could. I ask again, is it conceivable that John R. Miner, if he knew there was on the files of the department a petition that he had changed, that he had erased, that he had interlined or forged, is it conceivable, if he had been wicked enough to enter into the conspiracy, that he would have been foolish enough to leave the paper there? Would he not have gone to Brady and said to him, "I conspired; you know it; I changed the petition, and I want it; I erased a word in a petition, I want it; I signed a name to a petition, I want it"? And Brady would have said, "Yes, and you ought to have called for it long ago; you can have it." If S. W. Dorsey had interlined an affidavit or had filled a blank, if S. W. Dorsey had made an erasure or an interlineation, he, of course, must have known it, and if he conspired with Brady he must have known it, and he must have gone to General Brady and said, "I want that affidavit on such a route; we can write another, and I want that; I want that petition;" and it would have been given. You cannot conceive of such infinite stupidity as to say that those people knew that those papers were dishonest, and that they still left them on file as weapons for their enemies. You cannot do it.

So much, gentlemen, for the affidavits, and so much for the papers.

Now, there is another question, and I have no doubt that you have asked it yourselves. It has been asked a great many times by the prosecution. That question is this: Why did Dorsey retain Rerdell in his employ after the 20th of June, 1881? These gentleman tell you that it is evidence of guilt that he did it. I will tell you why he did it. At that time the public mind was almost infinitely excited on this question. At that time the public was ready to believe anything. It had its mouth wide open, like a young robin, ready for worms or shingle-nails—it made no difference—anything that dropped in. Every newspaper was charging that these defendants were guilty, that Stephen W. Dorsey was a conspirator, that millions had been taken from the Treasury, and there were nearly as many mistakes in the press then as in the speech of Mr. Bliss now. But I can excuse that, because it was before the evidence. Now, what was Mr. Dorsey to do in the then state of the public mind? That man, no matter how bad he was, how base he was, had the power to have him indicted. That man could have gone before the grand jury and had Mr. Dorsey or any other public man indicted in the then state of excitement and feeling of the public. What was the result of his going even to James and MacVeagh? I believe Mr. Turner says that on account of the statement of this man Rerdell, he (Turner) was turned out of his office. That is the effect. What became of McGrew? What became of Lilley? What became of Lake? What became of twenty or thirty other officials upon whose reputation this man had breathed the poison of slander? Stephen W. Dorsey at that time knew that that man in the then state of public excitement was powerful for mischief. That man made the affidavit of June, 1881, at the request of James W. Bosler, as he himself says, and swore that he went to the Government simply to find out the Government's secrets; swore that he was still upon the side of Stephen W. Dorsey; took back what he had said, and swore that it was a lie. The question then was what to do with him? Stephen W. Dorsey made up his mind not to do anything more, just to let him alone, just let him stay as he was. That was the wise course. It was the course that any wise man, in my judgment, would have pursued under the circumstances. What else could he do? Let him alone. Let him alone. He did not at that time expect that he would ever be indicted. He shrank from an indictment, as every sensitive man does, because when you have indicted a man you have put a stain upon him that even the verdict of not guilty does not altogether remove. He did not want that stain. He was a man of power; he was a man of position, a man of social and political standing, a man wielding as much influence as any other one man in the United States. He did not wish to be indicted. He did not wish his reputation to be soiled and stained. And so he allowed that man to stay where he was. He may have made a mistake, but whether mistake or not, that is what he did.

There is another question. Why did we fail to produce our books and papers? I will tell you. The notice to produce them was given to us on the 13th day of February. We had noticed curious motions. Two days afterwards, Mr. Rerdell went on the stand. What did they want the books and papers for? For Mr. Rerdell to look at. Why did he want to look at the books and papers? To stake out his testimony. He hated to depend upon his memory. We took the responsibility of letting the witness swear to the contents of the books and papers, and let them call that secondary evidence. We took that responsibility rather than to furnish the books and papers to be looked at by that man in order that he might make no mistakes in his testimony. What happened afterwards justified our course. If we had shown to him the books and papers, and checks, and stubs, do you think he would have made any mistake about that seven thousand five hundred dollar check? Would he have said that he went with Dorsey, and that Dorsey drew the money, and that he looked over his shoulder, and that then he and Dorsey walked down to the Post-Office Department, if he had known that that check was drawn to his order? If he had known before he swore, that he indorsed that check, he would have said he went down and got the money himself; he would not have said that Dorsey did. He would have made no mistakes there. He would not have been driven into the corner of saying "stub" or "stubs," "checkbook" or "check-books," "amount" or "amounts." No, sir. And that one thing justified absolutely the wisdom of our course.

Then the Court decided that, having failed to produce our books on notice and allowed the other side to introduce secondary evidence of their contents, we would not be allowed then to produce them. I insisted that we had the right then to produce them, and the Court decided that we had not. We took the responsibility of refusing, and we took that responsibility because we made up our minds that we would not allow that man to look over the books, checks, and stubs for the purpose of manufacturing his testimony.

The Court. Where did you offer to produce the books?

Mr. Merrick. Where did you offer the production of the books? That is just what I was about to ask.

Mr. Carpenter. The Court said we could not.

Mr. Merrick. Where did you make the offer?

The Court. I want to know.

Mr. Carpenter. Mr. Ingersoll did not say he made the offer.

Mr. Merrick. I think he did.

The Court. I think he did.

Mr. Carpenter. Just read it, Mr. Stenographer. He says nothing of the kind.

The Stenographer, (reading)

I insisted that we had the right then to produce them, and the Court decided that we had not.

Mr. Ingersoll. That is exactly what I say.

The Court. The Court did not give any intimation at that time, but after that point in the trial had passed, several days, several weeks, I think, the attention of the Court was called to this question, and the Court remarked, in the course of the opinion, that it understood the law to be that after a party, upon whom notice had been given to produce books, had failed to produce the books, and the other side had given secondary evidence, then the Court would not allow the party having the books to produce them for the purpose of contradicting the secondary evidence.

Mr. Ingersoll. That is all I claim.

The Court. But there was no such offer made, so far as I recollect.

Mr. Ingersoll. Why should we make the offer after your Honor had decided that we could not do it?

Mr. Merrick. I will answer the question. Because whether it would have been accepted or not was a question for the counsel for the Government when the offer was made. And again, the learned counsel will recollect that after the notice was given, when S. W. Dorsey was on the stand on cross-examination, I demanded those books and those stubs, and he asked leave to consult his counsel. The Court denied that request, and then there was a peremptory refusal to produce any book or any paper.

