Morning journal and courier., 1880-05-01
LOCAL NEWS.
Personal.

FeF8Onafs
 John J. Krauss, brother of ex- Councilman Krauss, who remoye6 from this city to New York some time ago, shows in Cutters win dow some very nice specimens of terra cotta ware, in the manufacture of which he is en- gagged. One is bust of William Cullen Bry- ant.
 MT. Jack Crane has been driving lately a very handsome horse, purchased recently by him for his use in New York at cost of $1 ,Oo0. It is 2:3O stopper, and is hitched to stylish Brewster road wagon, costing $500 at the factory. The team is kept at Fitzpatrick's stables, 1s7 Orange street.
 MT. J. B. Mack, formerly of Hartford, well known as 6 temperate, industrious man, and a much beloved private citizen, is now lying sick with brain disease at the residence of his brother-in-law, in Springfield Mass. His wife has been an invalid and great sufferer for two years with cerebral disease.
 John T. Dade, who died Thursday after noon, had been the mail carrier between the postofics and the depot for seventeen years He was a member of Trumbull Lodge, F. & A. M., and of Quinnipiac Lodge, I. o. O. F. He was faithful carrier and an honest man, He was 50 years of age, and leaves 8 second wife, to whom he had been married three months. and four children. The funeral will be attended Sunday under the auspices of Quinnipiac Lodge.
 Firing Bullets Through Human
 Skulls.
 In the first trial of Billings at Ballston, N Y., for the murder of his wife the defence laid great stress upon the point that the bullet hsoIno fifty five grains less than the bullet carried by Mir. Billings carbine, with which he is said to have committed the deed. In the second trial yesterday testimony was given to show that the carbine ball might naturally have lost this much weight.
 Dr. Lewis Balcb, professor of anatomy in the Albany Medical College, testified that on Saturday night last he laid woman's body on the table of the college dissecting room in AL bany. At the distance Of ten feet from the body they put rife rest, which was capable of holding rif1e like vice. Behind the body he placed against the wall a thick cushion, formed by rolling up old garments worn by the students at their work. He adjusted the rifle so that it aimed directly at the left ear of the subject, and fired. The bullet passed clear through the head and pierced single fold of the cloth which composed the cushion. Witness found it lying just inside the first fold. The skull upon which this experiment
 
 the skull of an aged woman. The ball which had been sent through it was the regulation A calibre, and was shot from the Ballard car bine, which was found in the old well back of Billings house on the Friday following the murder. A ball of the same lot as that which he had fired weighed 221 grains and frac- tion, and the ball which he had shot through the woman's head weighed, on it's recovery from the cushion in which it had lodged, 169 grains and fraction. AS soon as the shot had been fired the witness examined the out. side of the wounds which is had made for traces of lead. He found nothing. He next removed the scalp, and found on the bone of the skull, at the point where the ball had en- tered, particle of lead weighing less than one-seventh of grain. Opposite where the ball came out he found another particle of lead lying on the first muscle, just outside the bone, which weighs not perceptibly heavier. The top of the skull was next sawed of and the brain was carefully searched, but no lead was found in it. All the feshy and muscular parts that were removed in the preparation of the skull were collected in cloth and boiled for ten hours. It was then searched minutely, but nothing was found. The table also, on which the body rested, and the floor all about were searched, and no more lead could be found and yet the bullet, which had weigh ed two hundred and twenty-one grains when it was shot from the carbine, weighed only one hundred and sixty nine grains when re- covered from the cushion in which it lodged
 The witness next under the same condi- tions, fired through second human head. The ball entered at the left ear, traversed the petrous part of the skull that side, and made it's exit just above the petrous portion of the opposite The ball, after issuing from the head, did not have sufficient force to carry it on the cushion, but rolled upon the tableand fell to the floor. This ball, hav- ing weighed the same as the other (221 grains) when fired, weighed when it was recovered 1594 grains. The last skull was of about the same density as the Billings skull, and the bullet took almost the same course as that which killed Mrs. Billings.