The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1874-12-10

\ room. we were alone, and Gray at once
requested me 10 suppress the item; | was
the only reporter who had it;-no other
/ could get it as it no longer appeared on
record at the station, and all parties had
i beer cautioned against giving out any
y HseRtioHef it. The arrest, said Gray, was
all mistake, and it was but fair that |
should say nothing about it. | saw the
] foreman Of the compOsing-room and had
the item set on the s'dead galley" and re-
! ported BACK 70 Gray and Mr.. Miller that
! II was 'all right. 4
- Would I take something ?'' "Ofcourse;
| on such a-hight. and TO celebrate such an
OCCASION" "A drop of gin hOt?' Scr
tainly." And, singular to relate, the pris--
-oner's liberality was directly the cause of
| his being hung by the neck. We went
around TO Barker's, and what we did and
whaf / saw shall presentlyappear.
vi the folloWin g August, 1-was no lon
ger night local, but had been advanced to
the more lucrative and agreeable position
Of special man-that is, | was assigned 70
duties, principally away from the city,
I that required the special presence, eX-
amina;ion and working up of an eXpe-
rieneed and trustworthy reporter. On
such an Grand was despatched to Mill
/ toWn-a political complication, worth four
or five columns, think it was--in the
early part of October. This was in
! 1866. / arrived about ten o'clock, on
Wednesday it was the tenth of the
month; Irecollectedi it particularly, as it
was the anniversary of my birth,-and
! Immediately started ont to find my parties
I to be interviewed. | returned to the hotel
! Just at o'clock. Dinner was over-these
hotels in country towns keep most un-
4 oct,i /
have to content myself with a picked-up
meal. | was too hungry and tired to re-
monstrate, and in too great a hurry TO be-
| gin celebrating the notes | had taken, to
! care particularly, and was ushered into
the dreary, grimy, fiy-intested dining
room and seated opposite a man, the soli-
( tary occupant, late bird like myself. who
I however, had got so much the start of me
that he was finishing his pie, as sat down.
He glanced at me, as every body takes a
look at the company around the table he
sits at, and, without trace of recognition
or second glance, he concluded his meal,
pushed back his chair and leisurely saun-
tered out of the room. He did not know
me. but knew hinl--it was the prisoner
Of the previous cold December night, at
station six in New City. On that other
occasion, he wore a magnificent NOUS
tachs, now he was clean-shaved; then his
hair was profuse and curled, now he was
cropped as close as sfates-prison convict.
No matter it was the same man. The
heatof the summer, now cooled to mellow
October, could not account for any mans
sacrifice of such a darling moustache and
such a magnificent head of hair; maybe
he had been i'll; typhoid fever, inflamma-
! ton of the brain: none of my business
anyhow. SO my thoughts ran as l dipped
into my cold, greasy dinner and made
haste to get at my work, for so much as
remained undone at halfpast seven would
have to be done on the cars, homeward
bound
That night, a robbery. accompanied with
brutal and unnecessary murder, happened
in Milltown. An aged couple. who lived
on the outskirts Of town, and who had the
reputation of being hOarders of money,
were found, next morning, with crushed
skulls, he on the hearth and she in her bed.
The house had been ransacked, trunks
broken open, bureau drawers searched,
boxes tumbled about, and bricks had even
been removed from the chimney back and
hearth where the old man lay. This lat
ter circumstance made it evident that the
robbery had been wholly effected before
the murder was committed, for the body
had fallen directly across one OF the holes
made by removing the bricks. In the FRI
day morning paperI read tie details of the
! shocking crime, little dreaming how close
1ly was to be connected with the events
! following and growing out of it.
AS the months passed on, the man and
| the crime faded from my recollection, as
newer and more interesting circumstances
| i'm which | was more directly concerned
crowded them from my memory, and in
] March, 1867, glanced over the reports OF
the trial, in MilltOwn, of the supposed rob
Der and assassin, not even impelled to fol-
low the trial closely by the fact of my hav7
/ ing been in the vicinity of the tragedy on
/ the day ON which it occurred. / noticed,
/ however, that there was some very pecu-
! liar evidence put in to prove alibi, and that
the jury disagreed.
ON Sunday night, june I7th,f called at
the office to see if there were any appoint
ments for me, and found a note from
! Watcher, - Mr.. Williams will please take
/ the 6:25 train tomorrow morningfor Mill
| town, and remain during the week TO re-
port the triad of Hoffman /" and some
/ further Instructions as to amount of mat
| ter to be telegraphed, and amount to be
/ sent by mail, and the hours for such dis
patches. Then discovered that there was
] a
/ the second of the supposed assassin of the
old couple; and that the leading Journals,
far and near, were represented there. My
/ first action, of course, was TO turn up the
| files of the paper. and read every line OF
( the report of the first trial, so as to pro-
eeed intelligently with the task assigned
me. learned that the prisoner SO nearly
escaped that the jury. stood, for thirty
J hours. eleven for acQuittal and one for con-
viction, and, finally, reported an irrecon-
cileable disagreement. 1t appeared that
three reliable, respectable and altogether
unimpeachable witnesses had been sum-
moned for the defense from Oldboro, who
swore positively that the prisoner, Hoff-
man, was personally known to them, and
/ that he had been seen by them on the day
of the murder. in OldbOro, four hundred
miles, and over forty hours travel, by
stage and rail, away. That would have
cleared him but for the evidence of the de-
tectives, who worked up the case, that the
tilri soner was not Hoffman, but one Cart
Wright; that, he had been concerned in
many crimes. for Instance, the Bank OF
| Commerce robbery. attendedwith violence
to the watchman, in New City, in the fall
Of 1865; and that they knew their man by
a scar on the leg, where he had been shot
while attempting to escape from prison in
1868, he being, at that time, under two
years sentence. for obtaining money by
false pretenseS. t1he one juror, who held
out. was an ex-policeman, who took more
stock in the testimony of the profes
sfonals than in that for the defense
Enough was known and to be put in evi
dence to convict the prisoner, if ht
was Cartwright, and to that end the prose
cution had bent every energy during tht
interim between the first and the present
trials: to defeat it, the defense promised tC
have such a cloud of witnesses that an alb
wopll be proven So surely that there
could possibly be no other conclusion thar
the enlargement OF poor, prosecuted Hoff
man. ~
Fhas stood the case the morning
! went down to Midtown on my second er
rand. y a1 fa efH
The trial began as usual; the ordinary
higgling over forms the squabbles oYel
= Jurors the objections 70 terms the arglI
ments on the legality Of proceedings ant
, Jurisdiction of the court but, on Wed
nesdsy morning. the preliminaries wer,
; arranged and all hands settled down Il
steady work. The case for the common
: wealth was faultless, on the assumption
i .bat tho 1arieoupr MAS Cart wright. with TN