The Court. Oh, yes. Mr. Ingersoll and Mr. Davidge repeatedly announced to the Court that they were not going to produce books to assist the prosecution.

Mr. Ingersoll. Yes; I said that twenty times, and the Court, as I understood it, held that after we had refused to produce the books and driven the other party to secondary evidence, we could not then produce the books.

The Court. You made no offer to produce the books.

Mr. Ingersoll. I resisted the opinion of the Court and made the best argument I could, but the Court said that was not the law.

The Court. The remark of the Court arose upon an argument on the part of Mr. Ingersoll, and if I am not mistaken, upon the effect of the refusal to produce the books and papers, Mr. Ingersoll contending that there was no presumption against his client on account of the refusal to produce the books and papers, and that the jury ought to be instructed that the only effect of refusing to produce the books and papers was to leave the case upon the secondary evidence.

Mr. Ingersoll. I am not referring to that discussion, nor to that decision of your Honor; I am referring to the decision you made during the trial.

The Court. That was the only occasion since this trial began, in which the Court referred to that rule of law which denied the right to introduce primary evidence for the purpose of contradicting the secondary evidence, after the primary evidence had been withheld in the first instance.

Mr. Ingersoll. Of course, I am not absolutely certain, I never am; but I will endeavor to find in the record exactly what you said on that subject.

And now, in order that we may be perfectly correct, and in order to show, too, how easy it is to be mistaken, Mr. Merrick just said upon that very subject of the books and papers, that while Mr. Dorsey was upon the stand, he asked leave to consult his counsel. If Mr. Merrick will read the testimony he will find that Mr. Dorsey made that remark when he was asked about the affidavit of June 20, 1881.

Mr. Merrick. You are right.

Mr. Ingersoll. That just shows how easy it is to make a mistake when it comes to a matter of recollection.

Mr. Merrick. I think it was upon a question of the insertion of the change in the character of the affidavit—its being addressed to the President; and when I asked him if he had not made that change he asked leave to consult his counsel. For the moment I thought it was upon the books. But the substance still remains, that, on the question of the books, I asked him on his cross-examination—and the counsel will state his recollection to be the same—about the stubs and the books, and called upon him to produce them, and the counsel replied, "We will not."

Mr. Ingersoll. I presume I did. I made that reply a good many times.

Mr. Merrick. Will the counsel be frank enough to state when that decision was made?

Mr. Ingersoll. Which decision?

Mr. Merrick. When he was on the stand on cross-examination.

Mr. Ingersoll. And I said we would not produce them?

Mr. Merrick. After the testimony in chief and Rerdell was gone.

Mr. Ingersoll. Then I said we would not produce them. And now I will say that the decision of the Court was made before that time that we could not produce them, and if I do not show it then I will publicly take it back.

The Court. I do not think you can show it.

Mr. Ingersoll. If I do not, then I will beg your Honor's pardon, and if I do—if I do—Now, I think what happened afterwards in this case with that very witness justifies the course that we pursued. He also stated at the time that we had, I believe, some twenty thousand pages of letters on all possible subjects to a great number of people. We knew that there was a spirit abroad—and some of it in a part of the prosecution—to find something against somebody else somewhere. We made up our minds that our private books and correspondence never should be ransacked by this Department of Justice. We took the consequences, and we are willing to take them. We say that the inference from our refusal is an inference of fact, and must be decided by the jury, and is not an inference of law.

We have been asked a good many times why we did not put James W. Bosler on the stand. The prosecution subpoenaed Mr. Bosler. They appeared to have an affection for him. They subpoenaed him, and he came here. Afterwards they issued an attachment for him. They had him, arrested at midnight and brought here. He gave some testimony, and you will find it on page 2611.

Mr. Merrick. I do not know that there was an attachment.

Mr. Ingersoll. You know you have a right to prove things by circumstances. Now, it is said that he put the marshal out of the house; I think that is evidence tending to show that an attachment was issued.

Mr. Ker. And kept him out with a club.

The Court. I understood also that Mr. Dorsey kicked somebody else out of his house about the same time.

Mr. Ingersoll. Oh, yes; it has been a very lively term of court.

There were two very important things that they were to prove by Mr. Bosler, and they were patting him on the back here for weeks. Friendship sprang up between them. It was a very young plant at first, but the Bosler ivy grew upon the oak of the prosecution. I saw him sitting here, everything delightful. The prosecution, I hoped, began to flatter itself that Mr. Bosler was on their side; I hoped that was so. Finally they put Mr. Bosler on the stand. What did they want to prove by him? That Dorsey wrote a letter to him on the 13th of May, 1879, telling how much money he had given to Brady; that is one thing they wanted to prove by him. The second thing was that Rerdell had written a letter to Bosler, I believe, on the 20th of May or 22d of May, 1880, stating that he (Rerdell) had been subpoenaed to go before the Congressional committee and take his books and papers; that he got very much frightened; that he had taken the advice of Brady and got a very valuable suggestion from Brady, which he was going to follow. They wanted to prove that by Mr. Bosler.

Rerdell had already sworn that Dorsey sent a letter to Bosler on the 13th of May, 1879. Rerdell had sworn to the contents of that letter; that the contents were that he had paid Brady so much money, &c., which you remember, and then that he, in 1880, had written a letter to Mr. Bosler, and I believe he pretended to have a copy of it. Now, here comes Bosler's testimony, on page 2611.

Q. Have you made a search among your papers to find a letter alleged to have been written to you by Stephen W. Dorsey, and dated on or about the 13th of May, 1879?—Yes, sir.

That is the letter that Rerdell swore about.

Q. Have you searched?—A. I have.

Q. Did you find it?-A. No, sir.

Q. Have you made search for a letter purporting to have been written by him to you, and dated on or about the 22d of May, 1880?—A. Yes, sir.

Q. Did you find that letter?—A. I did not.

The Court: Was there ever such a letter?

Bosler replied: "There never was such a letter received by me."

There is the testimony of Mr. Bosler, and on that testimony the two letters of May 13, 1879, and May 22, 1880, turn to dust and ashes.

