The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1878-06-17

ttal Evidencc.
Our Paris correspondent tells curious
story that is now among the excitements u
Paris 1t is only the story Of murder.
trail woman strangled in her apartment
and robbed. A mere murder of this kind Is
unfortunately so common thing in Paris,
and indeed in oil large cities, that 1T Is
hardly worthy of attention. But this mar
rative promises to be remarkable illustra-
ton of the whims Of evidence A woman is
found dead. She has been strangled.
Her purse has vanished and oil her
money is gone There must have been
q motive for the crime. Was it money,
or revenge. or both? 1t could hardly have
been money, rs if person wished to mur-
der for money he would seek a better vic
tim than poor street walker who made
bonnet frames for a living. In searching
the apartment letters are found from a.
lover, and with these letters photographs.
The police, guided by the photographs,
soon find the lover, who proves to be
supernumerary in q theatre. The lover
admits all that is said about his relations
with the deceased. He denies having MUIR
derod her. He merely loved her until he
found some one else and then courted
some one else. He admitted having written
letters threatening to expose his old love If
she did not send him money This is, OF
course, a bad business; but we presume
our Jsupernumerary was not in possession
of n large income, aid as the new
10 hn ta1 M
better way than to tax the old one. his
he did. But on coming into possession Of
his correspondence the police concluded to
lock him up and inquire further. Perhaps
they thought, and justly, that a man who
would write such letters had no better
place than Jail on general principles.
The policeman observed, however, that
the lover had pair Of new shoes. This
was not an astounding fact in itself, but it
seems that the poor woman had been
strnngled with shoestring. Her murderer
had quietly taken tho string out Of his shoe,
and. having knocked the woman down,
tied the string around her neck and held it
there until sho died. Since the lover had
new shoes it was important to find the
old ones. They were found. and
now tho problem is. Does the shoe
string which strnngled the unfortunate
woman belong to the old shoes? Upon this
question will depend the life of the amo-
be proved that the shoestring fitted the
old shoes the evidence would be conclusive
to an American jury. In France, however,
juries shrink more and more from the death
penalty. When this sentimentalism as to
capital punishment prevails ajury becomes
critical about circumstantial evidence, and
is apt to find doubt. Our correspondent
tells us that the police have their doubts
about tho shoestring and the shoes that
the string which murdered the woman
is different from the one found in her
lovers shoe.
The fact that the life of o man should de-
pend upon shoestring is only another OF
the romances that are constantly appearing
in the history Of crime. When man COM
mits murder deliberately he takes pains
to open every channel Of escape, but in
most cases what happens is what no one ex-
pected would happen. The one thing that
Wilkes Booth never calculated upon was
that he should break his leg when he
jumped on the stage after shooting Lincoln,
but that was the one thing which did hap
pen and which led to his capture. No mat
ter how carefully crime is planned there
is always some trife forgotten which betrays
tho whole plot. The Greeks recognized this
in the avenging Nemesis. and Christians
see in it the interposition of higher
power-the supreme power Of justice. But
in whatever way we regard it-whether as
the direct act of an avenging God or the
doctrine Of chance Ito it we owe SO many
romances in the history of crime. The
story that comes from Paris promises TO be
one OF the most interesting of them ALL
The Berlin Congress.
For all possible difficulties in the Con-
d.. IL L..,