Nine members of Battery B, Eighteenth regiment, N. G. P., swore that they were afflicted with precisely the same complaint that attacked the non-union workmen. Other witnesses testified as to the impurity of the water supply in the mill and the invariable prevalence of diarrhoea and kindred diseases among the millworkers during the hot season. E. W. Robertson, who occupied the cell next to Gallagher's in the county jail, said that Gallagher had told him that Dempsey was an innocent man. Hugh F. Dempsey, being sworn in his own defense, stated that he had employed Gallagher and Davidson, on Beatty's recommendation, to get work in the Homestead mill and report to him how things were running. Nothing had ever been said about putting poison in food, and witness knew nothing of a poison plot. The $25 paid by him to Gallagher was a loan. [Illustration: RELIEF COMMITTEE OF BUILDING TRADES, PITTSBURGH, PA.] On cross-examination, Dempsey stated that it was through the Knights of Labor in New York, who were striving to procure a settlement of the Homestead trouble, that he became interested in the affair. He gave a synopsis of one of Davidson's reports to him on the number of men employed and the output, and said that Gallagher made reports of like tenor. While Dempsey was giving his testimony, resolutions affirming implicit faith in his honesty and innocence of wrong-doing were being adopted by District Assembly No. 3, and on the evening of the same day he was reelected to the position of master workman by acclamation. This strong expression of confidence on the part of his fellow workmen might, it was thought, have some influence for good on the determination of Dempsey's case. With the exception of Prof. George Hay, a chemist, who swore that Captain Hunt could not possibly have discovered traces of croton oil in nine drops of oleaginous liquid, all the remaining witnesses for the defense were called to prove Dempsey's good character. Attorney L. K. Porter made the opening argument for the defense. He charged the prosecution with unfairness in having a chemical examination made without permitting the attendance of an expert on the part of the defense and dilated upon the reasons for presuming that an epidemic of stomach troubles would naturally occur in an establishment where 2,678 men were lodged and fed in close quarters and practically without outdoor exercise. The doctors disagreed and most of them had never treated poison cases. How could a man be convicted on such testimony? The men who claimed to have been poisoned had, for the most part, admitted that they had suffered from diarrhoea and vomiting before and why should it be surmised that the attacks which beset them in the mill arose from other than natural causes? The majority of the non-union men came from distant points and were liable to be affected by change of climate.