334 



TRINIDAD I THEN AND NOW. 



clined. I was somewhat astonished and whisper- 

 ed to Mr. O'Connor " ask the Attorney-General 

 to permit me to speak to him in private 99 there- 

 upon the Attorney-General asked Mr. Garcia to 

 remove for a moment, which he did, and I imme- 

 diately said to them, " I think you ought to ac- 

 cept Mr. Garcia 's offer, in my opinion you have 



no case against B " "What do you mean, 



do you not think these documents sufficient evi- 

 dence ? " Yes," I replied, " if you can prove them 

 to be his handwriting." " But they are," he said. 

 " They are not, 99 I replied, 66 the man can't write, 

 these documents were not signed by him, therefore 

 on that part of the case which is the only evidence 

 you have against him you must fail. " " How do you 

 know that he can't write asked the Attorney-Gene- 

 ral ? " ' ' Wait for a moment and I will show you, 9 9 I 

 replied, and went to my office and procured the bail 

 bond w\hdch the accused had signed on the previous 

 day. It was signed with a mark as follows : 



his 



A x B 



mark 



This settled the case and B was accepted 



as a witness for the Crown. Mr. Garcia did not un- 

 derstand it and on various occasions tried to get out 

 of me what I had said or done to convince the Attor- 

 ney-General. I invariably replied " After the case 

 against the other men is tried by a jury I will tell 

 you, ' ' and when it was tried and the other men con- 

 victed — mainly on B 's evidence — I told him. 



