The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-14 00:00:00

An Interview with Muller,

The correspondent of a contemporary states that he
visited Muller in the Tombs Prison, on the 30th ult., by
permission of the United States Marshal, and that he and a
friend who accompanied him had a long conversation with
the prisoner in regard to the explanation he had to offer of
the circumstances bearing against him. The following is
his report of what passed, for the accuracy of which, how-
ever, we are unable to vouch :

Fortunately we happened to reach there just as Muller
was entering the prison yard to take his morning walk.
" Well, Muller," remarked one of the bystanders. as he
made his appearance, "how do you feel this morning f"
He answered readily enough to show that he understood
the English language well, although his pronunciation was
quite imperfect, "I feel weak and bad; I am sick."
And the poor fellow's countenance sustained his words.
Since I saw him in court on Saturday last he had been
allowed two days of perfect quiet, and after the exciting
scenes that he had passed through the irritable reaction had
set in. Ho had evidently begun to comprehend the peril
of his condition, and to appreciate the consequence of a
conviction for the crime with which he stood charged.
The same gentleman who had opened the conversation
proceeded—
" Muller, I understand that you feel confident you can
prove an alibi—that you were not upon the Northern Rail-
way the night Mr Briggs was murdered P"
"Yes," he replied, "I was not there."
"Yeu have a sister in this country-?" some one remarked.
"I have," he said. "She lives at 139, Nassau-street,
but she has not yet been to see me."
" Perhaps she does not know that you have arrived ?"
"Perhaps not," he replied, " but I have tried to send her
word."
"Is she married or unmarried f"
"She was unmarried when she came to this country," he
answered, " 14 years age, but she is now married."
The warder of the prison took down her name and ad-
dress as Muller gave it, and promised to try and find her.
Some further conversation ensued regarding the adoption
of means to make the prisoner as comfortable as possible
while he remained in the prison, and I took advantage of a
lull in the conversation to remark to him that I expected to
write to England to-day, and would gladly do my best to
make public any statement ha might desire regarding his
whereabouts upon the night Mr Briggs was murdered. At
first he did not seem to understand me, apparently supposing
that I desired his version of the fact for publication here, as
he answered that ha did not care to have anything said—his
counsel knew all the circumstances. A casual allusion to a
statement I had seen in some of the London papers to the
effect that the German societies were interesting themselves
in his case, and endeavouring to gather testimony for his
defence, seemed to give him the correct idea of my object,
and he at once proceeded to say that on the night of Mr
Briggs's murder he left his boarding place shortly after sup-
per, rode to London-bridge, as he was troubled with a lame
leg, a cart having run over his foot a few days previously
and bruised it ; that he walked across London-bridge and
took another omnibus to Camberwell New-road. Going
iato a publichouse in that locality he drank a glass of beer,
and remained there until half-past nine, when he again took
an omnibus to return to London-bridge. On recrossing the
bridge and going to the Royal Exchange, which he reached
about ten o'clock, he found that the last omnibus had left,
and he was obliged to walk home. In consequence of the
lameness of his foot it was eleven o'clock before he reached
there, and all the folks had gone to bed. He made his way
to his room as soon as possible, and saw none of them until
the next morning.

I toll Muller, after he had completed this statement,
that touch curiosity was felt to know how he came in pos-
session of the hat and watch which were said to belong to
Mr Briggs.
He promptly answered that he purchased the hat at a
shop in London a year ago. The watch he stated he bought
of a pedlar on the docks the Monday before he sailed. The
vessel left port on Fr;day, and he narrated the circum-
stances as follows :—Tho pedlar had rings and other trinkets
for sale, and upon Muller's stepping up to look at them he
offered him this watch. Muller had but four pounds and
three half-crowns in his pocket, money which he had been
saving up to purchase his passage ticket to America, and
when the pedlar offered him the watch for £5, he replied by
effiring Xi for it. This was refused, and Muller turned to
go away, but he had taken such a fancy to the watch that
ho determined to purchase it if he could by the payment of
all the money in his possession (four pounds, three half.
crowns), and this the pedlar finally accepted. When he
got the watch in his possession he said he was afraid that
it might be worthless, and so went to Mr. Death's, in
Cheapside, to exchange the chain, thinking that if this
proved to be pure gold the watch also must be as valuable
as it seemed to be,

"Then," said I, "Mr Death's statement was correct.
You bartered the chain with him P"

"Yes," Muller answered.
"had you heard of Mr Briggs's murder," I asked,
" when y3u bought the watch ?"
"I had," he replied ; " but I did not think of the watch
being his."

" How was it you happened to take passage for America
just at that time?"

