Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1868-09-01
MISCELLANEOUS.
A Strange Story-Inhuman Conduct of
Wife and Daughter.

The doctrine that it is better that ninety
nine guilty men should escape than one in
nocent man should suffer, finds, irrespective
Of its divine PRONUNCIATION, a strong argument
in favor of its wisdom and truthfulness in the
following reliable and ''o'er true" statement ::
Some time in the fall of 1857, an honest,
hard working farmer, by the name of Daniel
Harker, residing in Vanderburgh county,
Indiana, was arrested on the grave charge of
having committed an outrage on his step
daughter, young girl just budding into a
beautiful woman. The day fixed for his trial
speedily came around, and the girl appeared
as the chief witness for the prosecution
Positively and unhesitatingly she swore that
Harker, her tepfather, had subjected her to
the horrible treatment charged against him.
The mothers testimony fully corroborated
that of her daughter, and so clearly were the
details stated, and so direct appeared the ev-
idence against him, that Harker, in spite of
his previous good character and known in
tegrity, was found guilty of the heinous crime,
and was sent to the Southern Indiana Peni-
Tertiary for the term of twenty.o one years.
For ten long years he wore the convict's garb
and went faithfully and quietly about his
convict duties, forming no friendships among
his companions, and showing at all times by
his conduct that
esNothing like heavy step
Betrays heavy heart "
Ess general good behavior and quiet mel
ancholy, however, enlisted the sympathies of
former friends and companions, and at the
end of ten years he received pardon and
stepped out into the wide, bright world again
a free man. But grief and time had left
their impress upon him, and he who had once
donned the fs!oa's gnrb a stout, hale man in
the prime of life, now laid it aside with the
trembling hands of premature old age. Nat
urally seeking his former home, he reached
it but to learn that the once loYe6 wife OF
his bosom had long since taken advantage of
the law which left it optional with herself
either to remain devoted wife or accept his
sentence to the penitentiary as 9 Divorce de
j'tre, and had vowed to. love. honor and obey
another than himself Quietly, however, he
took up the burden of his new duties, and if
he noticed the ill-coneealed distrust of his
fellow men, he but looked to his honest heart
for encouragement and patience, believing
that time would sooner or later show how
greatly he had been wronged. Nor was this
belief without its reward, for but short time
since, the daughter, whom the world thought
he had dishonored, and on whose account he
had SO long and cruelty suffered, was taken
dangerously i'll, and knowing that her erring
feet were treading the confines of dread
eternity, and shrinking with horror at the
thought of appearing before the only Right
eous Judge with a perjured soul, sent for
witnesses and her father, and with the bated
breath of the dying, acknowledged that she
had sworn falsely, and now bitterly repented
the foul wrong that had been done him, but
pleaded in extenuation that her mother, in
order to rid herself of him and wed another,
had compelled her to make the charge and
instructed her in all that she had sworn to.
Here we drop the curtain on this veritable
life tragedy, and leave the reader to wonder,
we do, how SO black and deyilish spirit
could find home in woman's form.
Louisville Journal.