News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1883-08-09

| her. But she never reached home. Her
absence was remarked an hour or two
afterward, and search for her was made,
but she had disappeared, and has not
/ been seen alive to this day. Some time
| afterward, in May, 1882, a rIImor spranGy
| up that the Jews had murdered her. 1t
was said that Moritz Scharf, fourteen years
old, the son of the keeper of the Syna-
gogue. Joseph Scharf, had made to
somebody a confession to the effect that
Esther had been killed by Jews in the
! Synagogue. Thereupon excitement be-
gan to rise, and the mother of Esther
called upon the district magistrate, who
opened an investigation about a month
after the girl had disappeared. The
suspected parties, as well as the boy,
Moritz Scharf, were put in close confine-
ment, and the latter made the following
statement:
On the LIST of April the girl Esther
Solymosi passed by his fathers house;
his father ordered him to call her into
the house to arrange some candlesticks
on the wardrobe, it being the Jewish
Sabbath, on which the Jews do no work,
and the sabbath woman" of the Scharf
family having failed to appear. After
Esther had done this she was asked by
another Jew who had come i'll to go into
the Synagogue for similar purpose.
About a quarter of an hour after Esther
had entered the temple he (MOritz) heard
terrible cries coming from the building.
he went to the door, which was locked;
looked through the keyhOle, and saw
Esther stretched on the floor, partly I'm
dressed, two men holding her down,
while another man cut her throat with a
knife such as is used by Jewish butchers.
Two earthen vessels were held under her
throat to catch the blood; then the body
was dressed again and put into the vesti-
bule, where he saw four Jews so sur
rounding the body as to conceal it from
his view. Thereupon he hurried into
the house, telling his parents about it,
but was silenced by his mother, and
finally one of the Jews he had observed
in the temple came in and told him to
shut up the Synagogue, which he did,
seeing nothing of the bodynor any traces
of blood.
A Younger brother of Moritz Scharf,
Samuel, five years old, also told his
ct -, which, I'.v,..>s- Iii fi.I...I
important points from that of the other
4 = l.
Joseph Scharf, had participated in the
murder, and he (SamueD and his
brother Moritz had held the vessels to
receive the blood. Aside from this, he
said only in a general way that Esther
had been murdered by his father and
other Jews during a rehearsal of the
hymns and prayers which were to be
used during the Passover.
But stranger thing was still to come.
On June IS, 1882, the body of a girl was
found in the river, near lisa EszIar
dressed in Esther's clothes. or clothes
exactly like hers. This body bore no
marks of violence at all. If this was
really the body of Esther, the story of
the murder in the synagogue was con-
clusiveIy disproved. Several persons in
the village recognized it as the body
of Esther, but her mother and a few
others did not OF a commission of
physicians examining the body, several
declared that it was the body of woman
at least nineteen or twenty years old,
while commission of university profess
sors subsequently consulted, held that
it might well be the body of a girl of
fourteen. But then another most start
ling piece of testimony came in.
Some raftsmen " confessed" that on
June 7, 1882, they had been induced by
a Jewish raftsmen named Smilovicz. who
offered them good pay to carry dead
body which would on a certain day at
certain place be delivered to them, and
that on June II they received that body
from SmilOvicz. and from a dark woman
about thirty years old, apparently a
Jewess, a bundle of clothes in which the
body was to be dressed, while a hand
kerchief with some red and blue color
was to be tied to its left hand. The
body, so fitted out, was put in the water,
where it remained several days attached
to the raft. 1t was then produced by
the raftsmen, who said that they had |
found it III the river. The impression |
produced by this confession was, of |
course, that all this had been arranged |
by the Jews for the purpose of account
ing in some other way for the disappear
nnce of Esther, and thus disproving the
murder.
Thus the case appeared in the act of
accusation. The trial at once put it in a
different light. The examination of the
began some time ago, and was
by the jew hating popuIace with
he intensest excitement. Esther's moth
n testified that she knew that the Jews
lad murdered Esther for Good had en-
ightened her" on that point. The prin-
'ipal witness, the boy Moritz Scharf,
presented a singular spectacle. He re-
used to testify in German, his native
'ilE'itJ ftIi'A Hl''h' 'hlN lung ldI, J
which pleased the crowd. His testi-
nony was given in low voice, sing
ng tone. and always in exactly the same
orms of exp ession, as if he were read
ng or recitiug something by rote. In
he cross-examination he stuck well to
lis story, but many questions which
eemed to be unexpected to him, he did
lot answer at all, although they bore
ppm points which he should have
,nown. He made several statements
which created great sensation.
He had been told that eff he did not
ell the truth, as he was telling it, he
would be imprisoned for life" If he
id tell the truth, as he did, 'the Minis
rv Of the Interior would take care of
i'm. 1t was "part Of the religious law
t the Jews to kill Christian children"
e knew it, for "Cathoiic priests had
bid him So He "hated the Jews and
,anted to be jew no longer" He hated
is father and bis stepmother; he had (