Now, they say, "Why didn't you put Bosler on?" Not much necessity of Mr. Bosler after that. And besides, gentlemen, I believe I will take you into my confidence just a little bit. The evidence of Rerdell as to the affidavit of June 20, 1881, and the affidavit of July 13, 1882 (an affidavit in which he swore that there was nothing against Mr. Bosler, an affidavit that was made apparently for the benefit of Bosler), all that evidence, the evidence of Mr. Stephen W. Dorsey upon those questions, advertised the prosecution that Mr. Bosler knew of many circumstances; that he was present a portion of the time, and I did not know but finally the prosecution would get so much confidence in Mr. Bosler that they would call him. I was hoping they would. They did not. It did not work quite as I expected. That is all there is about that.

Now, there is one further point to which I wish to call your attention. I want you to remember that a partnership is not a conspiracy, although all the facts about a partnership are consistent with the idea of a conspiracy up to a certain point; and all the facts about a conspiracy are consistent with a partnership up to a certain point. The fact that men act together does not show that they have conspired; does not show that they have a wicked design. The fact that they are engaged in the same business does not show that they have a wicked design or that they are there by conspiracy. In other words, I want your minds so that you will distinguish between a fact that may be innocent, and generally is innocent, and a fact that must be evidence of guilt. I want you to distinguish between the facts common to all partnerships, common to all agreements, and those facts that necessarily imply a criminal intent. If you wil do that gentlemen, you will have but little trouble.

[At this point a volume of the report of the trial was handed up to the Court by Mr. Ingersoll with a reference to a certain page].

The Court. Without looking at the book I take risk of saying that the Court never announced its opinion on that question until the case referred to a few moments ago.

Mr. Ingersoll. I just gave my memory on the subject. It does not make any great difference in this case, of course.

Mr. Carpenter. This is during the cross-examination of Rerdell.

The Court. Yes, the Court did state on that occasion:

That is not the point here. If they are allowed to go on and cross-examine this way without the production of the books, they cannot contradict the witness afterwards by producing the books.

I had forgotten that I had announced it twice.

Mr. Ingersoll. If the Court please, I did not want to bring this up, because I knew you had, and so I thought I would slip you the book and let you off easy.

The Court. I do not think it weakens the position at all that the same announcement has been made twice instead of once.

Mr. Carpenter. We thought it made it stronger.

The Court. Still, the books were not produced.

Mr. Ingersoll. Now, if the Court please, I am not arguing—

The Court. [Interposing.] I will leave you to the jury.

Mr. Ingersoll. Your Honor knows that I have always shown great modesty about trying to do anything against any decision.

The Court. I do not dispute that.

Mr. Ingersoll. Now, the next question, gentlemen, is what is meant by corroboration? If you tell a man that he is not a great painter, he does not get angry. He says he does not pretend to paint, or is not a great sculptor. But if you tell him he has no logic, he loses his temper. Yet logic is perhaps the rarest quality of the human mind. There are thousands of painters and sculptors where there is one logician. A man swears, for instance, that he went down to a man's house in the morning at six o'clock, and that Mr. Thomas was standing just in front of the house, and when he went in the dog tried to bite him, and that after he got in he had such and such conversation. Now, there are thousands of people who have brains of that quality that they think the fact that he did go there at six o'clock in the morning, and did see Mr. Thomas standing out in front of the house, and especially the fact that the dog did try to bite him, is a corroboration of the conversation that took place in the house. There are just such people. In this case, for instance, in Mr. Brady's matter, they say that the fact of Walsh being in his house is important. Suppose that he was, what of it? Is that corroboration? Corroboration must be on the very point in dispute. It must be the very hinge of the question. Then it is corroboration, if the question is what did the man say. It is not corroboration to prove that the man was there unless the man swears that he was not there. Then the inference is drawn that if he would lie about being there he might lie about what he said.

Now, understand me. They will say, for instance, "Here is an affidavit, and these blanks have been filled up. Rerdell says they were filled up, and he says they were filled up after they were sworn to." Now, the fact that the affidavit is there and that the blanks are filled up is not corroboration, because the point to be corroborated is that it was done after it was sworn to. And so the existence of the affidavit, while it is necessary, is no corroboration; the filling up of the blank is no corroboration; its being on file is no corroboration. Why? The point to be corroborated is not that the blanks were filled, but that they were filled after the paper had been sworn to! That is the point. And when they begin to talk to you about corroboration I want you to have it in your minds all the time that to be corroborated about an immaterial matter is nothing; it has nothing to do with the question; but there must be corroboration on the very heart of the point at issue!

There is another thing, gentlemen. It does not make any difference what I say about this man, or that man, or the other man, unless there is reason in what I say. If I tell you that the evidence of a witness is not worthy of belief, I must tell you why. I must give you the reason. If I simply say the witness is a perjurer, that shows that I either underrate your sense, or have none of my own, because that is not calculated to convince any human mind one way or the other. You are not to take my statement; you are to take the evidence, and such reasons as I give, and only such as appeal to your good sense. If I say, "You must not believe that man," I must give you the reason why. If the reason I give is a good one, you will act upon it. If it is a bad one I cannot make it better by piling epithet upon epithet. There is no logic in abuse; there is no argument in an epithet.

And there is another thing. An attorney has a certain privilege; he is protected by the court. He is given almost absolute liberty of speech, and it is a privilege that he never should abuse. He should remember if he attacks a defendant, that the defendant cannot open his mouth. He should remember that it does not take as much courage to attack, as it does not to attack. He should remember, too, that by the use of epithets, by abuse, that he is appealing to the lowest and basest part of every juror's head and heart. It is on a low level. It is a fight with the club of a barbarian instead of with an intellectual cimeter. There is no logic in abuse. There is no argument in epithet. Remember that. The weight and worth of an argument is the effect it has upon an unprejudiced mind, and that is all it is worth. Therefore I do not want you, gentlemen, to be carried away by any assault that may be made—I do not say that any will be made—but any that may be made, that is not absolutely justified by the evidence.

