Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.
Atlanta Journal
August 12th, 1913
Sensational Charge Hurled By Physician in Testimony Given at Afternoon Session
Dr. Westmoreland, Answering Question of Attorney Reuben R. Arnold, Declares He Never Heard of a Chemist Who Had Made Examination by Himself and Then Destroyed the Organs Without Bringing Them Into Court
Three experts took the stand Monday afternoon at the trial of Leo M. Frank to repudiate the conclusions reached by Dr. H. F. Harris to the effect that the condition of the cabbage in the stomach of Mary Phagan showed that she must have died within an hour after eating, and that the distended blood vessels showed that she had suffered violence of some sort immediately prior to her death.
Dr. Thomas H. Hancock and Dr. Willis Westmoreland both declared that Dr. Harris’ conclusions were not justified. Dr. Hancock said that no physician in the world could have told from the evidence that Dr. Harris had before him how long the cabbage and bread had been in the little girl’s stomach. He exhibited to the jury a number of specimens of cabbage taken from the stomachs of five different people at different periods after it had been eaten to illustrate that very little if anything could be told by an examination of the food.
An attack upon the ethics of Dr. Harris for having made his examination without calling in any other chemist or physician and then having destroyed the stomach, was made by Attorney Arnold. He asked the following question of Dr. Westmoreland:
“Have you ever known a chemist to make an examination of a corpse nine days after death and utterly destroy the organ and not bring it into court to exhibit it to the jury or give it to the other side for investigation and examination?”
Dr. Westmoreland replied in the negative, after Judge Roan had ruled that the question shouldn’t be allowed.
The sensational statement was made by Dr. Willis Westmoreland that he had preferred charges of scientific dishonesty against Dr. H. F. Harris while a member of the state board of health, that the board had found him guilty but refused to discharge him and that he (Westmoreland) thereupon resigned.
Answering a question of Attorney Reuben R. Arnold, Dr. Westmoreland declared that he knew Dr. Harris to be the same man professionally now as when he preferred his charges.
Dr. J. C. Olmstead also testified and characterized Dr. Harris’ conclusion as pure guesses.
Joel Hunter, expert accountant, was the last witness introduced by the defense. He testified that it would take a pretty swift man to make up the financial sheet, said to have been prepared by Frank on the afternoon that of the day Mary Phagan was killed, in less than three and one half hours. At the conclusion of the testimony at 5:30, court adjourned until 9 o’clock Tuesday morning.
Dr. Thomas H. Hancock, head of the Atlanta hospital, was called as the first witness for the defense when court resumed at 1 o’clock Monday afternoon. Dr. Hancock testified regarding a physical examination which he made of Leo M. Frank, the accused. [1 word illegible] his twenty-two years medical experience, said he, he has observed probably 14,000 surgical cases. He had read the report of Dr. Harris’ testimony, said he.
Mr. Arnold asked this hypothetical question:
“Say a body was embalmed eight hours after death, one gallon of the fluid of the body taken out and one gallon of embalming fluid containing 8 per cent formaldehyde put in its place. Say nine or ten days after death, the body was exhumed, and a cut one and one half inches long found back of the ear, no break is found in the skull, no pressure on the brain, but a little hemorrhage is found under the skull. Could any one tell whether that wound produced unconsciousness?”
“No, the skull might have been fractured and yet the patient remained conscious.”
“There is no possible way to tell, then, is there?”
“No, any statement to that effect would have been merely a guess.”
“Is there any way under those circumstances to tell whether or not the wound was produced before or after death, granted that there was some blood (we don’t know how much) which flowed from it?”
“No. Blood could have flowed for from six or eight to ten hours after death.”
“Say it was inflicted before death by a sharp-edged instrument?”
“There would have been considerable blood. That is, there would have been much more blood before death than afterward. And there would have been more blood from a wound inflicted by a sharp instrument than from a wound inflicted by a blunt instrument.”
“Say nine or ten days after death a visual examination was made of the lungs. Could a person say whether or not the subject died of strangulation?”
The witness said that he knew very little of strangulation cases.
“In strangulation cases, the blood is forced from the lungs, isn’t it?”
“The authorities differ,” said Dr. Hancock. “Usually the right side of the heart fills up and the left empties.”
NOBODY COULD TELL.
