Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1880-03-19

He had Just finished his apprenticeship
to n butcher, and, after paying Visit 10
his uncle in the country, Ill order to save
expense, was travelling on foot back to
London. About 3 o'clock in the morn
ing, he met q man, riding ON a pony anu
driving two oxen, who offered Gull hve
shillings to drive them to London, and
agreeing to meet them on Westminster
bridge. Tho young man, willing to earn
m honest penny, agreed, and was arrest
ed shortly after, with the cattle i'll his
possession, by the owner in hot pursuit:
Arrested, he gave false name to conceal
his situation from his friends. He was
parloned ms he was on the point of being
transported for life. The simple fact was,
that the real thief, hotly pursued, had
taken this cruel way to rid himself of the
cattle and the crime. In France n young
man was in the service of an old woman
and had key to her house. Sho was
found murdered, with piece Of his
cravat near her, and a lock of his hair
clenched in her hand. He was arrested
and executed. But
HE WAS INNOCENT.
An intimate friend, who afterward
confessed managed to get an impression
of the key, picked up one of his old era
watts about the house, and, combinS the
young mans queue, had secretly alb
stracted hair enough to make the lock
found in the dead woman's clutch. Sad
as it sounds and is, the history of the law
shows list of cases where the innocent
have died shameful death through TIA
mistake of justice. These legal disasters
hay ho1 fA, fhn,r hoa,c NOT cn pnnrb an
unfair or heartless trial as a failure to
weigh wisely the peculiar circumstantial
evidence involved. But, on the other
hand, justice oftentimes seems aided
either by good luck or the divine wrath
of the gods themselves, in detecting crimi-
nails. In 1880 the body of n man was
discovered i'll England who had been
murdered % years before. His widow
identified his remains from the skull, his
shoes and q carpenters rule found with
the bones. Tho murderer was then
found and executed In 1913 Cornish
peasant was found murdered, and his
body dragged under a hedge. 1t was
shrcwdly surmised by the detectives that
the murderer was n stranger in those
parts, since y native would have been
very likely to have concealed the body
in some abandoned coal mine, many of
which Were in the same field From this
slight clew mainly they arrested IN Irish
soldier whose regiment had lately come
there, and on him they found the dead
mans purse. He was executed. Three
rutiians, numbering poor Italian boy to
sell his body, We're largely convicted by
their giving away some white mice which
there was every reason to believe had be-
lonGcd to the unfortunate child. A sailor
was mainly convicted as an accomplice
in brutal murder in London bawdy-
house from the fact that the victims hands
We're tied behind him with what is known
as Il sailors knot. Where man was
shot by Il ball, the wad on the ball was
shown to be half of certain ballad the
other part of which WIS found in the pris-
oner's pocket Convicted. A man as
sailed by robber struck him in the face
with key 4 mark on the prisoners
face corresponded with the wards or di-
visions Of the key. Convicted. In 1852,
III England, Il man and woman from with
in Il certain house gave the alarm that
some one had entered and murdered al
inmate. The
THE DEW on THE GRASS
outside the house was found to be undis-
turbed The living inmates were COLI
victed In 1916, in England, n man was
tried for the murder of another, where
the struggle had been severe. Impress
sions were found in the clayof 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
original corduroy. The accused was
shown to have his brooches patched thus
and this greatly aided his conviction. Dew
and snow have often helped to track the
murderer. and many man has persisted
on the gallows the peculiarity Of Whose
| shoes, or the curious way III which nail:
nre set in them, aided conviction. A mar
arrested i'll his bed, who claimed to have
been there all night, was found with We
muddy stockings on. The night was We
4 and the ground outside soft. Convicted
and executed One of kaulbach's ILLUS
trations of Goathe's Reineke Fuchs show!
/ us the fox numbering the hare. 1t is {
| solitary place. n field. and close by ,
shrine with its cross. But, curously
enough, the artist has put eyes into ever,
| head If The full wheat, which bends il
the breeze, and every flower at hand il
made i'll likeness of II dim, human face
which brholds the deed with horror Tn,
fact thus symholizrd is that nature. in al
its attributes Of weight. size, color an.
] condition. il. after all. the head detectiv
| Of crime, and every secret murder leave
its mark behind it. which, rightly inter
pretcd Of men, metes out detection an,
punishment 10 the criminal. "Alurde
will out, because, III most subtle ways
the circumstances Of murder being accu
rate, when wisely Interpreted, confess an
denote with unerring finger, and ''dca,
men do tell tales" with alundred tongues
That the guilty sometimes evade deteC
ton does not prove the contrary Pei
haps the old story Of
THE MURDERER EUGEs'E ARAM,
whose horrors have passed into Enghs
literature. assisted by the genius Of Hood
shadowy poem Of that name, best illu:
trates what has been said OF the curiosi
ties of circumstantial evidence in crimi
nal causes. Aram WAS born ut Rainsgil
Yorkshire, 1904, and, though the son OF
gardener, was of ancient British famll
and brilliant genius With scant educl
ton ill youth. and serving for time a
bookkeeper i'll London, yet he managed
make sach progress in learning, especial
" in mathematics, that he WAS invite
back as schoolnaster to his native village
and there married His wife seems to hav
been IL woman OF easy virtue, and to hay
made his home unhappy. But he devot,
himself to the study Of the classics
Hebrew, Chaldee and Arabic and b,
come SO much of philologist as to bt
stow much labor in comparing thcs
languages with the ancient Celtic. Whil
engaged, apparently, i'll such honorab
undertaking, he found time February
l7iI, with the help of Il confederate
Richard Houseman, to murder Damn
Clark. a shoemaker, and conceal his bod,
His motive, ms Aram alleged after h
trial, was revenge on his wife's paramou
but it WAS i'll evidence that he got fro
his crime the whole of Ciark's wife
dowry, to the amount of EGO. In fac
Aram looks, when viewed III the mo-
candid light. to have been out of thos
hypocritical and cold blooded villains
ability who sometimes appear to disSra'
, humanity. Fourteen years after Il
= murder, II peasant, digging stones for
: lime kiln i'll the neighbOrhood, found
human skeleton two feet below groun
with the frame SO well kept together as
enable it to be seen that the body Ii:
., been bent and buried double. AS CLARK h,
. never been seen alive since lIii, and
= Aram's wife had formerly thrown o'
dark hints that he had been murderc
public suspicion was aroused and nm
:, quest WAS held upon the bones. At til
= inquest she was summoned, and testiii,
!, that she thought Clark was murdered
=. Aram and liouseman. When brouS
- before the coroner ilouseman was
great confusion trenhicd, changed col
and ialtcred III speech Understandable
=, The coroner desired him 10 take up ol
: of the bones before him, thinking to st
Is what further rrsuli. would follow. Ia
l lug up one Of the bones. he said I'll
d il 10 more Dan Ciark's bone than 1t
g mine" These words were So pronounce
n rs to convince those present, not til
;, Houscman believed Clark WIS alive, b
;, that he knew very well where his bon
y Law Uf the reader will read Houscman