The New York herald., 1869-01-22

DR.. AIvah Biaisdcu and MIR. j. j. Eckel.
In great and growing city like New York
the most startling murder is but nine days
wonder. No more striking illustration Of this
can be found than in the fact that scarcely any
one remembers how intimately two names
which are now daily conspicuous in the reports
Of an important whiskey case in the United
States District Court-the case of the United
States vs. Alvah Blaisdell, John J. Eckel and
John McLaren-were connected with the Bond
street murder case in the Court of Oyer
and Terminer, before Judge Davies, in May,
1857. The Bond street murder trial was one
of the most remarkable causes csIe6rss. To
this day it is enveloped in mystery. Mrs.
Cunningham was charged with the murder Of
DR.. Burdell, and her friend, Mr.. J. J. Eckel,
who was also charged with the same crime,
was separately indicted and was to have been
separately tried, but the Indictment against
him was quashed when Mrs. Cunningham was
acquitted. DR.. Alvah Blaisdell, who had an
appointment with DR.. Burdell on the very
evening of the murder, and whose note of
hand for Q considerable sum of money due to
the deceased was found in the latter's pocket,
was SO strangely mixed up with the affair that
the counsel for the defence, complaining Of the
course of the prosecution in withholding evil
dence which might be important to show where
DR.. Burdell passed that evening, did not
hesitate to say, ''Why was not DIR. Blaisdell
produced? Why was not Dennis Hubbard,
who was with him that evening, called upon
the stand? All! she might have been asked if
she knew Alvah Blaisdell and if she answered
in the affirmative, then might the jury, with as
good reason as any theory of the prosecution
could be urged, take this more probable
theory-that Dennis Hubbard, this kept mis-
tress Of DR.. Burdell, having been with him
that afternoon, and learning that he was
married to Mrs. Cunningham, burning with
jealousy and desire of revenge, have en-
gagged Alvah Blaisdell to assist her in taking
deadly vengeance upon her paramour. 1t was
not for him, as counsel for the defendant, to
throw out suspicion on any party, nor did he
do SO; but he would ask If such theory as
this, taken in connection with the medical
proof that the blow was given by a tall and
muscular man, and not by weak woman,
was not as probable, to say the least, as any
which the public prosecutor had urged with
reference to the defendant" One Of the city
newspapers which favored this theory of the
counsel for the defence was threatened by Dr.
Blaisdell with prosecution for libel, but the
case was never brought to trial. Certain
friends of DR.. Blaisdell also published cards
testifying to an alibi-Sam Wellers fathers
favorite legal weapon Of defence. Mrs. Cum
ningham's ''bogus baby" revived temporary
interest in the Bmdell murder but how COM
pletely its details have been forgotten by the
public is shown, as we have intimated, by the
oblivion in which the names of DR.. Alvah
Blaisdell and Mr.. J. ]. Eckel have been
buried, until these two men reappear before
the courts as partners in alleged extensive
whiskey frauds Once in while an item
goes the rounds of the papers to the effect
that Mrs. Cunningham Burdell has been lately
seen somewhere in Central America or in
California. But nobody knows what has
become Of that callow youth Snodgrass or of
his banjo. Will it ever be discovered who
murdered DR.. Burdell2