entlemen, what are the actual facts
in this case? Was the said Frank A. Cowperwood & Company--there is no
company, as you well know, as you have heard testified here to-day, only
Frank A. Cowperwood--was the said Frank A. Cowperwood a fit person to
receive the check at this time in the manner he received it--that is,
was he authorized agent of the city at the time, or was he not? Was he
solvent? Did he actually himself think he was going to fail, and was
this sixty-thousand-dollar check a last thin straw which he was grabbing
at to save his financial life regardless of what it involved legally,
morally, or otherwise; or had he actually purchased certificates of city
loan to the amount he said he had in the way he said he had, at the
time he said he had, and was he merely collecting his honest due? Did he
intend to deposit these certificates of loans in the city sinking-fund,
as he said he would--as it was understood naturally and normally that
he would--or did he not? Were his relations with the city treasurer as
broker and agent the same as they had always been on the day that he
secured this particular check for sixty thousand dollars, or were they
not? Had they been terminated by a conversation fifteen minutes before
or two days before or two weeks before--it makes no difference when, so
long as they had been properly terminated--or had they not? A business
man has a right to abrogate an agreement at any time where there is
no specific form of contract and no fixed period of operation entered
into--as you all must know. You must not forget that in considering the
evidence in this case. Did George W. Stener, knowing or suspecting that
Frank A. Cowperwood was in a tight place financially, unable to fulfill
any longer properly and honestly the duties supposedly devolving on
him by this agreement, terminate it then and there on October 9, 1871,
before this check for sixty thousand dollars was given, or did he not?
Did Mr. Frank A. Cowperwood then and there, knowing that he was no
longer an agent of the city treasurer and the city, and knowing also
that he was insolvent (having, as Mr. Stener contends, admitted to him
that he was so), and having no intention of placing the certificates
which he subsequently declared he had purchased in the sinking-fund, go
out into Mr. Stener's general office, meet his secretary, tell him he
had purchased sixty thousand dollars' worth of city loan, ask for the
check, get it, put it in his p