The Portland daily press., 1878-10-05
THE ST. GEORGE MURDER.
Te ,tim0ny for the Defence In Pro.
gresS.


RoCKLAND. Oat. 4,-In the Hart Murder trial
this forenoon witnss testified that at the gate
of the Me sevvy house, on the day of the dis.
covery of the murder, he saw Hart and a,ked
him who first put them up to open the house
Hart said, II did. We have been putting Me-
servey up all winter to have that damned tomb
opened" The witness asked why he called il
to NIB, aud Hart said, because L knew she
was dead in the house."
The gove rnment stopped here, and the de-
fence was opened By r. f. Duntop, the junior
counsel.
Lydia A. Sylvester, Harris step-daughter ties.
titled that the prisoner was home on the even
ing of Dec. % when the crime is supposed to
have been committed, from o'clock till about
9, when the witness RETIRED
On crOss-examination the witness said that
she testified at the irqrest that she was not at
home that evening. but since remembered she
was. on being reminded by Mrs. Whitehouse
that she called at Harris that evening
Mrs. Whitehouse testified that she called at
Harris little after eight o'clock that evening,
and heard Hart and his step.daughter talking
in the next room.
The wife of the prisoner also testified that
her husband was at bone that evening at her
request. AT the Inquest she testified that she
was at home, but did not remember that her
husband was at uOme. She afterwards remem-
bered that he was at home upon Mrs. White
house telling her that she was at her house
that evening She did rot remember ever tell
ing her husband that he had better mind or he
!, 10 ,oa e1o L..
torn out again.
This afternoon the prisoners wife. on cross
examination, testified that she stated at the in
quest that her husband was out till o'clock on
Saturday evening, Dec, 22l; that she offered to
go with him that evening if be would wait. He
did not wait She then thought she was tell
ing the truth, but changed her recollection af-
ter being reminded by Mrs. Whitehou &c of her
call. She now says it was Friday evening her
husband was out. She did not think it strange
her husband wore slippers to Harris Neck
Monday evening. He has trouble with his feet
and is in the habit of wearing slippers out of
DOORS
Mrs. Lonisa Wall, the prisoners daughter,
testified to being at the village Saturday even
ing, Dec. % did not meet her father that
night. Isaac Wall was at Vlnal Wallis "a thu
night of the 29ih of January. When he came
from Hart's, Vinal spoke of hearing of the
finding of brown paper, but Cid not mention
Nathan Hart or anything about the cloud
around the neck of deceased
A. Dunton testified as to the handwriting.
He was the expert that examined the anony-
nous papers and log books and testified that
the brown paper and anonymous letters we're.
in his opi:iou, written by the same hand that
wrote the first five pages on the log book num-
Der one, which pages had been admitted to be
in the handwriting of A. K. Meservey.
On crOss-sxamination he admitted that hs
had the papers the first week of the March
term OF court or sooner. When he saw the
Attorney General, after be had had the papers
several days, he might have thought that Harris
admitted letters aud the first pages of the log
book were written by the same person. He
had discovered more than one handwriting on
the book. Witness admitted writing in letter
to Sheriff Lane, March 31st, about Hart as fol-
lows: "Oae thicg in sure. He wrote the writ
ing on the brown and blue papers, if he kept
tia log book and wrote the Letters sub
mittcd as standards" He expressed the same
opinion as late as July or August, but with the
understanding that the first pages of the log
book were HarS's hand writing Witness ad-
mitted cutting certain pages of the log book,
but said he did it by order of the county a,tor-