581 



dollars, and then another receipt for twenty dollars and a check for 

 nineteen dollars and twenty-five cents; those are in evidence printed 

 here, and then, our friends having gone to the Comptroller's office, we 

 went to the Comptroller's office and have got the whole account of 

 this man Miller, from the time he began until he finished business, 

 covering this whole time, and where he is credited with money, states 

 from whom he received it, when he received it, and what particular 

 trespass, and every one of these items I have read, Mr. Chairman and 

 gentlemen of the committee, are not entered on that account, so instead 

 of having a defaulter in one sum, here are seven or eight, and yet 

 they expect Turner is snowed under by the sweet talk of this man 

 who has stolen, not once, but six or seven times. 



Now, Albert Turner is mad at Ben; hasn't spoken to him in ten 

 or a dozen years, and yet he says that that survey was made between 

 a State lot surveyed out the whole lot between the State lot and 

 this land that he sold to somebody — tells it exactly as Ben Turner 

 tells it. Then they call Forester Parker. Ben was coming home 

 from his lawsuit, perhaps a little spunky, and he says he talked very 

 disrespectful about this commission. He said they were incompetent 

 and they didn't attend to their business, and he could " bust " them, 

 if he went to the Legislature, but he guessed he wouldn't. We are 

 just finding out the fact that this commission is incompetent, and 

 isn't attending to its business. He found it out two or three years 

 ago, so that I hope the committee will not discredit Turner for having 

 found out this thing before we have. 



Then Inspector Burke is called and Burke explains about this 

 fifteen cents. He says these people, the Hartwells, owned half and 

 the State half, and they settled for fifteen cents but does not tell 

 whether they settled for fifteen cents for their share or whether the 

 whole. Suppose it was the whole, it would make thirty cents a 

 standard, and it is not contradicted that this timber was worth a 

 dollar a standard in the tree, so that it doesn't help it very much. 



So that all this attempt and all the labor and pains of our friends 

 from Thursday or Friday up to Tuesday to hunt up, to rake over as 

 we might say, all Plattsburgh, with a fine tooth comb to find some- 

 thing against Ben Turner, he stands perfectly fair and strong, 

 and has not been touched' so far, and our friends, with some things 

 they have brought here, make their clients appear most ridiculous, 

 Bhows their desperation and their foolishness in extricating them- 

 selves from it. 



But the, great tug and the great trial is when they call on Garmon. 

 Garmon is going to annihilate him. Well, Garmon denies that he 



