The New Bloomfield, Pa. times. (New Bloomfield, Pa.) 1877-188?, 1879-11-04
HE HAD A GOOD LAWYER.

lawyer HAS Jubt Dccn SHOWN Oy the trlhl
Of case In the state Of Belgium. A
tragedy whose details as they were
unraveled riveted the attention of not
only France, Belgium, but almost the
whole Of Europe, has come to an unex-
pected termination. 1t is thus told In a
late Paris letter:
The main actor In the Belgian tragedy
is a boy of 10, and the victim his aged
relative-hls mothers mother. Over two
hundred witnesses were called, among
them the heads of various gymnastic
institutions, circus people, acrobats, and
all manner of personages acquainted
with the handling of ropes and the
possibility of the human body under
given circumstances. The main features
In the case are that Jean Retson, who
was born in Antwerp in 1859, was found
by the police in his grandmothers
apartment last November, tied hand
and foot.
His shouts had attracted the attention
of the police, who, on entering, first
discovered the house thrown into indie
. scribable confusion; the chairs were
overturned, the tables knocked over, the
ornaments scattered on the floor and
broken in every shape, while in the
midst of these was the figure of the old
grandmother lying on the floor with her
head crushed in and folded table-cloth
wedged into her mouth in the next
: apartment, lying with his back on the
floor, hands and feet tied and gag just
escaped from his mouth, was found the
accused in an almost fainting condition.
They proceeded at once to unite the lad,
and by his story it was supposed that
two assassins had entered, had attracted
the old woman, and, discovering the
presence of the lad, who began to shout
and tried to escape, tied together his
hands, and made threat to shoot him
if he made any noise. This theory,
however, was at once suspected.
1t seems that the grandson of the
victim was seen to enter the house about
nine O'Clock in the evening, and, as the
public prosecutor insisted, came to get
money he needed, as was substantially
proven that the widow refused, as she
had frequently done of late, and that,
taking advantage of a moment when
her back was turned, he struck her on
the head, felled her to the floor; and
that the native strength of the we'll
preserved woman rallied, and frightful
struggle ensued, the noise of which was
distinctly heard, it is insisted, by the
rest of the house. The screams of the
victim were suppressed by the folded
tabIecloth thrust between her teeth.
The prosecution stated that, had the
deed been committed by professional
assaesins, the confusion manifested
in the chamber would not have taken
place. The instant the medical men
examined the position of the grandson
they declared the story was incredible;
that his ligatures were never tied by
ether than his own hands, since the
ropes could not have been drawn so
tight by any one else without strangling
him. The boy described the affair with
great exactitude, which displayed him
an extraordinary adept. One of the
men, he declared, was black and wore a
cotton cap, but he could not tell what
took place after he was tied, because he
tainted. Suspicion was aroused by the
incredulity of the officers, which set
the whole neighborhood at work, and a
pyramid of dubious antecedents soon
arrayed themselves between this extra
ordinary youth and the probability of
his narrative.
In the first place, the porter of the
house declared that no one had entered
by the front door for madame ON the
night of the murder, and an ominous
circumstance for the youth was that the
police on removing his overcoat discov-
cred that the undercoat was marked
with spots of blood; that these marks
of blood corresponded exactly with
the wounds received on the body of
the murdered woman and from this
the lawyer for the prosecution proved,
by disposing two bodies on the witness
stand, that the youth must have thrown
himself upon the struggling victim and
choked her, and that while doing this
the blood flowing from her wounds
stained his own clothing. All the main
wounds on the dead body were found on
the right side, while the spots on the
youths clothing were on the left side, a
feet which the lawyers claim goes to
klxat IA anl Il 10 l.ft otl 10 f,A