The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1868-06-24
-InIPORTANT EVIDENCE.
ALA WYER'S s. STORY.

~ . Z =. = ! L
One bright morning in the month
OF May, our usually quiet village was
thrown into 9 state Of wild excite
ment by the intelligence that Laura
Downing had been murdered. Her
ifsless body had been found upon
the sandy Shore Of the large pond,
with q bullet hole through the head.
The ball had entered between the
eyes, and had passed through the
brain; and the empty pistol was
found by her side.
1t may. be asked, "Who was Laura
Downing?"
She was an orphan, and had been
generally beloved by all who knew
her. Her father, who had been q
poor, hard7working man, had been
dead for, q number of years, and
during the past five or six years,
Laura had worked as she could find
opportunity to support an invalid
mother; but only a few months be-
fore the time of which I write, that
mother had died, and Laura lived all
alone in the little cot which had been
her home since she was born-a
period, according to the parish regis
ter, OF nineteen years.
The coroner came, and summoned
O jury, and called such witnesses as
he could find; and, after due exami-
nation and deliberation, o verdict
was rendered, to the effect that
Laura Downing had come to her
death by means of bullet dis
charged from q pistol; and they
believed that said pistol had been in
the hands of Oliver Cartwright at the
time it was thus fatally discharged.
Oliver. Cartwright was arrested,
and when the case came before the
grand jury, they found bill against
him-a bill accusing him of the muir
der of Laura Downing-and he was
committed for trial.
"And who was Oliver Cartwright"
He was young man of four-and-
twenty years of age, who has been
born and brought up in the town,
and who has sustained a fair reputa-
tion for honesty and sobriety; though
ne had never been regarded as very
bright and promising youth. His
parents had both been iptemperate.
but they had been dead some years,
and Oliver had been at work at the
blacksmith trade, and lived with the
man for whom he worked. Between
young Cartwright. and Laura there
had not only been warm intimacy.
but there had evidently been at one
time al engagement of marriage be-
tween them. This engagement, as
appeared in evidence before the
coroner, had been broken by the
girl during the previous winter, and
since that time Oliver had been
morose and detected. A young man
named Daniel Severance, who had
come into the village to assist in
erecting ,new4woolen mill, had been
very attentive to Laura, and the
general impression was that she left
the old lover for the new one. II
Oliver Cartwright had the privi-
iege OF selecting his own counsel.
ana ne sent for me-. was sorry that
he did So; for / had heard SO much
OF the evidence against him, that 1
not not only believed him guilty of
the crime, but 1 could conceive Of no
possible line of defence. Stin
could not refuse to 60 to him in his
season of trouble.
I found him as weak and wa;I;no
as suffering child. He seemed en-,
tirely broken down, and the TAILOR
told me that he wept more than half
the time. AS / sat down by his side.
he seemed toaread every. thought
thst was pag1ing within me; for,