Mr. Bliss. Is not that the date of the order in the case?
Mr. Ingersoll. I do not know anything about that. I give you the exact facts.
Twentieth point. On page 4825, Mr. Bliss, in speaking of the Ojo Caliente route, charges that by the order increasing the trips on this route in February, 1881, there was paid from the Treasury illegally two thousand and eleven dollars and forty-six cents. As a matter of fact had we been paid for that entire quarter it would have amounted to seven thousand one hundred and thirty-nine dollars and forty-one cents. The pay was not adjusted until April 22< 1881 (page 731). The amount that was then paid was not seven thousand one hundred and thirty-nine dollars and forty-one cents, but it was three thousand seven hundred and twenty-seven dollars and twenty-two cents. It was not for the entire quarter, but simply for the actual service rendered. The quarterly pay for the preceding quarter, before the expedition, was three thousand three hundred and fifty-eight dollars and twenty-six cents; showing that we received only for that quarter an excess, on account of expedition, of three hundred and sixty-eight dollars and ninety-six cents. But he told you that we got illegally two thousand and eleven dollars and forty-six cents. That is a small matter.
Twenty-first point. On page 4897, Mr. Bliss says in effect that Dorsey undertook to state that he kept no books; that he was doing a business amounting, I think he says, to six million dollars a year, and yet he kept no books. On the contrary, Dorsey swore that he did keep books; on the contrary, he swore that Kellogg was his book-keeper. Kellogg swore that he did keep the books. Torrey swore that he was his book-keeper, and kept the books. And yet Mr. Bliss stood up before this jury and said to you that Mr. Dorsey wanted you to believe, or stated that he kept no hooks of that immense business. It will not do. No books but the red books, I suppose, were kept.
Twenty-second point. At page 4883, Mr. Bliss says that in regard to one of Vaile and Miner's routes (Canyon City to Fort McDermitt) there were large profits, amounting to twenty thousand dollars a year. Then he says eighty thousand dollars during the four years. And yet Mr. Bliss knew at that time that that expedition lasted only eleven months. Trying to fool the jury about sixty-two thousand dollars.
Twenty-third point. On page 4815 Mr. Bliss states that the fines on the Bismarck and Tongue River route, during Brady's administration, were only thirteen thousand dollars. If you will look at page 727 of this record, where the table is put in evidence as to the fines, you will find that he deducted from the pay twenty-nine thousand two hundred and twenty-four dollars. Mr. Bliss made a mistake of sixteen thousand two hundred and twenty-four dollars. But in a case like this that is not important. Gentlemen, you know you cannot always be accurate.
Mr. Bliss is an accurate man, as a rule. He has been called the index of this business for the Government. Twenty-fourth point. On page 4987 Mr. Bliss says:
The one fact of the evidence of the payment of money by Dorsey to Brady remains the same whether the books were put out of the way by Dorsey or by Rerdell. That is the great central point, so far as the books were concerned; and as to that the testimony is absolutely uncontradicted.
Mr. Brady swears that Dorsey never gave him a dollar. Dorsey swears that he never had a money transaction with Brady amounting to one cent. Mr. Rerdell does not pretend to swear that he knows of Mr. Dorsey having paid a dollar to Mr. Brady. He does not pretend to swear that he knows of any one of these defendants having paid one dollar to Mr. Brady. And yet Mr. Bliss will tell you that the fact that Dorsey paid Brady money is uncontradicted.
Mr. Bliss. I did not intend that, Colonel Ingersoll. I do not think it is capable of that interpretation.