National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1881-02-08
ON TRIAL FOR MURDER.
An EfOr: to Show that johnson WAS Made
Insane by the IIirth Murder.

Mr. Hugh G. Divine, the sick juror, APP
peaEed in his place with the panel in the Criminal
Court yesterday and the trial of John Silas Mar
shall Johnson, charged with the murder of James
E. johnson, was resumed before Justice James
Colonel Cook fled an affidavit made by the de-
| PENDANT of his inability to summon certain wit
nesses, and the court ordered them to be sum-
moned
At this juncture Sam" the right bower Of the
District attorney, brought in large padded, easy
chair and placed it to the left of Mr. Perry for Dis
trict Attorney CorkhilD another on his right being
occupied by Colonel Cook.
well, am between two sick men," said Mr..
Perry. al hope it will not be my turn next"
8 don't want il to come down the line" re-
/ sponded 5Ir. Williams. would rather have it
| go the other direction
| am glad that we are all convalescing"
chimed in Colonel Cook.
At this point District Attorney CorkhlI came in
looking rather pale, and planted himself in the
easy chair.
JoHNsoN's MOTHER.
Mrs. Margaret A. Johnson, the mother of the de-
fcndant. the first witness examined and testi-
fed that the accused, who was twenty years old
last April, was born in Baltimore Md She had
eleven children-nine of them living Her hus-
band had been dead fourteen years When the
defendant a child four or five years of age he
received severe fright from an old rag man. who
came into the kitchen where the child was, and
said, Il have come to take away this boy if he
don't stop crying" The child was very much
frightened, and when he found that he could not
get out of the room he picked upa chair and threw
it. After that he fell i'll commissions and it was
three or four days before he recovered. Afterward
in his childhood days. he was always excitable and
easily frightened.
When about six years old he received sun
stroke that seemed to affect his mind very much
Previous to the sunstroke he received very severe
fall, that injured his head and back Thy was
no insanity in the family of the witness 4 she
could remember, but there was in the defendants
fathers family. She testified that Charles john
son, an uncle of her husband, living in Baltimore
did not appear to her TO be in his right mind that
two cousins of her husband, Elizabeth Kehlenbeck
and Cheston johnson, had become deranged in
Cumberland, Nd, and, as she understood, had died
insane, and that she had heard that two aunts of
her husband were insane.
THE EFFECT OF THE HIRTH MURDER
The Hirth murder, she said, affected the accused
in such way that he was Wild excitablc and
constantly talking about it. He said that he was
afraidshe would be followed and killed as poor Mr.
Hirth was. The defendant came in the SUNDAY
evening that Mr. HiTth was buried and looked
very wild and was very much excited. She asked
him to supper. He answered that he did not want
any that he was going to church that night, and
said, This is terrible thing that has happened"
He talked constantly about it, and his mind seemed
to dwell on it.. While sleeping he was very rest
less. He would cry and halloo in his sleep as if he
was hurt, and she would go over to his room She
found him on one occasion out of bed lying on the
floor, and it was sometime before she could arouse
him. He then said, :" Oh, mother, these negroes
She said that there were no negroes in the room'
that he must get up and get In bed, which he did