" Oh," said he, "I had been intending for some time to
come here, to follow my trade, and had given my landlady
notice a fortnight before that I meant to leave."

"Another question," I said. "You have just told me
that you gave all the money you had for the watch ; where
did you raise funds to pay for your passage ticket ?"

"1 pawned the watch chain," he answered, "and after-
wards sold the ticket."

" Certainly," I replied, "that could not have been suffi-
cient."

64 No," said he, " I had a gold watch before I purchased
the one said to belong to Mr Briggs, which I sold, and which
brought me sufficient."
You will remember that several of the witnesses who
have testified before the London tribunals have stated that
Muller had no gold watch previous to the time that he se-
cured possession of Mr Briggs's, Bearing this fact in mind
I did not think it worth while to push my inquiries further,
and, after a few unimportant remarks, took leave of Muller.
During the conversation he bore himself with great compo-
sure, and was never at a loss to answer any questions that
I put to him. He was dressed in the same clothes he
wore in court, with the single exception that he was
without a coat. His shirt had apparently just come from
the hands of the washerwoman, and was consequently
clean. His pants were threadbare, but were neatly
brushed, and on the whole his appearance was as much
in his favour as it could have been expected to be. As
I turned to leave the "Tombs," the warden remarked,
" He is a hard caso, you may depend upon it—his mouth
shows that,"

HORRIBLE CHILD MURDER.—Yesterday morn-
ing, at 8 o'clock, a charwoman employed in clean-
ing out the first class ladies' waiting room on the departure
platform of the Great Western Railway Station, Padding-
ton, found under a sofa the dead body of a fine female child
in long clothes, and tied up in an apron, the string of
which was twisted tightly round the child's neck. Informa-
tion was at once given to Mr Durdle, chief inspector of the
railway company's police, who ordered the body to be taken
to the Paddington police station, when it was examined by
Mr J. S, Beale, surgeon, of Porter's-road, Paddington,
who said the child was about seven days old, had been
remarkably healthy, and had
,been dead about three
hours. At the time the babe was found there was a
lady in an adjoining first class ladies' waiting room, who
on being interrogated by Mr Durdle, stated that she had
come to the station to see a lady oil by the 6 a.m, train, and
that she had been resting herself since that time. The
lady gave her name and address, and Mr Durdle finding
them to be correct ho allowed her to go at large. The
matter is now in the hands of Inspector Everton and Ser-
geant Hawtree, cf the D division.
LIMITS OF HUMAN POWER.—It is, on the One
hand, rash and unphilosophical to attempt to set
limits to the ultimate power of man over inorganic nature,
and it is unprofitable, on the other, to speculate on what
may be accomplished by the discovery of now unknown and
unimagined natural forces, or even by the invention of new
arts and new processes. But since we have seen aerosta-
Lion, the motive power of elastic vapours, the wonders of
modern telegraphy, the destructive explosiveness of gun-
po ?Icier, and even of a substance so harmless, unresisting,
and inert as cotton, nothing in the way of mechanical
achievement seems impossible, and it is hard to restrain
the imagination from wandering forward a couple of gene-
rations to an epoch when our descendants shall have ad-
vanced as far beyond us in physical conquest, as we have
marched beyond the tropics erected by our grandfathers.
I must therefore be understood to mean only, that no
agencies now known to man and directed by him seem
adequate to the reducing of great Alpine precipices to
such slopes as would enable them to support a veget-
able clothing, or to the covering of largo extents of de-
nuded rock with earth, and planting upon them a forest
growth. But among the mysteries which science is yet
to reveal, there may be still undiscovered methods of
accomplishing even grander wonders than these. Mecha-
nical philosophers have suggested the possibility of accu-
mulating and treasuring up for human use some of the
greater natural forces, which the action of the elements
puts forth with such astonishing energy. Could we gather
and bind, and make subservient to our control, the power
which a West Indian hurricane exerts through a small
area in one continuous blast, or the momentum expended
by the waves, in a tempestuous winter, upon the break-
water of Cherbourg, or the lifting power of the tide, for a
month, at the head of the Bay of Fundy, or the pressure
of a square mile of tea water at the depth of 5,000 fathoms,
or a moment of the might of an earthquake or a volcano,
our age—which moves no mountains and casts them into
the sea by faith alone—might hope to scarp the rugged
walls of the Alps and Pyrenees and Mount Taurus, rube
the- t once more in a vegetation as rich as that of their pris-
tine woods, and turn their wt,sting torrents into refreshing
streams. —Nan and Nature, by G. P. _Marsh.

The number of visitors ut the Patent Museum
South Kensington, for the week ending Sept. 10, was
2,322; total number hinee the opening 01 the 111113e1,101.1 free
daily (12th May, 1858), 819,010.