Litchfield enquirer., 1872-03-21
THE EXPERiEHcEs OF 4 HARRIS
 TER---Ho. 6.
The March A8sizS.

The March Assizs.
 Something more than half century ago, person, in going along Hoiborn, might have seen, near the corner of one of the thoroughfares which diverge tow ards Russell Square, the respectable-look- ing shop Of 8 glover and haberdasher named James Harvey, e man generally esteemed by his neighbors, and who was usually considered well to do i'll the world Like many London tradesmen, Harvey was originally from the country. He had come up to town when poor lad, to push his fortune, and by dint of steadiness and civility, and small property left him by 8 distant relation. he had been able to get into business on his own account, and to attain that most important element in London-''a connection Shortly after setting up in the world, he married a young woman from his native town, to whom he had been engaged ever since his school-days; and at the time our narrative commences he was father of three chil- dren.
 James Harvey's establishment was one of the best frequented of it's class in the street. You could never pass without sec ing customers going in or out. There was evidently not little business going for ward. But although, to all appearance, a fourishing concern, the proprietor of the establishment was surprised to find that he was continually pinched in his circum- stances. Nomatter what was the amount of business transacted over the counter, he never got any richer.
 At the period referred to, shopkeeping had not obtained that degree of organiza- tion, with respect to counter men and cashiers, which now distinguishes the great houses of trade The primitive was not yet superseded. This was the weak point in Harvey's arrangements, and not to make needless number of words about it, the poor man was regularly robbed by a shop-man, whose dexterity in pitching 8 guinea into the drawer, so as to make it jump, unseen, with jerk into his hand, was worthy of Herr Dobler, or any other master of the sublime art of jugglery.
 Good-natured and unsuspicious, per haps also not sufficie ntly vigilant, Harvey was long in discovering how he was pill laged. Cartwright, the name of the per son who was preying on his employer, was not young man. He was between forty and fifty years of age, and had been in various situations, where he had always given satisfaction, except on the score of being somewhat gay and somewhat irrita- ble. Privately, he was man of loose habits, and for years his extravagance had been paid for by property clandestinely abstracted from his too-confding master Slow to believe in the reality of such wickedness, MT. Harvey could with diff culty entertain the suspicion which began to dawn on his mind. At length all doubt was at an end. He detected Cartwright in the very act of carrying off goods to 8 considerable amount The man was tried at the Old Bailey for the offence; but through technical informality in the in- dictment, acquitted.
 Unable to find employment, with char acter gone, the liberated thief became savage, revengeful, and desperate. h. stead of imputing his fall to his own ir- regularities, he considered his late un- fortunate employer as the cause of his ruin; and now he bent all the energies of his dark nature to destroy the reputation of the man whom he had betrayed and plundered. Of all the beings sef-deliv- cred to the rule of interruptions maligni- mty, with whom it has been my fate to come professionally in contract, I never knew one so utterly fiendish as this dis comfited pilferer. Frenzied with his i'm aginary wrongs, he formed the, determine tion to labor, even if it were for years, to ruin his victim. Nothing short of death should divert him from this darling object of his existence.
 Animated by these diabolical passions, Cartwright proceeded to his work. Har- vey. he had good reason to know, was in x{ $1 ,l | vances; and by means of artfully concoct- ed anonymous letters, evidently written by some one conversant with the matters on which he wrote, he succeeded in alarm ing the haberdasher's creditors. The con- sequences were-demands of immediate payment, and, in spite of the debtors ex- plantations and promises, writs, heavy law expenses, ruinous sacrifices, and ultimate bankruptcy. It may seem almost too marvellous for belief, but the story of this terrible revenge and it's consequences is no fiction. Every incident in my narra- tive is true, and the whole may be found in hard outline in the records of the courts with which few years ago was familiar.
 The humiliated and distressed feelings of Harvey and his family may be left to the imagination. When he found himself ruined man, dare say his mental suf- terings were sufficiently acute. Yet he did not sit down in despair. To re-estab- fish himself in business in England ap- peared hopeless; but America presented itself as 8 scene where industry might find reward; and by the kindness of some friends, he was enabled to make preparations to emigrate with his wife and children. Towards the end of February he quilted London for one of the great seaports, where he was to embark for Bos- ton. On arriving there with his family, MT. Hartey took up his abode at prin- cipal hotel This, in man of straighten- means, was doubtless imprudent; but he afterwards attempted to explain the cir cumstanoe by saying, that as the ship in which he had engaged his passage was to sail on the day after his arrival, he had preferred mourning slight additional ex- pense rather than that his wife-who was now, with failing spirits, nursing an in- fant-should be exposed to coarse asso- ciations and personal discomfort. In the expectation. however, of being only one night in the hotel, Harvey was unfortu- nately disappointed. Ship-masters, es- pecially those commanding emigrant ves- ec1ss were t0on, aS now, naOltual prOmlSe- breakers; and although each succeeding sun was to light them on their way, it was fully fortnight before the ship stood out to sea. By that time second and more dire reverse had occurred in the fortunes of the luckless Harvey.
 Cartwright, whose appetite for venge- ancs was but whetted by his first success, had never lost sight of the movements Of his victim; and now he had followed him to the place of his authorization, with an eager but undefned purpose of working him some further and more deadly mis- chief. Stealthily he lowered about the house which sheltered the unconscious object of his malicious hate, plotting, as he afterwards confessed, the widest schemes for satiating his revenge. Ssv- eral times he made excuses for calling at the hotel, in the hope of observing the nature of the premises, taking care, how ever, to avoid being seen by Mir. Harvey or his family. A fortnight passed away, and the day of departure of the emigrants arrived without the slightest opportunity