we deem it superfluous to make a further recital of his testimony. Finally Reed, a crossing tender, purported to recognize Vanzetti as the man sitting on the front seat of a car which he claimed to identify as the murder car. This was at some distance more than an hour after the murder. Reed's testimony placing Vanzetti on the front seat of the car ran counter to the theory of the Commonwealth that Vanzetti was at the rear. Moreover, Reed testified that "the quality of the English [of Vanzetti] was unmistakable and clear" (R. 329), while at the trial Vanzetti's English was found to be so imperfect that an interpreter had to be employed.
1. Harry E. Dolbeare testified that somewhere between 10 and 12 A.M. he saw a car going past him in South Braintree with five people in it, one of whom he identified as Vanzetti:—
Q. There was nothing that attracted your attention in this case except one man leaning forward as though he was talking to another man? A. Yes, there was.
He then stated that there was something that attracted his attention to this man before the car got opposite him,—it was the appearance of the whole five that attracted his attention. They appeared strange to him, as strangers to the town, as a carload of foreigners. He hardly knows how to express himself. He knows how he felt at the time. "I felt it was a tough looking bunch. That is the very feeling that came to my mind at the time…. I guess that is all. That is all I recall now."
Q. And it is nothing unusual to see an automobile with three or five or seven foreigners in it, is it? A. No.
Q. And those automobiles go through to Holbrook, to Randolph, and all through that district from the Fore River with those workmen, don't they? A. Yes, sir.
