lowed expeditions solely on the statements of the parties to be affected by them, and that those parties were allowed practically to say how much they would take from the Treasury of the United States; that he allowed expeditions upon affidavits where the records show there were contradicting affidavits by the same parties on file before him; that he allowed them on affidavits which showed such absurd results as that they assume that one horse could only travel two miles a day; that he allowed excessive sums even if he took the affidavits of the persons who made them; that he acted upon affidavits which were false; that he disregarded the law as to productiveness; that he paid large sums of money for expedition where nothing was gained; that he paid large sums for expedition and increase of trips where neither expedition nor increase of trips were needed; that he ordered impossible expedition; that he paid twice for the same service; that he made petty orders, adding to the money to be taken from the treasury when the facts upon which they were alleged to be based were untrue, alleging that there was an addition of distance when there was nothing of the kind, and similar cases; that he neglected to declare these parties failing contractors, and granted them the liberty to continue, leaving the service to be provided for by the Government in other ways until they got ready with their petitions and names for expedition, so as to make their losing contracts winning contracts; that he acted upon false petitions, petitions which upon their face were false, and petitions which did not even answer his alleged purpose of being a cover or protection for himself. We shall undertake, however, gentlemen, to show to you much more than this. We shall place before you a gentleman not a willing witness for the Government, but a witness whose testimony will have to be drawn from him, who will testify, we think, to substantially this condition of things: that he having made advances to parties concerned in the postal service, and those parties having failed to carry out their contracts, for the purpose of protecting himself and saving the advances which he had already made, became a contractor upon a route under an order made by Mr. Brady; that that relation brought him into connection with Mr. Brady, and that thereupon Mr. Brady, at various times, received from him loans of money under such circumstances that his evidence in that respect can be entirely corroborated; that after a time this gentleman being substantially broken up by his experience with the mail service, he called upon Mr. Brady for a settlement and a repayment of the money advanced, and that Mr. Brady refused to pay it, saying to him that that money was simply bribes which he had paid to him for favors which he alleged he had given him in connection with his mail service, and telling him also that he had done no more than all other contractors did; that they all had to pay him; that he did not suppose that the witness believed that he, Brady, made these orders for the fun of the thing; that he made them for the solid reason of getting an interest and percentage for making them, and that when this witness referred to his supposition that he made them on the basis of petitions which were filed, Mr. Brady scattered the idea to the winds, and told him he ought to know better than that. Said he, "You understand there were petitions filed in your behalf, but I did not pay any attention to them. They had no effect upon me. They were simply a cover giving me something to protect me in doing this thing." I have stated briefly the evidence of a witness who I feel confident will satisfy you that he is telling the truth. He can be supported in the statements by various corroborative evidence. He is not a swift witness in the service of the Government, but a man whom we can bring here under subpoena, and who will tell the truth upon the

stand because it is his duty to tell the truth. And if his character is attacked, we shall be prepared to show that it is beyond successful attack.

In

But, gentlemen, we shall go further. We shall show you that one of these defendants, Montfort C. Rerdell, in the spring of the year 1881, after Mr. Brady went out of office, and when this investigation in connection with the star-route service was first commenced, having been simply the clerk, the scribe, apparently with no direct pecuniary interest-I think he had an interest as to some of the routes-but at any rate being the humble servant and employé of these conspirators, found this investigation was getting near home, and said, "I propose to save myself, and I propose to save that one of the defendants, Stephen W. Dorsey, to whom I personally owe the most allegiance and for whom I have the most affection. He is the man who brought me from Arkansas here and who put me into one of the departments of the Government and who took me as his clerk to the Senate, who kept me in the position and who has paid me my salary. Now, I propose to make a clean breast of it and endeavor to save him and myself." following out that theory he met, on the street, Ex-Gov. Powell Clayton, of Arkansas. I presume he sought him from the fact that he knew that Governor Clayton had access to the then officials of the administration, and he possibly might have been influenced by the fact that he knew Ex-Governor Clayton had in the past not been friendly to Mr. Dorsey. He told him he wanted to be brought into communication with the Postmaster-General. Clayton told him he would arrange for the meeting. He went to the Postmaster-General, and an arrangement was made by which there was a meeting at the rooms of the Postmaster-General at the Arlington Hotel. Mr. Rerdell came there, and Mr. Rerdell then made a detailed statement of the facts which he stated existed within his own experience. Mr. James stated to him that he desired to have him see the Attorney-General. An, appointment was made for a further interview, and at that interview Mr. Rerdell renewed the statements that he had originally made. The first interview was held in the presence of Mr. James, Governor Clayton, and Mr. Woodward, an inspector of the Post-Office Department. It took place early in June of last year. Mr. Rerdell stated that he had been Stephen W. Dorsey's confidential clerk; that he had attended to the business of all these contractors; that it was perfectly well understood that they were dividing their profits with Mr. Brady; that there was a regular schedule on which the division was made; that for increase of speed, which was the large allowance, there was paid to Mr. Brady by the contractors a percentage of either 33 or 40 per cent. of the amount; that in case Mr. Brady remitted fines imposed upon contractors for failure to perform service, he was to have 50 per cent. of the amount; that at the time when Congress, in 1880, was investigating this business-Congress went into an investigation when Mr. Brady made the request for the large extra appropriation-it was believed that the books of Dorsey and Company would be called for, and that Mr. Rerdell would be the witness required to produce them; that he therefore shammed sickness while time was given to prepare a bogus set of books; that he did not prepare hose books, but he gave instructions as to how they should be prepared, marking the entries in the original books which should be changed; that in the original books Mr. Brady appeared as Smith; and that a clerk in one of the departments appeared as Jones; that when the new set of books were made those items that went in in that way were transferred to other accounts, mostly, I think, "to profit and

