Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1868-11-10
ACANADIAN CONUNDRUM.
The Romance of CrIme-UnreliabiIit
Of CircumstnntIaI Evidence.


Of CircumstantIaI Evidence.
A case is under review in the Canadian
courts which, in some of its features, is
curious. The story certainly does not
tend to increase our faith in the infalli>
bility of our present procedure against
culprits, since it tells us of two people
who arspnder sentence Of death for the
AMmisSion Of a crime of which 1t is
horally evident and legally proven that
they cannot both be guilty. But much
stranger than this is the insight it gives
us not only into the deceit and the des~
perate wickeduess Of the human heart
whichever Of the possible solutions Of the
dark problem we may adopt, but also, if
we adopt the more plausible one, into It's
capacity for noble cOnstancy and self
sacrifice.
On the l4th Of last June, the body Of q
girl Of twelve years, by name Mary Jones,
was found in a wood near Delaware, with
marks Ofviolence upon it, denoting plain
~ how she had come to her end. Sus.
piciOn at once came to fall upon her uns
Gle, Thos. Jones, and in this wise: A
third Jones, brother of The father of the
murdered girl and Of the man alleged to
be her murderer, had been robbed in
December Of some money and some title
deeds, which were taken with ludlcrous
N&nplicity, since TO attempt to enforce
Mem would deuOUnce the attempter OF
the robbery; and the murdered girl, who
had been a guest at the robbed house at
the time Of the robbery, insisted that her
uncle Thomas was the perpetrator of the
crime That pleasing person, she said, had
disguised himself, but she had caught
glimpse oi him, and was ready to swear
10 his identity This she maintained so
strenuously, in season and ont, that her
uncle demonstrated with her father upon
his allowing his child to utter herself in
that reckless manner; but his depreca-
ton was Intellectual and the girls tongue
wagCed unrestrained, until it was given
the quietus aforesaid. The character Of
Thomas was bad-his exploitsin the way
Of spelling, not only the Egyptians, but
those Of his own household, net having
cOnciliated for him the unanimous re-
spect Of his t0Wnsmen. lie had per,
iectly Ineligible motive for the murder;
nobody else had one even conjectuTable
lie was accordingly arrested and ar
raigncl, and the array of circumstances
against him were so imposing as to make
as good 4 case apparently as ever man
was honestly hung by. Put the tables
were turned by the appearance Of hi
daughter in the witncss-bOX. This child,
a contemporary and playmate Of her MUIR
dered cousin, confessed the murder in
the most distinct and circumstantial
manner, and with a Conference and cons
sistcncv which cross>ezamination al
together failed TO shake. 1t was undeni-
able that she had been with her cousin
on the day q the murder, and that was
the only fact in favor Of her story, in.
frinsicalIy difficult of belief as it was.
She tried TO put the crime within the
category Of excusable homicide by the
recital Of q quarrel in the wood, and a
declaration that her cousin had struck
her before she dealt the fatal blows. But
no marks could be abducted or remems
hrred to support her story. The medical
testimony was 10 the effect that the blows
were such as twas almost incredible that
her strength would have sufLiced to give,
but such as her father could easily have
given The Jury rejected her explanation,
and her father was found guilty. The
gigl herself has since been tried and
found guilty of Inauslaughter and the
case as it stands puts two people in peril
60. punishment for a crime of when one
of is unquesti0uably innocent
1t viii be curious to see what action
the revising Canadian powers take in the
premises. 81 they conclude, as the evil
dencc now accessible seems to compel
them to the conclusion, that the story of
the girl Elizabeth Jones was false, we
shall iiud in the most prosaic environ
ment and among the most Prosaic and
vulgar people, Tor such all these Joneses
were, there can be reproduced mere than
the historical heroism Of Eleanor, or the
iictiyc history Of Pccahontas