“Suppose you remove a stomach and make an examination of its contents. Suppose you find wheat bread and cabbage and 32 degrees of acidity. Suppose on taking out the cabbage you found some to be particles like that (holding up the sample taken from Mary Phagan’s stomach). Suppose you find very little fluid or solid in the small intestines. Suppose you have no more data than that to go on. Could you give a reliable opinion as to how long that food had been in there if you dug the body up nine days later and formaldehyde had been used in the embalming?”
“Nobody could.”
Attorney Arnold again held up the cabbage taken from Mary Phagan’s stomach and asked, “Doctor, lumps like that—what influence have they on digestion?”
“They retard it.”
“How long is cabbage in a normal stomach usually?”
“Three or four hours.”
“Is it possible for it to stay in there longer?”
“Yes.”
“Looking at that cabbage, could you undertake to say how long it had been in the stomach?”
“I could not.”
“What things retard digestion?”
“Excitement, anger and grief and emotions like that.”
“What about exercise?”
“That is a very vague and uncertain subject. Authorities disagree on its effect.”
“Do you think that by any chemical analysis, doctor, you could give a dependable opinion as to how long that cabbage had been in her stomach?”
“I could not.”
“Is cabbage hard or easy to digest?”
“Very hard.”
“Have you made any tests on men, at our request, dealing with cabbage and wheat bread, in the last few days?”
EXHIBITS SPECIMENS.
“One man and four women.” Dr. Hancock then took from a grip which he carried to the stand with him five glass jars containing specimens of results obtained by the experiment.
The bottles were set on a table in front of the jury, and Dr. Hancock resumed the witness chair, using a note book to help him with the answers.
“Consider jar No. 1,” said Attorney Arnold. “Tell us about that.”
Referring to his note book, Dr. Hancock said he had given portions of cabbage and wheat bread to a white woman thirty-two years old at 12:05 o’clock on August 8, and had let it remain in her stomach sixty minutes, after which he induced vomiting and got it up again. It was well masticated, Dr. Hancock said, the woman having taken nine minutes to chew it.
“What is the cause of the reddish tinge of the contents, doctor?” asked Mr. Arnold.
“The young woman was supposed to have had nothing to eat after 6:30 o’clock that morning. I found though, after she had vomited the cabbage and bread, that at 9:30 that morning she had taken a chocolate milk.”
“And that chocolate milk had remained in the stomach, had it not, three hours and thirty-five minutes?”
“I have only her word for the time she drank it.”
RESULTS OF EXPERIMENTS.
“But even chocolate milk, a liquid in form, remained in her stomach length of time?”
“Evidently.”
Sample No. 2, according to Dr. Hancock, consisted of cabbage and bread for a normal woman at 12:05 o’clock. It was not chewed well and stayed in the stomach from 45 to 50 minutes. The sample as exhibited to the jury showed the cabbage looking very much like it probably did when it went into the patient’s stomach.
Sample No. 4, said Dr. Hancock, consisted of cabbage fed to a man twenty-five years old. It was not well chewed, and stayed in the stomach an hour and 15 to 20 minutes. As exhibited to the jury, large particles of the cabbage seemed to have remained unchanged.
Sample No. 3, according to Dr. Hancock, was fed to a woman twenty-one years old, was chewed well, and stayed in the stomach twenty-five minutes. The sample as exhibited to the jury showed particles of what looked like tomato. Dr. Hancock explained that the patient she she had eaten some tomato for breakfast at 6:30 that morning, this indicating, said he, that particles of the tomato remained unchanged after remaining in the stomach some six hours.
The fifth and final sample consisted of cabbage and bread with butter on it, fed to a woman 25 years of age, at [time illegible] o’clock Monday morning. It was taken from the stomach at 12:28, said Dr. Hancock. This sample was not chewed well, said Dr. Hancock. As exhibited to the jury, the sample showed particles of cabbage practically unchanged. Dr. Hancock stated that an hour later the patient gave up some cabbage which showed little if any greater change, although this latter sample was not exhibited to the jury.
Dr. Hancock stated that all of these samples were taken from the stomachs of the patients by vomiting induced by the drinking of warm salt water. He said a stomach pump had not been used because he wanted to obtain samples of the cabbage and bread as nearly as possible in the condition in which they left the stomach.
Stating the circumstances of the examination of Mary Phagan’s body, Mr. Arnold asked this question:
“From such an examination as that, could any physician give any safe or dependable opinion as to how long the cabbage and bread remained in the stomach?”
NO PHYSICIAN COULD TELL.
“No physician in the world could tell. I doubt if any physician in the world could tell from examining these specimens here, how long they had been in the stomach.
