607 



as to his integrity and as to negligence, his fair dealing and his 

 conduct as a State officer. At the outset, on the cross-examination of 

 Mr. Basselin, we not only presented to you the books of account 

 which contained an account of every dollar that had been received by 

 this forest commission, but we presented to you the trespass book 

 where every accusation against every man in the fifteen counties of 

 this forest preserve, where it had been spread out upon the books, 

 every man a complaint had been lodged against, they were presented 

 to you. We went a step further than that, we presented to you the book 

 which contained the litigations and every dollar that had been received, 

 from whose hands , it had been received, who paid it, and the 

 number of logs or the amount or number that had been taken, we 

 presented that to you. We submit, gentlemen of this committee, 

 has a man said that one of those figures, one of those accounts, one 

 of those items was incorrect? Not one. We went a step further; we 

 presented to you, and you have it among your papers, the map which 

 defined the thirteen districts of this forest preserve that was 

 alloted to the .respective foresters, and you will find by the 

 examination of . those maps, that it covers the entire Adirondack 

 region and every acre of State land; and when my friend says that 

 there is a forester up in Lewis county that has no lands to protect he, 

 knew what he said was false and what he knew was not the evidence 

 in this case, because before you was the map and the very district 

 that the gentleman that lives in Lewis county patroled and looked 

 after, was before you as a committee. » 



Many more of his statements I might call your attention to here 

 that were incorrect. We went further. . We took papers and printed 

 nptices upon cloth, and reports of foresters, instructions to foresters, 

 instructions to firewarden, and all of that we presented to you. Have 

 they shown that a single fire warden has not done his duty ? That a 

 single forester has been derelict by pointing out a single instance? 

 We say no, and we can prove it. Besides that, from uncontradicted 

 testimony of witnesses, who are not obliged to have a certificate of 

 character from any man, that they are intelligent and are to be 

 believed at home as well as here. 



Passing briefly over, as I have but a few moments time, the gr^eat 

 attempt . of counsel in this case, and it seems .to me foreign to the 

 purpose for which you gentlemen were appointed a committee to look 

 after these matters, that the whole attempt of the counsel has been 

 from commencement to close here, to see, if possible, out of all this 

 rubbish and out of all the evidence they could collect from one end 

 of this State to the other, that he couldn't fasten somewhere upon 



