The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1879-02-08
OUR STORY TELLER
CURIOUS CASES OF CIRCUMSTAN-
TIAL EVIDENCE.
BY MRS. ISABELLA r. MAYO.

inn. 1t was little country inn, in a
rather unfrequented place, and there on
one wintry night arrived two sets of
guests. One party consisted of an
elderly invalid gentleman and his man
servant; the other, of two gentlemen,
friends, travelling in company. The
accommodation was rather limited, and
the man-servant was slowed away in a
loft. The two friends agreed to share
one chamber, while the old gentleman
was to occapy that next to theirs. The
three gentlemen spent the evening to-
gether in the common room, the land
lord and the man-servant coming to and
fro in attendance. 1t TRANSFERRED, how
ever, that the elderly invalid was trav
cling in possession of considerable val
uables. This matter was touched upon
but lightly; in fact, it was little more
than an inference which might be drawn
from something he said. About mid
night all the travellers retired to rest.
An hour or two afterwards one of the
friends awoke. Lying in silence, he
heard something like groan, and on its
being repeated, he aroused his COM
panion, and both listened. The sound
came from the next apartment. They
sprang to their feet, and, thinking their
neighbor might be suddenly and dan
gerously ill, they hastily struck light
and went to his room. But they found
they had been anticipated; light al
ready streamed from his open poor, and
at his bedside stood the landlord, with a
face of horror, and in his hand bloody
knife. AS the gentlemen entered the
room, the invalid gave last groan, and
expired from a deadly wound in his
throat
Naturally, the two gentlemen seized
and secured the landlord. Between the
telltale weapon in his hand and the ex-
treme dismay and trepidation which he
manifested, he might almost be said to
be taken in the act. They reused the
house. The few sleepy servants came
hurrying in, among them the footman
OF the murdered man. So great was the
hosts terror that it was some time be-
fore he could utter a single word which
might put different complexion on the
case. At last he found wits to declare
that, like the gentlemen, he had been
reused by the groans, and, fearing rob-
bers, had armed himself with a knife
and hurried forth, hoping to be in time
to give help; that when he saw the awful
sight in the bed-chamber, the knife had
fallen from his hand into the blood, and
he had remained for few moments
powerless.
Such story seemed credible enough,
but there were sundry circumstances
which instantly falsifed it. The room
where the landlord had slept was too
remote from the scene of the murder
fora any groans to have reached it; and
the knife was not one of those in ordi-
nary use, which might have been has
tily snatched up, but resembled others
which were kept locked in his bedroom.
OF these circumstances he could offer
no explanation, nor yet of sundry eiac-
ulatiOns he had uttered when first sur
prised.
In spite of his protestations of inno-
cence, in which, somehow, there seemed
always a curious reservation, he was
condemned to die. The night fefore his
execution, he made singular confes-
sion. He acknowledged that his cupidity
had been so excited by the idea of his
visitors valuables that he had resolved
to kill him and to possess himself of
them. For this purpose he took out a
knife and stole from his bedroom Prob
ably in the preoccupation of his horri.
BILE enterprise he heard no footstep Oh
any groan; and the first thing which
warned him that all was not right was
finding the visitors bedroom door I'm.
1atched. When his light fell on the
awful scene, and he saw his own crime
had been anticipated, his knife fell from
his palsied hand. and when he found
himself in the grasp of his accusers, he
had cried that Goods judgments were
on him." He owned that, though he was
in act guiltless of the murder, vet that
ne was justly judged. But though he
died with every appearance of sincere
repentance, the general impression was
that even his final confession was but
another vagary of criminal nature,
playing with truth and falsehood to the
very end.
But years afterwards clergyman was
summoned to receive the last confidence
OF man sinking in consumption. This
was the servant of the murdered inya
lid. Then he owned that it was he who
had slain his master. He had stolen
from his remote loft, and had lust in
f1icted the mortal wound when he wa,
disturbed by the landlords approaching
footsteps, and fed, barefoot, in an Cd.
posite direction, regained his bed, and
remained there until he was summoned
by the cries of the other dodgers. He
indicated how and where he had dis.
posed of the weapon with which he
Killed his master, details which were
subsequently verified. He was too near
death to be seized by justice, but the
particulars of his confession were made
public, though in this case the story
cannot be concluded by the formula
with which the prim old law reporters
generally sum up such tragedies. "that
the innocence of the other man was thus
completely indicated"
Far more piteous is the story of
William Shaw, who lived in Edinburgh
In 1871. He was a respectable trades.
man, and ne had daughter named
Catharine, who, unhappily, had trouble
some love affairs. Her own heart in
ciined to John Lawson, to whom her
father objected, saying that he was a
plohigate youth, addicted to every kind
OF dissipation. Shaw forbade the lover
his house, and when he found that Cath
arine still saw him clandestinely. the
father imprisoned the daughter on his
own premises.