He

loss;" that he, Rerdell, had on one occasion gone with Mr. Stephen W. Dorsey to the bank, and that $7,000 had been drawn; that he had gone with Mr. Dorsey to the door, either of the Post-Office or of Mr. Brady's room at the Post-Office-I will not undertake to say which—Mr. Dorsey stating to him that he intended to pay that money to Mr. Brady, and that he, Dorsey, went in. Rerdell did not claim to have gone in and seen the money paid. He produced certain abstracts, which he said. were abstracts from the books or the results of the accounts. said that he went before the committee finally, but that they did not send for the books, and that therefore that labor was labor wasted; that he had been remonstrated with by the defendants after his exami nation by the committee, on the ground that he had told too much, and that he replied that he had told nothing he could help telling, and that his testimony was as guarded as it could be without incurring the danger of instant exposure if they went to the records and discovered its error. There was a good deal more of the same nature. Mr. Rerdell then desired to see Mr. MacVeagh, and an arrangement was made to have him see Mr. MacVeagh on a subsequent evening. It was arranged that he should communicate with Mr. Woodward, the Post-Office inspector, under an assumed name. Mr. Woodward having ascertained as he believed that Mr. MacVeagh would not be in town on the night fixed for Mr. Rerdell to go to his house sent Rerdell, through the post-office, a notice to that effect; but in order to make sure, Mr. Woodward went to the Attorney-General's house, and as he got to the steps he found Rerdell in front of him, having just rung the bell, and having with him certain books. On going in it appeared Mr. MacVeagh had returned. Mr. Rerdell repeated substantially the statement which I have made to you. He said that these books which he produced were the letterbooks of the concern, and contained some letters written by him and some written by Stephen W. Dorsey, and he showed to the gentlemen certain press copies of letters which were identical with letters which had been shortly before that discovered to have been sent to Oregon by S. W. Dorsey, and the originals of which were at that time accessible. There were one or two other interviews upon that subject, and Mr. Rerdell said that the tell-tale books were in New York, and he would go there and get them, and would bring them, with other papers which he could find as confirmatory of his statement, and leave them with the Attorney-General. A few days afterwards Mr. James was on the cars going to New York, and he found Mr. Rerdell upon the same train. Mr. Rerdell told him he was going over to carry out his arrangement as to the production of the books. They arrived in New York early in the morning. That afternoon at 3.30 Mr. James left to come back, and to his surprise found Mr. Rerdell upon the train. Mr. Rerdell told him he did not want to have much conversation with him there, because there was upon the train somebody interested in the starroute. business; but pointing to a bundle which he had, told him he had those books with him. When they got to either Trenton or Philadelphia the conductor came into the parlor car and called out the name of Mr. Rerdell, saying that he had two dispatches for him. Rerdell took the dispatches and read them, and subsequently as Mr. James was passing showed him those dispatches, which were dispatches signed with the name of Stephen W. Dorsey. One of them expressed regret that they had parted in anger and begged him to come back, and the other beseeched him to pause in the course upon which he had entered as it would result in the ruin of Dorsey's family. Mr. Rerdell came back to the city with the dispatches in his possession, stating that he was

determined to carry out his agreement with the Attorney-General. When he got here he fell into the hands of somebody, and from that time on he lost all desire to protect himself and to clear his conscience, but passed altogether under the influence of these defendants. Their ranks were closed up and he stands before you now as one of the defendants, whose testimony against himself will be accepted by the court and by you as absolutely conclusive, and whose testimony will throw a lurid light upon this conspiracy and the relations of the different parties to it.

Your honor, I am about to begin upon new matter. Perhaps this is a good time to adjourn. I hoped to get through to-day, and should, I think, have been able to do so if it had not been for the interruptions. The COURT. Adjourn the court.

At this point (3 o'clock and 55 minutes p. m.) the court adjourned until Monday morning next at 11 o'clock.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1882.

