Mexico weekly ledger. (Mexico, Mo.) 1855-1956, 1883-11-22
MEXICO, MISSOURI, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 22 1883
REMARKABLE CASES OF CIRCUM.
STANTIAL EVIDENCE.
THE SHOP BoY.

STANTIAL EVIDENCE.
THE SHOP BoY.
Cases exhibiting the precarious ma
ture of circumstantial evidence, in
dependently Of the deep interest
which generally attaches to them as
mere narratives, are calculated to
work so beneficial an effect on the
public mind, that they can not, it
seems to us, be too frequently or too
prominently brought forward in pa
ges adapted for popular reading. By
no other means can mankind be so
strongly impressed with a salutary
conviction of the necessity of max
ing the strictest and most minute in
vestigation, ere the life of a fellow
creature be arbitrarily shortened, or
guilt Of whateyerkind be decisively
laid to any ones charge. The fol-
lowing cases of circumstantial evi-
dence are collected from various
sources. The first we find in the
able notes to a Scotch edition Of
Bentham's Works, and the authority
adduced is one of the collections of
French criminal causes that have been
published at various times. The
case Is given in the original French,
of which the following is literal
translation -
Previously to the rebuilding Of that
long range of houses which line the
Place st. Michel, at Paris, in front of
the Rue st. Hyacinth, an aged widow
lived near that spot, being the occu-
pant of small shop, to which was
attached a back parlor where she
slept. She was believed by the
neighbors to have amassed a consid-
cradle amount of money. One young
lad constituted, for long time her
entire household. He slept on the
fourth floor of the same building,
but the staircase leading to his apart
ment had no communication with the
dwelling of his mistress. The lad
was obliged to go round by the street,
when he had to enter the shop, and
when he left it to 60 to bed, he shut
the outer door, and carried away the
key, of which he was the sole deposit
tory. One morning the shop door
was noticed to be earlier open than
usual, while at the same time no
movement indicated that either the
old shop-keeper or assistant had aris-
en-. This quietness alarmed some of
the neighbors. On entering, they
perceived no marks of violence about
the door, but they found a bloody
knife lying in the middle of the shop,
and on her bed, in the back apart
ment, lay the shopmistress, dead
stabbed, to all appearance, with the
weapon mentioned. The corpse held
in one hand small handful of hair,
and in the other cravat or neck
cloth. Near the bed was the money
box, which had been forced and pill
laged. The young shop-assistant
was Immediately seized, and he ad-
mitted that the bloody knife belonged
to him. The cravat which the muir
dered woman held in her hand was
his. They compared his hair with
that grasped in the other hand; the
two were the same, in color and in
every other respect. Finally, the
key of the shop was in his possession !;
he alone had the power, by means of
that key, of entering the shop with
out resorting to force. On the
strength of this accumulation of evil
dence he was put to the torture; un-
der its agonies, he admitted the crime,
and was broken on the wheel.
| Shortly afterwards, a tavern boy
was taken up for some crime of diff
ferent nature. In the declaration
emitted by him after conviction and
condemnation, he confessed that he
was the sole actor in the assassination
of the old woman in the Place St.
Michel. The tavern where he served
J adjoined her shop, and he was on
familiar terms with her shop-boy. To
the latter he acted as hair-dresser, so
far as regarded the periodical ar
rangement of the lads hair en- yueu
and always when he used the comb,
he carefully gathered those hairs
which the instrument detached. By
little and little he had thus collected
the handful which was found in the
grasp of the murdered woman. The
, knife, and one of the cravats of the
, lad, he had procured without diff
Guilty, and the terms of intimacy or
which they were, enabled him viii
equal ease to take an impression ir
wax of the shop-key, for the fabrica
! ton of false one. By these means
he entered and committed the deed
leaving things in the state which ha'
been related.
Such is the story as told by th'
French writer. Seldom has there
: been a piece Of viIlainy so coolly
> planned and so ruthlessly executed
at the foreseen and expected cost o.
existence to two unfortunate beings
The succeeding two cases are OF
similar order, exhibiting the fall o
> innocence before premeditated vii
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