The Portland daily press., 1888-03-23
FAsTiplous DIR. WEED.
Fact and Opinion About the Alleged
Robber Of Peter Bennett.

NEWPORT, March 22.-There Is probably
no more excitement here in this ordinarily
quiet country town over the arrest of DR..
Weed our leading physician, on the confes-
sioa of an alleged accomplice, for great
robbery than is shown in every portion of
the State. Letters come III here by the hum
dred from former residents of the town and
from parties who have acquaintances here,
asking about the case and wondering if the
hitherto law-abiding community has become
nest of thieves and robbers
He is said to be the most reserved man
ever confined in the jail, and access to him is
denied every one, by his request, with the
exception of the counsel and the immediate
members of his family.
He positively refuses to talk about the case
with the Jail officials, or with anyone except
his counsel. His neighbors here in New
port, people whom he has known for years
and with whom he has been intimate, call at
the Jail to see him, and he sends word to
them that they cannot enter. When he was
first committed he asked many favors. He
is fine looking man, scrupulously neat, and
dresses with much taste and in perfect fash
ion. High Sheriff Brown is an old friend of
the doctor, and the latter earnestly request
ed that he be allowed to occupy one of the
poor debtors cells and wear his own clothes.
But the official was obliged to deny him
these privileges, and so the faStidi0us doc
tor donned the coarse prison suit OF blue and
gray, and took his place in common cell
with an air like martyr. When out for ex-
ercise he holds himself aloof from the other
convicts, and is regarded with curious
glances by them. At the religious services
in the Jail Sundays he will not appear, and
is afraid all the time that some prominent
Bangor or Newport man, whom he has
known, will enter the Jail and see him in a
felon's cell in felon's dress.
The general feeling is that the doctor is
guilty of robbing the old miser, Peter Ben
nett, but there are scores. of good citizens
who do not and will not believe 1t. When
people would call at the doctors house and
he was in an intoxicated condition and una
BILE to respond, his wife was accustomed to
90 to the door and say that he was not at
home. This they claim was the case on that
memorable Sunday night when he was called
to attend old Peter Bennett. A gentleman
of undoubted integrity will be brought for
ward to swear that at 9 o'clock, when the
robbery was committed, he was in DR..
Weeds office after medicine, and did not
leave him until $50. The doctor was then,
he says, very much intoxicated.
Newport people say that the story told by
Foster of DR.. Weeds connection with: the
robbery is prcposter0us from beginning to
end, and they further believe that, instead of
DIR. Weed, another Penobscot county doctor
who left this vicinity about that time was
concerned in the robbery, and has most OF
the money with him.
The rumors flying about the robbery can
be counted by hundreds, and almost every
one in the village has something new to say
concerning it. The greatest mystery is felt
to be in regard to the disposal of the money,
and up to this time not the slightest clew can
be found to it by the officers or any one else.
Old Peter Bennett is greatly exercised con-
cerning it, and fears that the full amount
will not be recovered. He says he knows
that three of the men who robbed him are
now in jail, but he is not sure but that there
is a. fourth ore yet to be discovered. His ex-
perience with the officers and reporters has
given him quite an idea of his own detec-
tive ability, and he declares that he will sift
the matter TO the bottom. The sheritfs are
firm in the belief that they have the robbers,
and are now devoting their attention to find
ing the money.