H. K. White Statement - Part 2

bezzlement I wanted to know it. I had never been charged before or that I had assisted anybody to embezzle or steal money. I had been thirty years on this coast and I did not intend to lay under this imputation if it was possible for me to get to this trial but I was not able to come myself on my own money and I so told Mr. Smith. He said if he wanted my services that they would pay my expenses. I then wrote him that I could not come for my expenses. It was not possible. That I had a position and if I left it I should lose it I think that was the last letter I wrote him with regard to it and that he could not expect to have me come merely on my expenses

[bottom left margin:] 159

because if I lost my position which I undoubtedly would if I left it. I would have to be seeking somewhere else for employment. I did not write it as a bribe or anything of the kind, but to show him that I was in that condition that I could not afford to come up here on merely my expenses being paid.

Q Looking over that Exhibit D, what you know of the transactions of the company and your part as secretary and book keeper, does not the transaction with respect to the use of the money by Colton. Keeping it in his own private account, having the use of it, himself, and the transaction of the $11.000 check, and the transaction of Sisson Wallace & Co for which a

[bottom left margin:] 160

payment was made to the Company for goods in the store, and the settlement with the U. P. R. R. Co. — do not all those facts lend to the inevitable conclusion that in each of those transactions the Company was robbed by the use of the money made by Colton?

A I do not hardly know how to answer your question.

Q I think it is easy to answer.

A Of course, it is easy to answer but from the position I stand to Mrs. Colton and to Colton's Memory.

Q I am simply asking for the facts.

A The facts show that somebody used the money of the Coal Co.

Q Was it possible for anybody else but Colton

[bottom left margin:] 161

to use it?

A I did not use any of it.

Q Does it not rest between you?

A It rests between myself and Colton, yes. I can only say that when it comes to that point I must say that he used the money of the Coal Company. It looks to me that way from looking over this Ex D.

Q I understand that all that you got for your services to the Co. in the handling of its affairs was the monthly salary they agreed to pay?

A Yes sir, my monthly salary of $150 a month and $50 a month he paid me for attending to his private affairs, collecting his rent, vc. I received $200 a month, not all the time because in the first

[bottom left margin:] 162

part I went to work for Colton at $40 a month and boarded my self in January 1871.

[left margin notes:] Mine Work for Colton then Co

Q Now then when you left the service of the company in 1877 what further communication did you have with Colton?

A No business.

Q How soon before his death did you see him?

A Just before his death? I think I saw him on the afternoon of Thursday when, he went home, about the time he was going home and went to his bed sick.

Q Thursday previous to his death?

A Yes.

Q Where was that?

A At his office at the R. R. offices.

Q What did he say to you there? A I stepped into his office. There was no one in and I sat "stood"[scribbled out] there

[bottom left margin:] 163