The daily gazette., 1876-02-11
BYRON'S ILlEGiTIMATE SON.
The Confession of a Man sOhO
Died in Prison.

The Wrecking of Express Trains ON n
Michigan Railroad, and the RObbing
of the Passengers and the Express
COmpany's Cars.
From the New York Sunday Sun.
A gentleman who has been annoyed
by the German journals comments
upon ThomGssen's crime gave SNn
eporter the following details of some
atrocious crimes in which German of
noble extraction shared:
In 1866, on one of the railroads ter
minating in Detroit, three express
trains consecutively were thrown
down steep enbankmcnt, and many
passengers were killed. The dead and
wounded were stripped of their valua-
bles, and the express car was robbed
The trains were wrecked at the same
p,ace-a high embankment. They
were thrown in the game direction,
down the steepest side of the elevation,
and by the same means by sleepers in
geniously placed on the opposite rail
of the track. The railroad company's
detectives found singular footmarks in
the mud about the ruins of the train.
The foot was that OF man but almost
delicate enough to be woman's and
in the marks made by the heels were,
several small holes, seemingly made
by spikes. The detectives had plaster
casts Of the tracks made, and these
are kept. Not long afterward the
president of the railroad received a
letter from one of the most fashionable
of Detroits hotels, in which the writer
offered for large sum of money to
give full information concerning the
wreckers. An interview was appoint
ed, and the president found in the
writer fine looking, elegantly attired
Young man, who said that he was
George Byron, the illegitimate son of
Lord Byron,by Scotch lady OF rank.
The young man demanded money
down; but the president required some
time for consideration and meeting
followed meeting. Meantime the de-
tectiye shadowed Byron. One night
he went out of the hotel quietly, and
by a circuitOus route, reached the
place at which the express trains had
been wrecked. Tho detective kept
him in sight. To the latter, Byron
seemed to busy himself on the very
spot at which the sleepers that had up
set the trains had been found. Then
byron SpTahR Ou tHc ~" ionee ~
grave yard at the side of the track
The detectives crept among the tomb.
stones and waited. Tho headlight OF
the locomotive of an express train,
bound into Detroit, appeared. The
Earring of the track, the clatter and
then the heavy roll of the train were
heard. The lights in the passenger
coaches and then the entire train be.
came visible. The train was seeming
gly rushing to inevitable destruction;
but it dashed by and, was safe.
Byron's diabolical scheme had in
some unaccountable way miscarried.
He looked after the vanishing train
for a few minutes, and then having
cleared the track of the Intellectual OBJ
s.ruction, he sauntered to his hotel in
a round about way. A few days after
ward, while in Byron's room the de-
tective, who, by dressing expehsively
and spending money with lavish
hand, had made himself one of Byron's
associates; saw pair of English crick-
etlng shoes, with spikes in the heels
and somewhat muddy at the side of
one of Byron's trunk. The detective
managed, by turning the shoes over
with his foot, to examine the spikes.
Continued on rosrth psge.)