619 Page – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

Here is the translated text as follows:

ALEXANDER WHISTELO. 587

Sport is a quit rent which the learned owe to us small wits; it is an indemnity for the shade they cast upon us, and we seize upon it by the title of amends. I do very much respect the witness and admire his learning and his candor; but when I think of the odd excursion we have made to discover the parentage of this child of nature, I must either laugh or die of it.

If a witness was wanted with a mind well stored with facts, he stands unequalled. His is like the magazine of some great commission merchant, whose high credit and extensive correspondence brings him consignments from the four corners of the earth—with room for all, and no particular reason for rejecting any. Whoever would make up an assortment to answer any demand may call upon him. If the wares be not all his own, he has a factor's lien on them, and a vested interest, and may dispose of them for the benefit of the concerned. If he parts with them without warranty, and there is no scienter, then they are at the risk of the party who receives them, and the maxim is caveat emptor.

It was with this view of ascertaining how far these facts were warranted genuine, or in other words, how many ounces of such testimony went to the pound, that I put so many questions to Doctor Mitchill. I wanted to know whether we were to take by the Winchester or the standard bushel, whether our long measure was the ell Flemish or the common yard; and the Court will very clearly comprehend, or else will not comprehend how we came to treat of Plato's triangle, of the virtues of number Three, and of the probability of the opinions of that great philosopher—viz: that when men and women hold this sort of tête-à-tête, it is only for the sake of completing a triangle. If I did not pursue that curious subject further, it was for this reason. From the moment I found out that a triangle had but three sides, I saw that the doctrine would not apply; for make what angle you will of a man and woman, still as each has two sides at the least, a right and a left, the diagram which they describe must have four, not to speak of others that I am ashamed to mention.