NO BASIS FOR OPINION.
Dr. Hancock testified that the conditions described by Dr. Harris on which he based his opinion that Mary Phagan had suffered violence would not be sufficient to warrant an opinion. He said distended blood vessels might have resulted from varying causes.
“Even if you should believe there had been violence, could you possibly tell from the conditions I have enumerated how long before death the violence was inflicted.”
“No man could.”
“Would you consider five or ten minutes a guess, then?”
“I wouldn’t like to express my opinion of that estimate.”
“You mean, I suppose, that you try to express yourself always in parliamentary language?”
Dr. Hancock nodded and smiled.
“It wouldn’t be much violence, would it, that was shown only by a microscope?”
“I should say not.”
“Can an eye be blackened by a blow delivered after death?”
“Yes, if delivered during several hours immediately following death.”
DORSEY TAKES WITNESS.
Solicitor Dorsey cross-examined the witness.
“You are a surgeon of the Georgia Railway & Power Co., are you not?”
“I am.”
“You are familiar with the American Medical Journal, are you not?”
There was objection to the question, but it was allowed.
The witness answered affirmatively. He was asked if it was regarded as a standard.
“I would not say that it is,” answered Dr. Hancock.
“You say you graduated from Columbus, doctor. Do you know anything about Dr. A. A. Brill, one of the professors there?”
Dr. Hancock answered in the negative.
NOT AN EXPERT.
Solicitor Dorsey demanded if the witness did not know that a normal man and an abnormal man do not differ necessarily in physique. The witness said that he had had no experience along that line.
“Then your examination of Frank as an expert amounts to nothing?”
“I didn’t say I was an expert in that line.”
“Well, are you an expert on the stomach?”
The witness declared that he was not an expert, but that he knew enough to make the statements which he had just completed:
“What did you say is the principal element of wheat bread?”
“I didn’t say,” said the witness.
“Well, won’t you say now?” smiled Mr. Dorsey.
“I will not.”
“Come down, doctor,” said the solicitor.
Mr. Arnold called the witness back to the stand and asked some further questions. Before the witness left the stand, Solicitor Dorsey inquired:
“Doctor, are you familiar with the word ‘amidulin?’”
“I don’t know what it means,” said the witness.
“Well, is there such a word?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know anything about the works of Hamilton?” asked the solicitor.
“No.”
“Come down,” said the solicitor.
DR. WESTMORELAND TESTIFIES.
Dr. Willis Westmoreland was called to the stand by the defense as its next witness. He stated that he is president of the (new) Atlanta Medical college. Since 1891 he has occupied the chair of surgery in the Atlanta College of Physicians and Surgeons. Also, said he, he was the first president of the Georgia state board of health.
“Have you read the stenographic report of Dr. Harris’ testimony on the first day?”
“Yes.”
Mr. Arnold put the usual hypothetical question about the blow, behind Mary Phagan’s ear, and Dr. Westmoreland replied that the blow rendered her unconscious was entirely a surmise.
Asked if the statement of a physician with no more facts than those described, before him, could give a scientific opinion on the subject, Dr. Westmoreland replied in the negative. In answer to another question, he said there was nothing to show whether the blow was inflicted before or after her death. He declared that it could have happened either way, provided the blow was inflicted before the blood coagulated.
Attorney Arnold asked about the same hypothetical questions of Dr. Westmoreland that he had asked of the preceding two witnesses, and obtained virtually the same answers.
Dr. Westmoreland termed Dr. Harris’ conclusion about the length of time the cabbage was in Mary Phagan’s stomach before she was killed, as “as wild guessing as I ever heard.” There are a number of things that retard digestion, said he, and that digestion of food is one of the most variable subjects that students of medicine have to deal with.
“Have you ever known a chemist to make an examination of the stomach of a corpse nine days after death, and utterly destroy the organ and not bring it into court to exhibit it to the jury or give it to the other side for investigation and examination.”
“No.”
There was objection to this question by Solicitor Dorsey, and Attorney Arnold made a statement of considerable length to the court, in which he said, “Here is a chemist (referring to Dr. Harris as an alleged chemist), who takes the stomach of this little girl, and other organs, and goes into his own back room and makes an analysis. Are we to be tried solely on this man’s say-so, and not be able to show that we never had an opportunity to make any kind of examination at all?”
“Do you want to show the ethics of the profession?” asked Judge Roan.
“Yes, I want to show the ethics and the rules.”
Judge Roan then allowed the question.