The court met at 11 o'clock.

Present, counsel for the Government and for the defendants.
Mr. BLISS resumed as follows:

May it please the court and you, gentlemen of the jury, on looking over my memorandum I perceive that I stated somewhat inadequately the evidence which we propose to offer as to the conversation of the contractor Walsh with Mr. Brady, and it is perhaps right that I should amplify that a little. I stated that the contractor after having loaned as he claimed money to Mr. Brady, and having come into a position where he desired his money returned, called upon Mr. Brady to return it to him and made an appointment to meet him at a given place. They there met. That he called upon Mr. Brady to return him the money and gave him the amounts; that a discussion was opened as to the amount of interest that was to be paid, the question as to interest having been left unsettled, and that he was then met by the statement of Mr. Brady that he, Brady, owed him nothing; that in fact the contractor, Walsh, rather owed him; that Brady alleged that he had benefited him very largely; that he had given him a remunerative contract, and that he did not think that he, Brady, was under any obliga. tion to Walsh, and that when asked for an explanation, Brady said he did not think any explanation was needed, that he thought Walsh knew enough, had seen enough to understand what the usual arrangements were. Walsh, professing ignorance, called for an explanation. Brady then recited that Walsh's route had been expedited, the service increased, and he must not suppose that he, Brady, did these things just for amusement. Whereupon Walsh replied that he thought or supposed he did it because of the petitions from people in the locality, &c., as to the needs of the service, to which Brady replied that petitions had nothng to do with it; that there was no use in arguing the matter, and that if he, Walsh, professed ignorance of what the real arrangements were that was mere affectation, and he then told him that as a rule 20 per cent. per annum was paid to him, Brady, on the amount of all expeditions that he ordered; and he then went into figures as to what would result to Walsh on the application of that to the contract which he had had. There was also a statement of some other sums, credits that Mr. Brady claimed he was entitled to; and that brings me to a

matter which I have not referred to heretofore, and that is the question of remissions of fines and penalties. It is in the power of the Second Assistant Postmaster-General when any contractor has been fined for not performing the service at all, or not perform-\ ing it in the requisite time, for losing one trip or twenty trips, or being behind time on one trip or twenty trips, it is in the power and it is the duty of the Postmaster General to impose fines upon the party, that he shall not receive money for service which he has not performed. Those fines it is in the power of the Second Assistant Postmaster- › General to remit, and to remit substantially at his own will, it being assumed under the law and the regulations of course that the Second Assistant Postmaster-General will be a man of honesty and discretion. In this discussion between Walsh and Brady there came up the question of remissions of fines and penalties, or fines and forfeitures as spoken of sometimes, which really are penalties, and Mr. Brady told Walsh that he, Brady, was entitled to and he always got 50 per cent. of all fines and penalties which he remitted. Mr. Brady told Mr. Walsh that these arrangements were the general arrangements made with all contractors for whom he made orders benefiting them by expedition of service, or increase of service, or the remission of their fines, and insisted that he, Walsh, must recognize that system which prevailed. Mr. Walsh declined to recognize that system which prevailed, and claimed that he was in entire ignorance of it.

The money was undoubtedly paid by Walsh to Brady. There can be no question of that. We shall prove to you, beyond all question, by the account of the banker in New York to whom the payment was made, the payment made by Walsh to Brady on the precise day when Walsh says it was made, and that money that Brady had of Walsh Mr. Walsh says was money that he lent to him. Mr. Brady claims to retain it under some undefined condition other than that. I mean he claims it in court, but claims to Mr. Walsh, as Mr. Walsh states, that he had a right to retain it because it was the usual percentage which he received from everybody for whom he expedited or increased the service, and that on the figures made in detail Mr. Walsh still owed him some money instead of Mr. Brady owing Walsh for money loaned.

I have spoken, gentlemen of the jury, thus far almost solely of Mr. Brady among these defendants. I have done that designedly, and, in a great measure, from the necessities of the case. Mr. Brady was the Second Assistant Postmaster-General. Dorsey might conceive the scheme. He might bring into it his brother, his brotherin-law, his business associate; he might do all these things, and, unless there was some arrangement by which orders were to be got from Mr. Brady which would put money into the pocket of the contractors represented by Dorsey and his associates, money in excess of the fair needs of the service, money in excess of any return which they made to the Government therefor, the conspiracy would be a useless. and futile thing, and therefore I have spoken of Mr. Brady so far, because it was his acts which became necessary to carry out the conspiracy, to give it any effect whatever in defrauding the United States. There might be a conspiracy to defraud the United States and do some act in pursuance of it which would bring the parties within the statute which I read to you at the opening of my remarks, but at the same time it would be an act which would not result in any actual loss to the Government, unless Mr. Brady made the orders sought at his hands. In this connection, I may perhaps as well call your attention to the fact that a conspiracy is a thing to be proved from the very