The Arkansas advocate., 1830-07-21
PORTER, THE MAIL RoBBER.

PORTER, THE MAIL RoBBER. The Philadelphia Bulletin, to gratif, pubic opinion. has procured all tlle par ticulars which could be obtained, oi tht fife of James Porter, who IS under con
 victlon for having robbed the U. $
 Mail. He was born in the North oI Ireland in the year 1900, and is repre-. sented as having exhibited even in child hood a reckless and wicked disposition which deiied control. Like Wilson, he was not under parental authority, and ills associations were with the miserable and abandoned class of the lowest pro iilgates. lie belonged to 2 gang ol petty thieves, who finally committed a burglary, and at the age of seventeen vas compelled to fly to Liverpool, to avoid pursuit. He remained concealed there for some weeks until he shipped as a sailor in a vessel bound to New ' ork. Here where his crimes and his person were unknown, he might have lived by honest labor. But the old leayen was still at work within him. He was em- ployed fer some time on the Eric canal. where his conduct was noticed as ex- tremely profligate for his years. He was foremost in many riots, some of which had sanguinary results.
 SOn one occasion, a man to whom Porter had been opposed in coanict--a fellow countryman and fellow laborer, was tolnd murdered in a gloomy and unfrequented part of a neighboring thicket, his body mangled in a manner too shocking to be here described. An inquest was held upon the body and a verdict murdered by some person or persons unknown, was rcctarnecd. tb; by the tic jury, although, as Porter and one of his companions in the preceding afIray, were seen to come out of the thicket only few hours before, strong suspi- cions rested upon them as being the per petrators of the foul and dreadful deed. No absolute proof could be adduced that they committed the crime, and they were consequently suffered to go at large-D
 Some years after this event, he com mltted a crime not specified, for which he underwent an imprisonment of se- verdi years in the Maryland penitentia- ", where he became hardened alto gether and accomplished in villainy, and made an acquaintance with potoet, the accomplice and States's evidence in the late robbery, who had been five times convicted of felony, and with Will son, the other robber. When these three were discharged from the Peni- tentiary, they renewed in concert their depredations on the public and commit ted many small larcenies. Being dis satisfied with their petty gains, they pro- Jected the robbery of the mail. They stole pistols for the purpose from gun smiths shop in West Philadelphia The manner of the robbery has been detailed in the testimony given at the trial, as already published. Porter was most active in this transaction, and tied singly and robbed all the passengers.-- His countenance is described by the Bulletin, as being absolutely the black est and most fiendish ever looked upon.
 !" Imagination can scarcely picture a face in which the elements of murder, robbery, and all other grades of crime, are grouped uD together with such hor- rid accuracy. The dark scowI of an eye sunk deep into black and weather beaten socket-strongly marked lines of countehance bieared and disfgured by the ravages of the small pox, added to the knowledge ofhis atrocious career, although from a picture which cannot be contemplated without a secret and involuntary shudder. A single human being appeared to sympathise with him in his awful difficulty, and she was a fe- male apparently thirty yearsofage, who watched the progress of the trial with the most agonizing interest, frequently shedding tears whenever the prosecu- ton induiged in observations on his crimes. She was said to be his wife surely no wife could show the intensity of her affection for husband more evi- dently than she did. When the jury came in with their verdict, she was not to be seen within the Court room at her usual stand-fearful, perhaps, that the oveTpowerirg nature of that verdict, if against him, might eanse too great q pressure at the heart to be endured be- fore a crowd of men,"
 Among the schemes of plunder de vised by this trio, was bold one for rob-
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