There has been one little thing said during this trial; that is, about the testimony of defendants. I believe Mr. Bliss takes the ground that you cannot believe a defendant; that defendants cannot be believed unless they are corroborated. Mr. Bliss has the kindness to put the defendants in this case on an equality with his witness Rerdell. Gentlemen, you cannot believe any witness unless his evidence is reasonable. Every witness has to be corroborated by the naturalness of his story. Every witness is to be corroborated by his manner upon the stand and by the thousand little indications that catch the eye of a juror or of a judge or of an attorney. Congress has passed a law allowing defendants to swear when they are put upon trial. Will you tell me that that law is a net, a snare, and a delusion, and the moment a defendant takes the stand the prosecution is to say, "Of course he will lie"? Why do they say that? Because he is a defendant, and you cannot believe a word that he says; he is swearing in his own behalf. There is that same low, slimy view of human nature again, that a defendant who swears in his own behalf must swear falsely. I do not take that view. The defendant has the same right upon the stand that anybody else has, and if his character is not good his character can be attacked; it can be impeached by the prosecution precisely as you would impeach the reputation of any other witness. If he tells a story which is reasonable you will believe it, and you will believe it notwithstanding he is a defendant and notwithstanding he has an interest in the verdict. In old times they would not allow a man to swear at all if he had the interest of a cent in any civil suit. They would not allow him to testify when he was on trial for his own liberty and his own life. That was barbarism. The enemy—the man who hated him—he could tell his story, but the man attacked, the man defending his own liberty and his own life, his mouth was closed and sealed. We have gotten over that barbarism in nearly all the States of this Union, and now we say, "Let every man tell his story; don't allow any avenue to truth to be closed; let us hear all sides, and whatever is reasonable take as the truth, and what is unreasonable throw away." And, gentlemen, let me say here that it is not your business to go to work picking a witness's testimony all apart and saying, "Well, I guess there is a little scrap now that there is some truth in," or "here is a line, and I guess that is so, but the next eleven lines I do not believe; the next sentence, I think, will do." That is not the way to do. If a witness is of that character you must throw his entire evidence to the winds, for it is tainted and the fountains of justice should not be tainted with such evidence, and a verdict should not be touched and corrupted with such testimony. You will take the evidence of these defendants as you would take that of any other man, and it is for you to say whether that evidence is true. It is for you to say that.

If corroboration was so necessary why were not their witnesses corroborated? Why didn't they call Mr. Bosler to corroborate their witness?

Now, one of the defendants in this case is Mr. John R. Miner, and I want you to think of the terrible things they have against him. One of the charges made against him is that he wrote a petition and wrote in six names attached to it. His explanation is, that if he did anything of that kind it was because he received a petition which was so worn that it could not be presented, and he copied it, and that the six names were found on that petition. There was no other way on earth for him to get those names, and we find them on the same route in, I believe, seven other petitions which were filed; we find that those very names are on the other petitions, and I think Mr. Hall's name—the one the most trouble was made about—was on three or four petitions of the other kind.

Mr. Carpenter. He admitted that he wrote them.

Mr. Ingersoll. Yes; Hall admitted that he wrote them. But I believe this petition was never filed in the department.

I think Mr. Woodward said he found it among the papers at some other place.

There is a petition called the Utah petition that has some names in Utah. I think Mr. Woodward swore that he tound it in room No. 22 or 23.

Mr. Merrick. In the case itself, in the department.

Mr. Ingersoll. Yes; but it has no file mark. Mr. Woodward says he does not now remember how it got in there. As I was about to remark, there was a petition called the Utah petition with some names of persons living off the route, I believe—two or three sheets. The petition itself was genuine, and was indorsed, I believe, by Senators Slater and Grover and by Congressman Whiteaker. Now, then, how did these names come in there? The petition is ample without those names; large enough. I will tell you what I think. I think that it is a part of another petition, and that it was the result of an accident. I think it was done in the Post-Office Department, not intentionally, but as an accident. The evidence is that they kept three routes in one pigeonhole, and that the papers sometimes got mixed; that is Mr. Brewer's testimony. A very strange thing happened to that petition. While it was before this jury it came apart again. And if some clerk not absolutely familiar with the papers had taken it up, he would have been just as liable to put it on the wrong petition as on the right one. My plan is to account for a thing in some way consistent with evidence, if I naturally can. I do not go out of my way hunting for evidence of crime. And when there was a petition, large enough, with a plenty of genuine names on it, I cannot imagine anybody would go and get names from any other petition and paste them on to that. But being in this same country, and the testimony being that they had three of these routes in one pigeon-hole, my idea is that the papers got mixed and mingled sometimes, and I say the probability is that it was an accident. That is the best way to account for it. If Miner had known that that petition was there that he had made, would he have allowed it to stay there? Why would he want to do such a thing if he was in a conspiracy with Brady? Why would he have to resort to perjury and interlineation in order to get Brady to make orders that he, Brady, had conspired to make? Absurdity cannot go beyond that. Here is the doctrine: "I have conspired with the Second Assistant Postmaster-General. He will do anything for me that I want. Now, I will go and forge some petitions." That seems to me perfectly idiotic. This petition was indorsed by Senators Grover and Slater and Congressman Whiteaker.

Then, there is another petition; that one I showed you this morning, with the words "schedule thirteen hours," and the evidence was (that is, if you call what Rerdell stated evidence) that Miner wrote the words "schedule thirteen hours." I have shown you, this morning, those words, and without any other particle of argument I want to leave it to you who wrote those words—whether Rerdell wrote them or Miner.

Then, there is another wonderful thing about that petition. It is not on any of the routes in this indictment, and has no business here—I mean the Ehrenberg petition. The one I spoke of was the Kearney and Kent.

The next petition is the Ehrenberg and Mineral Park. They say that there has been some word erased and another written in. Nobody pretends that it is not a genuine petition. Nobody pretends that it was not signed by every one of the persons by whom it purports to be signed. Then, another peculiarity; it is not on any route in this indictment, and has no more to do with this case than the last leaf of the Mormon Bible; not the least.

Let us see if they have any more of these terrible things. Here is petition 2 A, on the Kearney and Kent route. That is the petition that has the words "schedule thirteen hours."

That is the one indorsed by Senator Saunders. Petition 18 K, on the route from Ehrenberg to Mineral Park, is not a route in this case. It turned out that the names on it are genuine, and the genuineness of the petition has not been challenged. The only point made is that the word "Ehrenberg" has been written by somebody else. There is no evidence to show that the petition was not properly signed; that the persons on there did not sign their names or authorize somebody else to do it. The probability is there may have been some mistake in the name, or it may have been misspelled. There was some mistake made, and the word "Ehrenberg" was written in. On page 4186 Mr. Miner swears positively that in regard to the petition 2 A he never wrote the words "schedule thirteen hours."

