The comet. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1877-1882, 1879-04-12
JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI. SATURDAY, APRIL 12, 1875

had fallen victim of circumstances whic
he did not know, and could not control.
r was then of very tender age, and, {
have already intimated, of an UNUSUAL
susceptible and imaginative temperament
1t was the first great crime of which ha
a any knowledge, :.and it, and the suffering
entailed, opened up phases of human lif
to which I had hitherto been stranger
listened with bated breath and absorbed al
tention to the oft recited tales of the mur
der, the trial, and more especially of th
execution. Many, perhaps exaggerated ac
counts were given of the personal beauty
of the sufferer, of his modest, dignifet
and manly bearing on the scaffold, and nev
er emitting his last words: 81 die limo
cent" He became the hero of my child
ish fancy, and 1 was SO completely
identified with him by the bonds Of
sympathy, that my suffering was scarcely
less real than his. have lain awake
at night, when all others were asleep, pom
dering over the frightful details of the
tragedy, until, in imagination, could feel
the vile cord tighten around my neck, and
the muscles would writhe and swell 80 as
to threaten actual strangulation. will do
myself the justice to say that l did not for
moment associate the idea of heroism
with that of guilt, as believe is often
done. On the contrary, had an abiding
impression, more instructive than rational,
sentiment rather than conviction, that
Hamilton suffered unjustly. 1t was not in
human nature, such as knew it, felt it, or
could conceive of it, that young man,
such as he was described, should go at one
plunge, to such depth of depravity.
Well, time wore on, and generations came
and passed away. More than fifty years
had elapsed since the events have feebly
described, and all memory of them had ap~
parentlY departed from the earth. For more
than forty of those years had never heard
an allusion to the facts nor had occasiou
to mention them. They had at intervals
REQUIRED to my mind as part of my early
"reminiscences, and could never read the
account of public execution without again,
though in a less painful degree, recalls
ing and identifying myself worth the fate
of poor Hamilton. All hope of unwilling
the mystery which surrounded the affair
had been long since abandoned, and 1 had
made up my mind that in this case, as in
many others, the truth was never to be
known. The reader can therefore Judge of |
the mingled emotions of surprise, gratifca-
ton and sorrow with which I read few |
years since short paragraph from an East
paper, to the effect that an old
dying in jail, if my memory is
correct, had confessed, among other things
the murder of Sanderson for which Ham
ilton had heen hanged more than fifty years
before. 1t struck me with the force of an
electric shock, and was veretable voice
from the tomb Of the many thousands
who may have read that brief paragraph,
1oabt if one experienced sensations simi~
dr " Iulue' ~ was uue SOlutlOu VI u llISN
lime enigma, justification of the unrea,
,oning pertinacity with which had clung
% the idea of Hamilton's innocence, and
removal from his name and memory of the
,ouI stigma which had SO long rested on
hem. What consolation it may have car
led into the circle of his surviving friends
nd relatives have no means of knowing. l
have simply detailed facts as they oc>
urred, without reference to any moral to
re deddced from them. The obvious one,
hat courts and juries should be extremely
and slow to convict on circum- /
tantial evidence, needs not to be inculca-
ed In these times, when the most fragrant
= guilty have little to fear from the law.
10 the tale is told for what it may be worth.
s a remeniscence of old times in the West. |