In answer to another question along the same line, Dr. Westmoreland said that the usual custom is to keep a portion of organs examined for further investigation if necessary.
Dr. Westmoreland asserted that from evidence at hand it would have been impossible to tell whether Mary Phagan had suffered violence. He said the distended blood vessels would not necessarily have been caused by external violence.
Attorney Arnold asked the witness it from a visual or microscopical examination a physician could advance an opinion as to whether violence had been done from 5 to 15 minutes before death. Dr. Westmoreland replied, “No.”
“In all your experience, Dr. Westmoreland, have you ever heard such an opinion expressed before?”
A RASH CONCLUSION.
Dr. Westmoreland replied, “It is one of the rashest conclusions I have ever heard.”
“There is no time piece in the human body that would determine it within that accuracy, is there?”
“There is not.”
“Did you at our request on yesterday examine Leo M. Frank?”
“I did.”
“Did he appear to be a normal male human being?”
“Perfectly so, yes sir.”
Solicitor Dorsey took up the cross-examination of the witness.
“Do you make any stomach analyses, Dr. Westmoreland?”
“No, I have it done by a laboratory.”
“It’s true, isn’t it, doctor, that normal and abnormal men are physically the same?”
“Yes, except in some pronounced cases.”
“If a corpse is struck a blow on the eye with a fist, what is the effect?”
“Discoloration.”
“Then it’s not true that it leaves no sign?”
“No.”
“If you have a subject who has been struck a blow on the head, whose skull is not fractured, whose brain is not injured, whose face is livid, whose tongue is out, whose eyes are distended, whose nails and lips are blue—what would you say under those conditions was the cause of death?”
“Answering that strictly as a hypothetical question, I should say the cause of death was strangulation.”
A BLOW ON THE HEAD.
“Suppose there was a blow on the head after death. What would you say as to it?”
“I should say it was a blow on the head.”
“You couldn’t say whether the blow was delivered before or after death?”
“No, I hardly think so.”
“Would a blow on the eye after death produce swelling and discoloration?”
“Yes, it probably would if inflicted within two hours.”
“Would a blow on the back of the head after death cause bleeding?”
“If strangulation was the cause of death, it probably would produce more bleeding than if it had been delivered before death.”
“If there was no violence by a digital examination, if dilation, of the blood vessels was found, would you say that violence caused these conditions?”
Dr. Westmoreland said that nature might have caused the conditions described.
“Assuming that no violence was done by the digital examination, then in that event you would look for other violence as the cause of these conditions, would you not?”
On this point Dr. Westmoreland was reluctant to commit himself. When Solicitor Dorsey insisted, Attorney Rosser objected.
When pressed for an answer, Dr. Westmoreland said he probably would first look into the doctor’s statement.
“Isn’t it entirely possible for an examination to be made without dilating the blood vessels, and so forth?”
“Yes, it is possible.”
“Assuming then that the examination did not produce these conditions, then you must look for other causes, must you not?”
“Yes.”
A DELUSIVE SUBJECT.
Solicitor Dorsey examined the witness upon the subject of digestion, which Dr. Westmoreland declared is “the most delusive subject in medicine.” To not a single question that the solicitor asked him on this subject would the witness give a definite answer. He declared that medical authorities nearly all disagree on the topic of digestion. They have no more than rough estimates on it.
“Assuming that it takes a perfectly normal stomach four hours to digest cabbage, tell how long—“
The witness interrupted: “Why, I’ve had men shot and operated on them hours after they’d eaten it, and found cabbage in their stomachs.”
The solicitor asked Dr. Westmoreland about test meals. The witness declared that none of the deductions found in tables are exactly correct. He admitted that it generally assumed that the digestion of cabbage requires four hours, but said that some authorities put the time at five hours, and that all tables on the subject are rough estimates and not scientific facts.
“You know how long it takes free hydrochloric acid to form after a meal, don’t you?” asked the solicitor.
“No, I don’t,” said Dr. Westmoreland.
“Why, doctor, don’t you know that it takes thirty minutes as a rule?”
“Well, that is more or less of a guess,” said the witness, “though it is generally assumed. Hydrochloric acid is formed on the ascending and descending scale.”
“When does it start to descend?”
“That depends on many things.” The witness enumerated a number.
“Say 32 degrees of hydrochloric acid was found with cabbage and starch, how long would you say that that food had been in the stomach?”
“Any test for hydrochloric acid is only approximate,” said Dr. Westmoreland.
NO FEELING FOR HARRIS.