Then, there is another petition, I think it is on page 1247, the Camp McDermitt petition. There are the words "ninety-six hours." And they get that down there to a fine point. Mr. Boone swore that he did not know who wrote the word "ninety," but that Miner wrote the word "six.." Well, that is too fine a point, gentlemen, to put on handwriting. It seems there is an interlineation there of the words "ninety-six," and they say they do not know who wrote the word "ninety" and that Miner wrote the word "six." But Miner swears that he did not write it at all.

Now, then, you take away the evidence of Mr. Rerdell as to Miner, and what is left? The evidence left is that of A. W. Moore. And what is that? It is that Miner instructed him to get up false petitions. This was the first time he ever went out. But Moore swore that he made arrangements to do what Miner instructed him to do; that he made such arrangements with Major; but Major swears he did not. Moore swore that he made some arrangement with McBean, and the Government did not ask McBean whether he did or not, but I will show that he did not. The testimony shows that on the first trip, at the time he saw Major, he did not see McBean. Now, just see. He swore, in the first place, that he made that arrangement with Major and McBean. I find afterwards that his evidence shows that he did not see McBean on the first trip, but he did see him on the second.

On page 1408 we find that when Moore went West the second time—when he left here and had made a bargain with Dorsey for one-quarter interest in his route, and Miner told him to go West and let Dorsey's routes go to the devil, and he said he would, and never notified Dorsey that he was going to do it—that man comes here now and swears that he made a contract with Dorsey for one-quarter interest, and then started West and made a contract with Miner, letting Dorsey's routes go. He did not have the decency to even notify Dorsey that he was going to do so. That is the man. On the first trip he did not agree with anybody about petitions. Now, understand my point, because it kills Mr. Moore again. We have to keep killing these people—keep killing them. It is something like the boy who was found pounding a woodchuck. He was pounding him away in the road with all his might, and a man came along and said to him, "What are you pounding that woodchuck for?" He said, "Oh, I am just pounding him." "But," the man said, "he is dead." "Yes, I know it," said the boy, "but I am pounding him to show him that there is punishment after death."

Now, on page 1408, we find that this man Moore went to the West a second time. I have shown you that the first time, he swears that he did not see McBean at all. He saw Major and made the arrangement with him, he says. Major swears that he did not. They do not put McBean on the stand. Now, he goes a second time.

On the second trip, he says he had nothing to do with the petition business at all, and did not explain the petition business to anybody because he had not the time, and on the first trip did not see McBean at all. And yet he swears that he made an arrangement with McBean about these very petitions. The proof that he did not see Mc-Bean on his first trip is found on page 1398.

There is one other point about which we have heard an immensity of talk and upon which a great deal of air has been wasted, and that is, that there was a bargain that Brady was to have fifty per cent, of all the fines that he remitted. In other words, that he made a bargain with his co-conspirators that if he fined them a thousand dollars and then remitted it, that he was to have five hundred dollars or one-half of that fine. That is a nice bargain; for me to put myself in the power of a man and say, "Now, you fine me what you want to, and then if you will take it off, I will give you half of it." It seems to me that that would be quite an inducement for him to fine me. Yet, here is a man who makes a bargain that Brady may impose a fine upon them and that he may have half of it back—that is, upon their doctrine, although they have never proved it, but they state it just the same as though they had. But here are the facts. Here are the fines and deductions on twelve routes. The fines amount to eighty-nine thousand six hundred and thirty-eight dollars and twenty-two cents and the remissions amount to seven thousand four hundred and twenty-eight dollars and fifty-four cents; that is all. And yet they pretend that we had a bargain. Now, come to the mail routes, and we find that the fines amounted to sixty-one thousand two hundred and thirty-two dollars and twenty cents and all that they could get their co-conspirators to take off of that (although according to the doctrine of the prosecution they were to have fifty per cent.) was thirteen thousand eight hundred and fifty dollars and sixteen cents. That was all they could get off. There are the figures. There has been talk enough on that subject, but all the air that wraps the earth could not answer those facts. Words enough to wear out all human lips could not change those facts. Fines eighty-nine thousand dollars, remissions seven thousand dollars; fines sixty-one thousand dollars, remissions thirteen thousand dollars. And yet they pretend that he had a bargain by which he had fifty per cent, of all he remitted. I need not make any more argument on that point.

There have been one or two things in this trial that I have regretted, and one I find in Mr. Ker's speech. And I find frequent reference to it in other places, and that is the blindness of S. W. Dorsey. Affidavits were made by Drs. Marmion, Bliss, and Sowers that Mr. Dorsey had lost at least eleven-twelfths of his vision. And yet it has been constantly thrown out to you that it was a ruse, a device, and I believe Mr. Ker said in his speech that Mr. Dorsey saw a paper in Mr. Merrick's hand, Mr. Merrick, I believe, holding a balance-sheet from the German-American Savings Bank—a paper several feet wide or long—and because Mr. Dorsey said to him, "I believe you have it in your hand," why they said this man is pretending to be blind. His testimony was that he had been in a dark room for three months; that his eyes had not been visited by one ray of light for three months, and that for six months he had not read a solitary word. And yet the prosecution sneeringly pretended that there was nothing the matter with his eyes. They subpoenaed Dr. Marmion, but they dare not put him on the stand. They threw out hints and innuendoes that these doctors had sworn falsely, but they dare not put it to the test. It seems that nothing in the world can satisfy them about Stephen W. Dorsey except to see him convicted, except to have them put their feet upon his neck. Gentlemen, you never will enjoy that pleasure. You never will while the world swings in its orbit find twelve honest men to convict Stephen W. Dorsey—never. This Government may put forth its utmost power; it may spend every dollar in its Treasury; it may hire all the ingenuity and brain of the country, and it can never find twelve men who will put Stephen W. Dorsey in the penitentiary—never, and you might as well give it up one time as another. Try it year after year; poison the mind of the entire public with the newspapers; get all the informers you can; bring all the witnesses you can find; put all of those whom you call accomplices on the stand, and I give you notice that it never can be done, and I want you to know it. Spend your millions, and you will end where you start. As long as the average man runs there will always be one or two honest men in a dozen; so you cannot convict one of these defendants. Go on, but it will never be accomplished.

