Dr. George T. McCord, being sworn, stated that the conditions of life among the non-union men in the Homestead mill were very favorable to the development of diarrhœa, dysentery and kindred complaints. He had treated one man who was taken sick with diarrhœa in the mill and cured him.
Dr. John Purman, of Homestead, told of the filthy condition of City Farm lane, and said he had under treatment numerous cases of diarrhœa and dysentery not incurred in the mill.
Nine members of Battery B, Eighteenth regiment, N. G. P., swore that they were afflicted with precisely the same complaint that attacked the non-union workmen.
Other witnesses testified as to the impurity of the water supply in the mill and the invariable prevalence of diarrhœa and kindred diseases among the millworkers during the hot season.
E. W. Robertson, who occupied the cell next to Gallagher's in the county jail, said that Gallagher had told him that Dempsey was an innocent man.
Hugh F. Dempsey, being sworn in his own defense, stated that he had employed Gallagher and Davidson, on Beatty's recommendation, to get work in the Homestead mill and report to him how things were running. Nothing had ever been said about putting poison in food, and witness knew nothing of a poison plot. The $25 paid by him to Gallagher was a loan.
RELIEF COMMITTEE OF BUILDING TRADES, PITTSBURGH, PA.
On cross-examination, Dempsey stated that it was through the Knights of Labor in New York, who were striving to procure a settlement of the Homestead trouble, that he became interested in the affair. He gave a synopsis of one of Davidson's reports to him on the number of men employed and the output, and said that Gallagher made reports of like tenor.
While Dempsey was giving his testimony, resolutions affirming implicit faith in his honesty and innocence of wrong-doing were being adopted by District Assembly No. 3, and on the evening of the same day he was reelected to the position of master workman by acclamation. This strong expression of confidence on the part of his fellow workmen might, it was thought, have some influence for good on the determination of Dempsey's case.