Page:The "Trial" of Ferrer - A Clerical Judicial Murder (IA 2916970.0001.001.umich.edu).pdf/35

 Later on this Colldefrons declared that "on the 27th, between seven and half past eight in the evening, he saw a group in front of the Lyceum captained by an individual who seemed to him to be Ferrer Guardia, whom he knew only from his picture, but of whose identity he made certain by asking the passersby." It docs not seem that the witness was confronted with the accused and recognized him. And it would have been easy to find out whether Ferrer was actually in front of the Lyceum between seven and half past eight, since he was constantly followed by plain clothes men (see note 45), or by asking the persons with whom Ferrer said he had been on that day. But no such thing was done.

Now, as it has been established that Ferrer left for Montgat in the early morning of the 27th, without having gone to bed that night, that he arrived at his house at five o'clock in the morning, that the next day he was at the barber shop in Masnou, he would, in order to be in front of the Lyceum in Barcelona, between half past seven and eight, according to the witness Colldefrons, have had to walk three times in one day over the distance from Montgat to Barcelona, that is 45 kilometers in all (about 18 miles). It seems very improbable, if not impossible, that a man over 50 years of age, who had not slept the night before, should have done that on a hot day in July. And he would have had to do it on foot, since the trains were stopped on acccount of the strike; to ride he would have had to order a carriage from Masnou, a fact which would have been known to Juan Puig or the barber Domenech. Besides, the boulevard in front of the Lyceum was swept that morning by a column of infantry and remained under military occupation the rest of the day. No group of insurgents would have been allowed to pass. Now Colldefrons declares that he knew it was Ferrer because the pas-