There is one other thing which perhaps may be worth noticing. I believe that they proved by Mr. Dorsey that he wrote an account of his relation to this business, and published it in the New York Herald. The only point with which Mr. Merrick quarreled in that entire paper was the statement that Peck was a large contractor, and when Dorsey was put on the stand he explained that while Peck had not many routes in his own name, that he was the partner of a man named Chidester. That is the only thing of which he complained, and yet that communication pretended to tell the relation that Dorsey sustained to this entire business, and if that had not accorded precisely with Dorsey's testimony on the stand every word of it would have been read to you again and again. And Mr. Ker says that letter was written for the purpose of poisoning public opinion. Was the letter of the Attorney-General of the United States, written just before this trial began, written to bias public opinion also?

Mr. Merrick. Is there any evidence of that letter in this trial? If not I object to any reference to it.

The Court, You cannot refer to that, because it is not in the case.

Mr. Ingersoll. I take it back. Was Dickson indicted to bias public opinion?

Mr. Merrick. I object to that also. He was indicted by the grand jury on competent testimony.

The Court. There is no evidence in this case that he was indicted.

Mr. Ingersoll. I will take it back then. I would ask the Court, however, after the attorney for the Government has said that Dorsey wrote that letter to bias public opinion, if I have not the right to say that he wrote that letter because letters had been written by others.

Mr. Merrick. Not unless those letters are in proof.

The Court. The fact that he wrote the letter is in evidence in the case. That of course makes it the proper subject of comment on either side. Anything else not in evidence is not a subject of controversy.

Mr. Ingersoll. I will take it for granted, however, that the jury understand what is going on in this case.

Mr. Merrick. Yes, they understand the evidence.

Mr. Ingersoll. I understand that the jury, as members of this community, as citizens of the United States, have at least a vague idea of what the Department of Justice has done.

It is also claimed, and has been claimed, and I have answered it again and again and again, that S. W. Dorsey is the chief conspirator. Why? Is it possible that it is because he was the chief man politically? Is it possible that any politician was envious of his place and power? Is it possible that any politician was envious of the influence he had with President Garfield? Is it possible that he had interfered with the career of some piece of mediocrity? Why is it that he is made the chief figure? These are questions that are asked and questions that you can answer. How does it happen that his name never figures in any division? That his name never figures in any paper made in regard to this business? How does it happen that when he was contending with the German-American National Bank that he must be paid, how is it that it never occurred to Miner or Vaile to tell him, "Why, this is a conspiracy of your own hatching. You advanced this money to give life to your own bantling, and you have got to wait until the conspiracy bears fruit, and if you are not willing to wait you can do the next worse thing, have it made public"? If at that time, when he was opposing and fighting Vaile because he had cut out his security, Vaile had known that Dorsey was in the conspiracy, one word from him and Stephen W. Dorsey's mouth would have remained shut forever. But it did not occur to Miner, it did not occur to Vaile. That won't do. Why didn't Vaile say to him, "Mr. Dorsey, you are making a great deal of fuss about a few thousand dollars. You are in the Senate; you are interested in these routes, and I want to hear no more from you"? Why didn't he say it? Because it was not true; that is why.

Now, gentlemen, if what the prosecution claims is true, not only Stephen W. Dorsey, not only Thomas J. Brady, not only John R. Miner, not only H. M. Vaile, and John W. Dorsey are guilty of conspiracy, but hundreds and hundreds of other people. Do you believe it is possible that all the persons who petitioned for an increase of service, who petitioned for expedition—do you believe they were in a conspiracy? Do you believe they were dishonest men, and do you believe they asked for what they did not want? Do you believe that these defendants had at their beck and call the representatives of the entire great Northwest? Do you believe that members of Congress of the Lower House and of the Senate were their agents and tools? Was Senator Hill a conspirator? Was the present Secretary of the Interior a conspirator? Were Senator Grover and Senator Slater also conspirators? Were generals, judges, district attorneys, members of State and Territorial Legislatures—were they all conspirators? Did they indorse false petitions for the purpose of putting money in the pockets of these defendants? Let us be honest. Do you believe that General Miles was a conspirator, or that General Sherman, whose title is next to that of the President, and whose name is one synonymous of victory, entered into a conspiracy? Do you believe that he knows as much about the mail business as Colonel Bliss? Do you believe that he knows as much about the wants of the great Northwest as the gentlemen who are prosecuting this case? Was he a conspirator with their Representative in Congress from Oregon? Was Horace F. Page a conspirator? These are questions, gentlemen, that you must answer. Were all these men, these officers of the Army, State officers, Federal officers, and men of national reputation—were they all engaged in a conspiracy; were they endeavoring to assist these defendants in plundering the Treasury of these United States? These are questions for you to ask and questions for you to answer. Is it not wonderful that such a conspiracy should have existed in all the Western States at one time?

Gentlemen, is it wonderful that all the people of the West want mails? Do you not know, and do I not know, that the mail is the substantial benefit we get from the General Government? Don't you know that the mail is the pioneer of civilization? Do you not know that there ought to be a mail wherever the flag floats? Do you not know that the only way to keep a great country like this together, a vast territory of three million square miles—three million five hundred thousand square miles—is by the free distribution of the mail? If you are going to keep the people who populate that territory together, if you are going to keep them of one heart and one mind, if you are going to make them keep step to this Union and to the progress of this nation, you must have frequent intercourse with them all. The telegraph must reach to the remotest hamlet; the little electric spark, freighted with intelligence and patriotism, must visit every home; and the newspaper and the letter, bearing words of love from home and news from abroad, must visit every house, so that every man, whether digging in the mine or working on the farm, may feel the throb and thrill of the great world, and be a citizen of a mighty nation instead of an ignorant provincial.

I am in favor of frequent mails everywhere, all over the plains, all through the mountains, everywhere, wherever the flag flies, I want the man who sits under it to feel that the Government has not forgotten him; that is what I want. I take pride in this country. I am one of the men who believe that there is only air enough in this entire continent to float one flag. I am one of the men who believe that it is the destiny of the United States to control every inch of soil from the Arctic to the Antarctic, and that when a nation loses its ambition to grow, increase, and expand it begins to die. And what right has a man who is carrying the mail to interfere with the policy of the Post-Office Department? These are large questions, gentlemen of the jury, and I want you to deal with them in a large and splendid American spirit. I want you to feel that we are citizens of the greatest Government on this globe. I want you to feel that here, to every man, no matter from what clime he may come, no matter of what people, no matter of what religion, the soil will give emolument, the sun will give its light and heat, the Government will give its protection. I like to feel that way about the Government. And yet, because the department adopted a splendid and generous policy, it is tortured into evidence of conspiracy.

