The Sunday tatler and Jersey City express. (Jersey City, N.J.) 1883-1886, 1886-02-14
SUNDAY. FEBRUARY IA. 1886
Natice to Our Patrons.

Notice to Our PatrOnSs
The SUNDAY TAITLER refuses 10 deliver
papers to newsdealer John Mershelmer;
and those residents of the Hudson City
district who desire the paper win kindly
notify other dealers to deliver it at their
houses
After all the hue and cry that has been
made over the expected disclosures in the
matter of the allegations against Keeper
Laverty, the whole case SINNERS down to
the testimony of two female convicts.
Both are thieves, and neither has any re-
gard for decency. Minnie Schafer is her
self an illegitimate offspring, and has led
life of crime and shame from her child
hood, and she confesses that her charge
against the Keeper was prompted by the
hope that she might compel him to buy
her silence with bis money. She was
playing against the natural desire of one
SO conspicuous in public affairs to save
his name from suspicion even. The
woman to whom she looked for corrcbor-
alton went through, in court, the same
little piece of acting TO feign fear of the
dungeon that she entertained the State
Prison Inspectors with when she was
called before them She is known in
Newark, from which place she was COM
mitted, as woman of bad life; and show
ed her vileness and degradation on the
stand by openly profaniDg and using
language of unnecessary nastiness in the
presence of the Court and hundreds of
spectators. An attempt was made to cor
roborate Minnie's testimony with that of
her brother and mother, but it was an
utter failure. The girls story is that she
wrote to the Keeper a letter asking for
$1,000, and that two days later she re-
ceived an envelope enclosing $50 and a
blank sheet of paper. The mother and
her brother profess to have seen her write
the letter, but there was no evidence that
she had ever mailed it, and Keeper Law
erty denies that he ever received it. A
letter enclosing $50 received a couple of
days later at Minnies home, might have
been regarded. with some degree of reason,
as an answer to Ike missive she had sent,
and in that light might have served, in de-
fault of better proof, to connect himwith bis
accuser. But the failure to show that she
mailed the importuning letter her relatives
say they saw her write, destroys whatever
Ealue the evidence of the writing Of the
letter might otherwise have had. But
there is no satisfactory evidence, even,
that Minnie received $50 note in letter
from anybody. She produces the end of
torn envelope and says that it had con-
tanned a $50 note, and the blank sheet of
paper. It might, as far as the proofs 60,
have contained anything else. If there
were $50 in it, Minnie must either have
spent it or kept it. If she kept it, let her
produce It'll If she spent it, let her pro
duee the storekeeper to whom she paid It'll
Storekeepers are not getting $50 bills from
the likes of her without having their at
tention fixed upon the circumstance The
confederation of her testimony by her
brothers oath and her mothers oath that
they saw her write the letter, is corrobor-
alton, therefore, upon very unessential
point. She might have written the letter
for the express purpose of deceiving them
and SO making testimony for herself, and
when out of their sight have destroyed it
which she probably did do, if their story
that she wrote the letter at all can be
accepted. Take these two persons out OF
the case, and there is not person to back
up the charge against the Keeper save the
woman who hoped to make $4,000 out of
it, and the other vile old wretch her fell
low prisoner-who, by the way, had pre-
viously declared in the presence Of four
witnesses, that she had never seen any i'm
prophecies on the part of the Keeper at
all II they had been the most credible of
witnesses their testimony should have de-
feated itself by its extravagance. 1t seems
to us that the Keeper might have met the
charge less emphatically and: convincing
~ than he did, without any peril to
himself. He might have left their stories
to stand on their own merit. Such tales
OF debasement and debauchery as they
toll would have fallen to pieces of their
own rottonness. And they rested solely
upon the words Of convicts, tool The
charge was beneath notice. He could
safely have interposed his simple dignity
and hidden the brazen huzzies defiance