“What is your personal feeling toward Dr. H. F. Harris? Is it kindly or not?”
“I have none, kindly or otherwise,” said Dr. Westmoreland.
“Dr. Harris was on the state board of health with you, was he not?”
“Yes.”
“Are you on that board now?”
“No.”
“How long has Dr. Harris been there?”
“About six years.”
“Dr. Harris was also associated with you at the Atlanta College of Physcians and Surgeons, was he not?”
“Yes.”
“What was his position there?”
“Professor of pathology.”
“That had a good deal to do with the chemical analysis of stomachs, didn’t it?”
“No, but he did a lot of that work.”
Attorney Arnold asked the witness some further questions on redirect examination.
“What trouble did you have with Dr. Harris?” asked Mr. Arnold.
“When I was president of the state board of health. I preferred charges of scientific dishonesty against him. The board found him guilty and when it would not discharge him I resigned.”
“Do you think he is the same man professionally now as then?”
“I know he is.”
“Whatever trouble or row you had with Dr. Harris has not influenced your testimony here, has it, doctor?”
“I never had a row with Dr. Harris,” Dr. Westmoreland replied. The episode, said he, had not influenced his testimony.
Dr. Westmoreland said the signs of violence described by Mr. Dorsey could not have been produced by perversion.
“Do you think there could be injury to the scalp, a wound which one doctor says is an inch and a half long and another doctor says is two inches and a quarter long, be inflicted before death and not produce some kind of a hemorrhage?”
“The scalp bleeds freely.”
PUTS HYPOTHETICAL QUESTION.
Attorney Arnold put a hypothetical question to the witness.
“Suppose a girl’s head strikes a machine, here,” designating a spot in front of the witness chair, “and she is carried over to a spot over there, and there laid down, and then picked up and carried a certain distance, and then dropped, would you expect to find blood on the last place?”
“I should think it would be found in all three places.”
Solicitor Dorsey questioned the witness again.
“Well, this blood could be washed up while fresh with water, could it not, doctor?” asked the solicitor.
“Blood stains are hard wash up.”
The solicitor asked the doctor if the blood were in sawdust or cinders or like substance, the traces of blood could be scraped away. Dr. Westmoreland answered yes.
Solicitor Dorsey asked, “How many doctors were there on the state board, Dr. Westmoreland, when you and Dr. Harris were there?”
“There were 12, including the secretary.”
Dr. John C. Olmstead was called to the stand as the next witness for the defense. Dr. Olmstead testified that he had been practicing medicine in Atlanta for 30 years. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia, he said, and afterward studied in New York.
“Did you read over the transcript of evidence by Dr. Harris that I gave you?”
“I did.”
IMPOSSIBLE TO TELL.
Attorney Arnold put the hypothetical question as to whether or not it could be determined from the wound on the girl’s head that she had been knocked unconscious by it. Dr. Olmstead said that it was absolutely impossible to tell.
“If a doctor advanced this opinion,” asked Attorney Arnold, “would you say it was a scientific conclusion of a wild guess?”
Dr. Olmstead went over the same ground as the witnesses just receding him, under the same hypothetical questions by Attorney Arnold. He testified that he knows of no medical book in the English language that gives a stomach analysis as having any bearing whatever on the time of death. He said that the fact that Dr. Harris found no ferments in the small intestine was not extraordinary in view of the fact that formaldehyde was used in the embalming fluid, but on the contrary it would have extraordinary if the ferments had been present that long after embalming. He said that from looking at the cabbage taken from Mary Phagan’s stomach he would not undertake to estimate how long it had been in her stomach; that it might have been there twelve hours. In answer to a question as to what he thought of Dr. Harris’ supposition as to the time of death. Dr. Olmstead said he thought it was “perfectly absurd.” He said that the conditions as enumerated by Dr. Harris were by no means a sign of violence before death. These conditions might have been produced, said he, by strangulation, or by settling of the blood after death.
Dr. Olmstead said that assuming that Dr. Hurt’s examination of the corpse did not injury it still would have been impossible to tell within five to fifteen minutes just how long before death a violence was inflicted. He said it would have been extremely difficult to tell by an examination very carefully made within a few hours after death, much less after an examination made nine or ten days after the body had been embalmed and buried.
Solicitor Dorsey took up the cross-examination of Dr. Olmstead.