Now let me speak just a moment about these people—the defendants in this case. First, there is Stephen W. Dorsey. I take a great interest in this case; I admit it. I would rather lose my right hand than have you convict Stephen W. Dorsey. I admit it. I admit that if he were convicted I would lose confidence in trial by jury; I would believe that there were no twelve men in the world that had the honor and the manhood to stand by what they believed to be the evidence and the law. I would feel as though trial by jury was a failure. I admit I have that interest in it—all that anybody can have in any case. You can only convict that man by the testimony of A. W. Moore and M. C. Rerdell. That testimony withdrawn from the record and there is not one word against him. I want you to know and I want you to remember what kind of a man he is. You have seen him; you know him; and you know something of him. It is for you to decide whether you will take the testimony of Rerdell as against that man. It is for you to decide whether you will take the testimony of A. W. Moore as against that man. These men who are prosecuting him seem to forget who he is and what he has been. Yet men disgrace the position that Stephen W. Dorsey helped to give them, by attacking him.

John W. Dorsey can be convicted by the testimony of nobody. There is no testimony against him, except that of one man. He is an honest man. He told exactly what he did, and he told it like an honest man. He told why he did not put his money in the bank at Middlebury, Vermont, because they thought that he owed a debt which he did not think he owed. He need not have told it, but he is an honest man, and that is the reason he told it. The prosecution does not appreciate that kind of man, that is, they say they do not.

The only witnesses against Miner are Rerdell and Moore, and they being dead, that is the end of it.

What evidence is there against Harvey M. Vaile? One witness, Mr. Rerdell. What did Harvey M. Vaile do? At the solicitation of Mr. Miner he advanced money to prevent his having a failing contract. What else did he do? He wrote a letter saying that he was trustee for S. W. Dorsey, and he was, because the concern owed S. W. Dorsey a few thousand dollars, and agreed out of the profits to repay Stephen W. Dorsey. That is all. That is all. You have seen Mr. Vaile here from day to day. You know that he is a man of mind. I think he is an honest man. I think he testified to the exact truth. He did what any other man had the right to do, he helped a man, not entirely from charity, but believing after all that it might be a good investment, as you have done if you have ever had the opportunity. And there is not the slightest scintilla of evidence against him, not the slightest. I believe every word that he testified, and so do you.

And then they come to Thomas J. Brady, and they tell you that that man is to be convicted upon the testimony of whom? Mr. Walsh. And who else? Mr. Rerdell. You have some idea of human nature. You have a little and I have a little. Here is Mr. Walsh, an athlete; a man who, had he lived in Rome in ancient times, might have been a gladiator. He loans Mr. Brady twenty-five thousand or thirty thousand dollars. For some of this money he has notes, for other portions he has not. He sends word to Brady that he would like to fix the interest. He goes there and Brady takes these notes and puts them in his pocket and they part as philosophers. If we believe that, we must believe it as idiots. You do not believe it. You do not believe any man ever allowed another to take twenty-five thousand dollars in notes belonging to him and put them in his pocket and walk off, he taking off his hat at the door and you bowing and wishing him a happy voyage. My mind is so constructed that I cannot believe that; I cannot help it. I imagine your minds are built a little after the same model. I do not believe the story; you do not.

Who is the next witness against Mr. Brady? Mr. Rerdell.

It is sufficient for me to speak the name. I need argue no further. That is enough. You saw Mr. Brady on the stand and you heard him give his testimony. No man could listen to it without knowing it to be true. I say now to each one of you that when you heard it you believed it, and every one of you believed it was the truth. Take from this record the testimony of Rerdell, Walsh, and Moore, and what is left? Some papers, petitions, orders, affidavits, all made, signed and filed in the cloudless light of day. That is all that is left. Where is your conspiracy? Faded into thin air, nothing left.

I presume it will be said by the prosecution that I spent about three days on Mr. Rerdell. I admit it. Why? Because I regarded Rerdell as your case. Because I made up my mind that when I killed Rerdell the case had breathed its last. That is the reason. And had it been necessary to spend a few weeks more I should have done so. But it is not necessary. Probably I wasted a great deal of time upon the subject, but if he is not dead I do not want it in the power of any human being to say that it was my fault. I went at him with intent to kill, and I kept at him after I knew that he was dead. I admit it.

Now, gentlemen, let us see what I have proved. Let us see what up to this time I have substantiated in my judgment.

First, I think I have shown that John W. Dorsey, John M. Peck, and John R. Miner agreed in 1877, to go into the mail business. That Peck wrote a letter to Stephen W. Dorsey, who was then a United States Senator, asking him to get some competent man to get reliable information as to the cost of service on routes in the Western States and Territories then advertised by the General Government. That S. W. Dorsey gave that letter to A. E. Boone. That he told him to say nothing about it to other contractors. That Boone sent out circulars for the purpose of getting the requisite information; that is, the cost of corn and oats and the wages of men.

That John R. Miner came to Washington on the 1st of December, 1877. That he went to the house of Stephen W. Dorsey, as had been the custom for several years. That he occupied a room in that house, and that he and Mr. Boone went on with the business of making proposals and getting up forms of contracts.

That John W. Dorsey came here in the early part of January, 1878. That after his arrival the partnership was formed between him and A. E. Boone, and that the partnership was dated the 15th day of January, 1878.

That S. W. Dorsey, at the request of his brother and brother-in-law, advanced the amount of money necessary to pay incidental expenses. That he gave his advice whenever it was asked. That he assisted the parties all that he conveniently could.

