Fayetteville observer. [volume] (Fayetteville, Tenn.) 1850-1966, 1880-09-16
PROOF

Curious Cases in the History Of Crime
Some Interesting Facts Concern
ing the Conviction Of Murderers-- =
Instances Where Hasty Execu
tions Have Taken Place---The Ed
ucated Homicide, Eugene Aram,
and His Crime--Other Noted Gases
The following sketch of mur-
ders and murderers will be found
Exceedingly Interesting: Men
do not rob, burr, poison and
murder usually in daylight and
before men, says the Boston Her
aid, but secretly, and often show
great acumen and foresight in
covering the bloody tracks of
their violence. 1t is the work
of the detectives to track, as a
hunter his game, the criminals
through all his windings to his
lair, and bring him into the day
light of justice. This is hard
work, which asks keen scent
in the sleuth-hounds of the law,
and a careful weighing by the
court of evidence adduced. The
case of DR.. Webster, twenty-five
years ago, is a monument of de-
tecrive and legal skill which
made q grea. crime clear, by
circumstanIial evidence, and
punished it. The late case of
Hayden, for the murder of the
Stannard woman, and the i'm
pending case of Abbot, for the
murder at Groton, and, in fact
the daily drift of our criminal
cases, show how largely justice
is made dependent on circum-
stantial evidence. In 1852, in
England, a man and a woman
from within 4 certain house gave
alarm that some one had entered
and murdered an inmate. The
DEW ON TIE GRASS
Outside the house was found
undisturbed. The living inmates
were convicted. In 1916, in
England, a man was tried for
the murder of another, where
the struggle had been severe.
Impressions were found IN the
clay of a man who had worn
breeches of striped corduroy,
patched with the same material;
but the patches were not set on
straight, the ribs of the patch
meeting the hollows of the orig
inal corduroy. The accused was
shown to have his brecches
patched thus, and this greatly
aided his conviction. Dew and
snow have often helped to track
the murderer, aid maly a man
has perished on the galIows the
popularity of whose shoes, or
the curious way in which nails
are set in them, aided conyic-
tion. A. man arrested i'll his
bed, who claimed to have been
there all night, was found with
wet, muddy stockings on. The
night was wet, and the ground
soft.
CONVICTED AND EXECUTED.
One Of Kaulback's illustra-
tions of Goethe's Reineke Fuchs
shows us the fox numbering the
hare. 1t is a solitary place,
field, and close by shrine with
its cross. But, ,curiously enough,
the artist had put eyes into ev-
cry head of the full wheat, which
bends in the breeze, and every
flower at hand is made in like
ness of a dim, human face, which
beholds the deed with horror.
The fact thus symbolized is that
nature, in all its attributes OF
weight, size, color and condition,
is after all, the head detective
of crime, and every secret muir
der leaves its mark behind,
which, rightly interpreted OF
men, metes ont detection and
punishment Of the criminal.
"Murder will out" because, i'll
most subtle ways, the circum-
stances of murder, being accu-
rate when wisely interpreted,
confess and denote with uner-
ring finger, and "dead men do
tell tales" with hundred
tongues. That the guilty some
times evade detection does not
prove the contrary. Perhaps
the old story of
THE MURDERER, EUGENE ARAM,
Whose horrors have passed into
English literature, assisted by
the genius of Hood's shadowy
poem of that name, best Illus
trates what had been SAID OF the
curiosities of circumstantial ey-
idence in criminal causes. A
ram was born at Ramsgill, I ork-
shire, 1704, and, though the
son of gardener, was ofanclent
British family and brilliant ge-
MUS. With scant education in
youth, and serving for time as
5ook-kecpcr in London, yet he
managed to make such progress
in learning, especially III math-
cmatics. that he was invited