Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 09.pdf/173

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

146

The Green Bag,

they knew of his decease, that such elo quence as they heard on that memorable occasion from him should have been so un timely hushed. A recent writer in an En glish law periodical bewailed the decadence of bar eloquence in his country; and he will find therein many fellow sympathizers at the American bar. When, therefore, bar eloquence such as was possessed by Dough erty and Roscoe Conkling (who shortly preceded him into eternal rest) perishes, and the profession becomes prosaically util itarian, and grubs for wealth rather than

fame, the result is an injury to bench and jurors who listen, as well as to bar tradi tions. It is therefore wise for the legal profession not to lose sight of olden beacons of eloquence that have thrown illumination over the life journeys of both lawyers and laymen. And Daniel Dougherty was pre-eminently such a bea con light. The memory of which, as lit in Philadelphia and trimmed in New York, but imparting brilliancy to the entire American bar, may well be ever kept in sight.

WHY THOMAS BRAM WAS FOUND GUILTY. BY CHARLES E. GRINNELL. THE celebrated case 1 here referred to requires for its appreciation a study of its details in the order of time. It is be lieved that no attempt has been made pub licly to state the facts of the voyage of the "Herbert Fuller " as they occurred from day to day. Consequently many persons fail to comprehend the evidence. There fore, the present writer, having heard the testimony of all the witnesses, has tried to tell the story clearly by following the actual succession of events from the time of loading the vessel at Boston in June, 1896, to the sentence of death in Boston on the ninth of March, 1897. 1 The United States, by indictment v. Thomas Bram alias. The trial was in Boston, Massachusetts, in the Cir cuit Court of the United States for the First Circuit, before Circuit Judge Colt and District Judge Webb. The United States was represented by the Hon. Sherman Hoar, its attorney for the District of Massachusetts, and John H. Casey, Esq., and Frederick P. Cabot, Esq., assistant attor neys for the said District. The prisoner was represented by James E. Cotter, Esq., and Asa Palmer French, Esq. The rough sketches herewith presented are not drawn to scale. The plans used at the trial did not contain the axe and the spots; but they are added here to aid the reader to understand the description.

In the month of June, 1896, Captain Charles I. Nash, of Harrington, Maine, an experienced sailor, was fitting out the barkentine " Herbert Fuller " for a voyage to Rosario, in the southeastern part of South America. She was being loaded with lumber, which was laid five feet above the deck and reached from the for ward part of the forward house to the for ward part of the after house. Thus it made a new deck between those points. These houses were only five feet high above the deck, and the top of each made a part of the new deck formed by the lumber. The vessel was lying at a wharf in Boston, Mas sachusetts; and the captain engaged there, as first mate, a man named Thomas Bram. He was a native of Saint " Kits " (Chris topher's), one of the Windward Islands. He served on vessels as a boy. At sixteen he had run away from home, and managed to reach the city of New York. After serving a year on a schooner, he became a waiter in eating houses, rose to be a manager of one, served as a baker in an emergency, and was