That the last bids or proposals were put in by these parties on the 2d of February, 1878. That the awards were made on the 15th day of March of the same year. That Miner, Peck, Dorsey, and Boone received about five times as many awards as they had anticipated. Thereupon another partnership was formed with the style of Miner, Peck & Co., and that the partners in this firm were John R. Miner, John M. Peck, and John W. Dorsey. That thereupon John W. Dorsey and John R. Miner went West for the purpose of subcontracting the routes. That John R. Miner on his return from the West met Stephen W. Dorsey at Saint Louis about the 16th of July, 1878. That Stephen W. Dorsey up to that time had advanced eight thousand or nine thousand dollars. That he then gave to Mr. Miner notes amounting to about eight thousand five hundred dollars to be by him discounted at the German-American National Bank of Washington. That Stephen W. Dorsey then told Miner that he would advance no more and would indorse no more. That Stephen W. Dorsey went from Saint Louis to New Mexico; that John R. Miner came to the city of Washington, arriving here about the 20th of July. That John R. Miner then found that service in eastern Oregon was not in operation, although it had been subcontracted; but he then applied to Thomas J. Brady for an extension of time. That Brady refused to give it. That Miner, Peck & Co. had not the money to stock the routes not then in operation, and that Stephen W. Dorsey had refused to advance further means. That John W. Dorsey was then in the West and that John M. Peck was then in New Mexico. That thereupon Mr. Miner applied to Harvey M. Vaile, and that Mr. Vaile went to Mr. Brady and asked whether an extension of time could be given, provided he undertook to put the service on those routes. That Brady then gave him until the 16th day of August, 1878. That thereupon Miner, under the authority of powers of attorney from John M. Peck and John W. Dorsey, agreed upon the terms on which H. M. Vaile should advance the money necessary to put the service in operation.

That the contract bears date the 16th day of August, 1878, and was duly executed by all the parties on the last of September or first of October of that year.

That the service was not in operation by the 16th of August, and that in August, Brady telegraphed to H. M. Vaile to know what routes he was going to put service on.

That thereupon Vaile replied that he would see that all the service of Miner, Peck, and Dorsey was put in operation. That through the assistance of Mr. Vaile the service was put in operation.

That before that time Stephen W. Dorsey had been secured by Miner, Peck, and John W. Dorsey executing PostOffice drafts upon the routes that had been awarded to them.

That on the 17th day of May, 1878, an act was passed by the Congress of the United States allowing subcontractors to place their subcontracts on file.

That after Vaile came in and agreed to furnish the money necessary to put the service in operation, John R. Miner having powers of attorney from Peck and John W. Dorsey, executed to H. M. Vaile subcontracts for the purpose of securing him for the money he had advanced.

That H. M. Vaile put these subcontracts on file, thus cutting out and rendering worthless as security the PostOffice drafts that had been given to S. W. Dorsey for the purpose of securing him.

That John W. Dorsey returned from the Bismarck and Tongue River route in November, 1878, and that he then offered to sell out his entire interest in the business to Vaile for ten thousand dollars, and left instructions authorizing his brother, S. W. Dorsey, to make such sale for such amount. That John W. Dorsey then returned to the Tongue River route.

That Stephen W. Dorsey returned to Washington in December, 1878, and for the first time found that the subcontracts had been given to Vaile. That he and Mr. Vaile had a quarrel with the German-American National Bank on that question.

That afterwards Dorsey was to give ten thousand dollars to John W. Dorsey, and ten thousand dollars to John M. Peck. That he then concluded not to do so.

That on the 4th day of March, when S. W. Dorsey's Senatorial term expired, he immediately wrote a letter to Brady insisting that the subcontracts that had been filed by Vaile were in fraud of his rights. That thereupon the parties in interest came together. That S. W. Dorsey acting for Peck, his brother, and himself agreed with Vaile and Miner to a division of the routes.

That S. W. Dorsey paid Peck ten thousand dollars for his interest, paid John W. Dorsey ten thousand dollars for his interest, and took substantially thirty per cent, of the routes and paid himself the money that was owing to him by Miner, Peck & Co.

That the parties at the time executed to each other subcontracts and such other papers as were necessary to vest, as far as they then under the law could vest, the routes so divided in the parties to whom they fell.

That on the 5th of May, 1879, the division was completed, and that from that time forward Vaile and Miner had no interest in the routes that fell to Stephen W. Dorsey, and that from that time forward Stephen W. Dorsey had no interest in the routes that fell to Vaile and Miner, and that John W. Dorsey and John M. Peck had no interest in any route from that date forward until the present moment. That S. W. Dorsey took entire and absolute control of his routes, and that Miner and Vaile took entire control of their routes. That from that time until the present neither party interfered with the routes of the other.

That Vaile and Miner made no paper of any sort, character, or kind for Stephen W. Dorsey after the 5th of May, 1879, and that neither John W. Dorsey, nor John M. Peck, made any papers of any kind, sort or character for Miner or Vaile after that date, no matter what date papers bear that were made before that time. That S. W. Dorsey made no papers for Miner or Vaile after that date. And that Miner and Vaile made no papers for S. W. Dorsey after that date, May 5, 1879. That all the papers bearing date after the 5th of May, were in fact signed by the parties at or before that time. That they were so signed for the purpose of making the division complete.

That Vaile and Miner on their routes got up petitions that they had a right to do. That S. W. Dorsey upon his routes got up petitions, as he had a right to do.

That the routes were increased and expedited by the Second Assistant Postmaster-General in accordance with the policy of the department and in accordance with the petitions filed and the affidavits made, as he had a right to do.

That it was not for the contractors to settle the policy of the Post-Office Department.

That the evidence of A. W. Moore is unworthy of belief, and that his statement that he settled with S. W. Dorsey is demonstrated to be false by the receipts that he afterwards gave in final settlement to John R. Miner, as admitted by himself. That his testimony as to the existence of a conspiracy is rendered worthless and absurd by the fact that he sold out not only his interest, but his services up to that time, for six hundred and eighty-two dollars. That his conversations with Miner could not have taken place. That he never made or offered to make such contracts with Major as he pretended he was instructed to make, and as he swore that he did make. That his conversation with S. W. Dorsey never occurred.

That the testimony of Rerdell is utterly and infinitely unworthy of credit. That he is not only contradicted by all the evidence, but by himself, and how can you corroborate a man who tells no truth? There must be something to be corroborated.

That the red books never existed.

That the pencil memorandum was forged by himself.

That the Chico letter was written by him.

And that the letter from Dorsey to Bosler, said to have been dated May 13, 1879, was born of the imagination of Mr. Rerdell.

That Rerdell's letter to Bosler of the 22d of May, 1880, was never sent, was never received, and was never written until after this man made up his mind to become a witness for the Government. That Bosler never received that letter, or the letter pretended to have been written by Dorsey on the 13th of May, 1879.

That the tabular statement in which thirty-three and one-third per cent, was allowed to Brady never existed. That Rerdell did not visit Dorsey's office in New York in June, 1881, and that he had no conversation with Torrey. That Rerdell was not there. That he did not have the conversation detailed by him with Dorsey at the Albermarle Hotel. That Dorsey did not write the letter of the 13th of June, 1881.