The solicitor took the admissions by the witness that it takes four and a half hours to digest cabbage and two and a half hours to digest wheat bread, and upon them formulated the following hypothetical question:
“Say that two normal people have eaten cabbage and bread prepared just alike that they have swallowed it just alike and that the substance was taken out of their stomachs at different times, couldn’t you tell by the one whether the other had been in the stomach a shorter or longer time?”
The experiment would be too delicate for him to attempt, said the witness. Finally, however, the solicitor held up a number of specimens taken from the stomachs of different people from 30 to 60 minutes after they had eaten cabbage in the same manner that Mary Phagan ate her last meal, and Dr. Olmstead admitted that, shown the sample taken from her stomach, it would be presumed naturally that it had remained in the stomach a shorter time than the others.
“Are you a general practitioner or an analytical chemist?”
“A general practitioner,” replied the witness.
The solicitor concluded his examination there, but Mr. Arnold detained the witness for more questioning. Mr. Arnold brought out over the objection of Mr. Dorsey the statement that in the witness’ opinion a general practitioner, on account of his large dealing with patients and his wide observation and with the tables of the analytical chemist to guide him, would be as well qualified if not more so than an analytical chemist to testify on the subject at issue. Mr. Arnold caused the witness to declare once more that a person exhuming a body nine days after death and stating by an examination of the stomach that the subject had eaten from 30 to 40 minutes before death, was making “nothing but a wild guess.”
The witness was excused, and the electric lights were lit for the first time since the trial began.
Joel Hunter, expert accountant, was called by the defense as the next witness.
EXAMINED FINANCE SHEET.
Mr. Hunter qualified as an expert by testifying that he has had some fifteen years’ experience as an accountant and is an examiner of the Georgia board of accountants. He entered court with copies of all the papers that Frank is supposed to have made out on Saturday, April 26, and after comparing the originals with the copies he took the witness chair.
He said that he had examined the financial sheet and the other accounts and papers that Frank said he compiled and made out on Saturday, April 26. He said that he had seen Herbert Schiff at the pencil factory and that Schiff had acquainted him with the data necessary for making out the report; and that he had done it without making out a new financial sheet. He testified in answer to questions by Attorney Arnold that Frank’s financial sheet was correct with the exception of one decimal in the total; and this error, he said, he thought was in copying or setting down the total; rather than in multiplication.
“As an accountant, would you say that the sheet, was accurately, compiled?”
“I should say so.”
“Tell us the calculations necessary and the least possible time in your opinion, that it would take a person to make out this financial report and bal—
THREE HOURS AND HALF.
“In my opinion,” said the witness, “to make out this financial report and balance the cash would take a person 150 minutes. This is the quickest possible time.” This, said he, would not allow for checking over the accounts. He placed a reasonable maximum time at 172 minutes. He went into exhaustive detail with the jury in regard to this subject, reading from a sheet the time which he had estimated it would take to make every computation in the complex preparation of the financial sheet. His estimates for various calculations ran from two minutes up to twenty minutes. He concluded his answer by saying that it would take a pretty swift man to do the work in less than three and a half hours.
Mr. Hunter was cross-examined by Attorney Hooper.
“As an original proposition, in making up this sheet, this data would all be furnished to you?”
“As to that, I cannot say.”
“One’s familiarity with the figures would enable one naturally to do the work quicker, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, I should say so.”
“Then with Mr. Frank’s necessary familiarity he ought to be able to make up this sheet in less time than you made it up?”
“I shouldn’t say his ‘necessary’ familiarity. I should say his probable familiarity.”
“A great many of the items you had to seek, were at his fingers’ ends, weren’t they?”
“I assume so.”
“You say, then, that it would take from three to three and a half hours, to make up this sheet?”
“Yes, that is my best estimate, although I should say it might take longer than that for the reason that the financial sheet is not subject to internal proof.”
“Do you mean to say that Frank proved each one of the sheets?”
“No, I don’t say that because I don’t know. But I should say that a comparison of the sheet with the other sheets would afford valuable information which a good business manager would be glad to have.”
“You make a very small calculation, don’t you, for his familiarity with the business?”
“No, I have allowed for that.”
“In some places, you have allowed gains for yourself over him, haven’t you?”
“No, I have tried to determine how long it would take a practical man. I think 150 minutes to be the shortest possible time.”
“Then you think that a man who could do it quicker than you did it would be a wonderful man, do you?”
“No, I simply mean that 150 minutes is my opinion of the shortest time in which it could be done.”
Mr. Hunter was excused from the stand and court adjourned, at 5:35, until 9 o’clock Tuesday.
* * *