Isn't it wonderful beyond the circumference of belief, that a good speller and bad speller happened to misspell the same words? It won't do. There is something rotten about this will, and the rotten thing about it is that James R. Eddy wrote it, and he wrote it about March, 1890. That is when he wrote it, and he let the proponent in this case have it. We will get to that shortly. So, gentlemen, I tell you that every misspelled word is a witness in our favor. There is something more. Eddy uses the character "&" in writing, instead of writing "and." The will is full of them; and it is stated that sometimes when he endeavors to write out the word "and" he only gets "an," and that peculiarity is in this will. "An" for "and"; that you will find in the seventeenth line in the last word of the line. Colonel Jacques swore that one of Eddy's misspelled words was the word "judgment"; that he put in a superfluous "e," and in this case here is "judgement"—"shall give the annuity that in the judgement of the executors shall be final;" there is the superfluous "e"—judgement. Now, there is another. Their witnesses swore that as a rule he turns the bottom of his "y's" and "g's" to the left. Now, you will find the same peculiarity in this will, and the amusing peculiarity that he turns the "g's" a little more than he does the "y's." I don't want these things answered by an essay on immutable justice. I want them to say how this is. Another thing, how he makes a "t," with a little pot hook at the top, and that hook has caught Mr. Eddy. You will find them made in the will, exactly, where the "t" commences a word—where it is what we call the initial letter. And what else? When he makes a small "e" commencing a word, he always makes it like a capital "E," only smaller. That is the testimony, and that happens in this will and it happens in the papers and letters.
Now, I say, that all these peculiarities taken together, the same words misspelled, the same letters used interchangeably, the same mistakes in punctuation, the same mistakes in the words themselves—all these things amount to an absolute demonstration. So, I told you, he uses the capital "I" with the word "is" and that he does twice in this will.
Here are hundreds, almost, of witnesses that take the stand and swear that Eddy is the author of that will. He wrote it—every word of it. He negotiated with John A. Davis for it, and I will come to that after a little. And how do they support this will that has in it the internal evidence that it was written by James R. Eddy? Why do I say it is impossible that he should have written it, and the will should be genuine? Because at the date of that will, or the date it purports to bear, Eddy was only eight years old. And we don't know the real date, gentlemen, of that will yet. My opinion is that it was dated by mistake, so that it came on a date that Davis was not there, or came on a day that was Sunday, and then they folded up that will, and scratched it and rubbed it until the date is absolutely illegible, and nobody can say whether it is June, July, or January. There was a purpose. The day may have been Sunday, or they may have afterward ascertained that he was not there. It is a suspicious circumstance that the day is left loose so they can have a month to play on, maybe more. Now, they say, can you impeach Sconce?
Every misspelled word in the will impeaches Sconce, ever; period impeaches Sconce, every "a" that is used as "o" impeaches him, and "o" as "u"; every "b" that is made like an "h" impeaches him, every "h" that is made like a "b" impeaches him.
In other words, every peculiarity of James R. Eddy that appears in that will impeaches J. C. Sconce, Sr.—Captain Sconce. There is a thing about this will which, to my mind, is a demonstration. It may be that it is because I am a sinner, but I find, and so do you find it in the second initial of Sconce, in the letter "C." There are two punctures, and you will find that exactly where the punctures are there is a little spatter in the ink—a disturbance of the line, in the capital first; in the small "c" there is another puncture and another disturbance of the line. Professor Elwell says that these holes were made afterwards. Let's see. There is a hole, and there is a splatter and a change of the line. There is another hole and there is another change. There is another hole and there is another change. What is natural? What is reasonable? What is probable? It is that the hole being there, interrupted the pen, and accounts for the diversion of the line, and for the spatter. That is natural, isn't it? but they take the unnatural side. They say that these holes were made after the writing. Would it not be a miracle that just three holes should happen to strike just the three places where there had been a division of the line and a little spatter of the ink? Take up your table of logarithms and figure away until you are blind, and such an accident could not happen in as many thousand, billion, trillion, quintillion years as you can express by figures.
Three holes by accident hitting just the three places where the pen was impeded and where the spatters were. Never such a thing in the world. It might happen once. Nobody could make me believe that it happened twice—that is, a hole might happen to get where the pen was interrupted once; as to the second hole, I would bet all I have on earth, as to the third hole, I know it did not. I just know it did not. And yet Mr. Elwell says that these holes were made afterwards, and he goes still further, and says that there is not any trouble in the line. If anybody will look at it, even with the natural eye, they can see that there is; and, in a kind of diversion, they called Professor Hagan, when he called attention to it, Professor Pin-holes and pin-hole expert. He might have replied that that was a pin-head objection.
Professor Elwell accounts for all the dirt on this will by perspiration, all on one side and made by the thumb, and although there were four fingers under it at the same time, the fingers were so contrary they wouldn't perspire. This left the thumb to do all the sweating. I need not call him a professor of perspiration, for that throws no light on the subject; but I say to you, gentlemen, that those marks, those punctures, were in that paper when Sconce wrote his name. Sconce says they were not—he remembered. He has got a magnificent memory. I say that even that shows that he is not telling the facts.
Now, what else? We went around among the neighbors. He was charged with passing counterfeit money, with stealing sheep, with stealing hogs, with stealing cattle and with stealing harness.
Mr. Woolworth. It was not proved that this man was accused of counterfeiting, of passing counterfeit money.
Mr. Ingersoll. I tell you how I prove it. A man by the name of Lanman was on the stand. He swore he was acquainted with Sconce's reputation. Colonel Sanders asked him who he had ever heard say anything about it. He said Lewis Miller and Abraham Miller and a man by the name of Hopkins and several others. What did they say? I asked them afterwards, and among other things I recollect he was charged with passing counterfeit money, stealing hogs, stealing sheep, stealing harness, killing another man's heifer in the woods. I don't think I am mistaken, but if I am I will take counterfeit money back. I won't try to pass counterfeit money myself, although a sinner.