The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1888-04-20

In 1927, Thomas Gill was convicted
in England of stealing two oxen. He
had just finished his apprenticeship to
a butcher, and after paying a visit to
his uncle in the country in order to
save expenses, was travelling on foot
back to London. About three o'clock
in the morning, he met man, riding
on pony and driving two oxen, who
offered Gill five shillings to drive them
TO London. and agreeing to meet him
on Westminster bridge. The young
man, willing to earn an honest penny,
agreed, and was arrested shortly after,
with the cattle in his possession, by
the owner in hot pursuit. Arrested,
he gave false name to conceal his
situation from his friends. He was
pardoned as he was being transported
for life. The simple fact was, that
the real thiei, hotly pursued, had TAX
EN- this cruel way to rid himself of the
cattle and the crime.
In France, ayoung man was in the
service of an old woman and had a
key to her house. She was found
murdered, with piece of his cravat
near her, and lock of his hair olench-
ed in her hand. He was arrested and
executed. But he was innocent. An
intimate friend who afterwards con-
fessed, managed to get an impression
OF the key, picked up one of his old
cravats about the house, and, combing
the young mans queue, had scarcely
abstracted enough hair to make his
lock found in the dead womans clutch.
Sad as it sounds and is, the history of
the law shows a list Of cases where the
innocent have died a shameful death
through the mistake of justice These
legal disasters had for their basis not
so much an unfair or heal tless trial as
failure to weigh wisely the peculiar
crcumstantial evidence involved. Bu'
on the other hand, justice sometimes
seems aided either by good luck OF
Divine wrath of the gods themselves,
in detecting criminals. In 1880 the
body of man was discovered in Eng
land who had been murdered 32 years
before. His widow identified his re-
mains from the skull, his shoes and a
carpenters rule found with the bones.
The murderer was then foun and exc
ruted. In 1918 Cornish peasant was
found murdered, and his body dragged
under hedge. 1t was shrewdly sur
missed by the detectives that the MUIR
derer was stranger in those parts,
since a native would have been very
likely to have concealed the body in
some abandoned coal mine, many of
which were in the field. From this
slight clue mainly, they arrested an
Irish soldier, whose regiment had late
" come there and on him they found
the dead mans purse. He was execut-
ed. Three ruffians murdered a poor
Italian boy TO sell his body, were
largely convicted by their giving away
some white mice which there was
every reason to believe had belonged
to the unfortunate child. A
sailor was manly convicted as an &C
complice in brutal murder in a Lon
don bawdy-house from the fact that
he victims hands were tied behind
him with what is known as a sailors
knot. Where man was shot by a
ball, the wad on the ball was shown t.
be half of certain ballad, the other
part of which was found in the priso-
ner's pocket. Convicted. A man as,
sailed by robper struck him in the
face with key. A mark on the
prisoners face corresponded with the
wards or divisions of the key. Con
victed. In 1852, in England, a man
and woman from within a certain
house gave the alarm that some one
had entered and murdered an inmate.
The dew on the grass outside the
house was found to be undisturbed
The living inmates were convicted.
In 1916, in England, a man was
tried for the murder of another. Where
the struggle had been severe, impress
IONS were found in the clay, of mar
who had worn breeches of striped cor.
duroy, patched with the same material
but the patches were not set on straight
the ribs of the patch meeting the hol
lows of the original corduroy. The
accused was shown to have his breeche-
patched thus, and this greatly aided
his conviction. Dew and snow have
often helped to track the murderer, and
many a man has perished Cd the gal
lows the peculiarities of whose shoes
or the curious way in which nails are
set in them, aided conviction A mar
arrested in his bed, who claimed t,
have been there all night, was fount
with wet, muddy stockings On. Tb,
night was wet and the ground outsid.
soft. Convicted and executed. On'
of Kaulbach's illustrations of Goethe
Reineke Fuchs shows us the fox mur
dering the hare. Ii is a solitary place
field and alose by shrine with it
cross. But curiously enough, tn,
artist has put eyes into every head o
the full wheat, which bends in tn,
breeze, and every flower at hand il
made in likeness of the dim, human
face, which beholds the deed with hor
ror. The fact thus symbolized is tha
nature, in all its attributes of weight
size, color and condition is, after all
the head detective of crime, and ever,
secret murder leaves its mark behint
it, which rightly interpreted of men
metes out detection and punishment t,
the criminal. Murder will out" be
cause in most subtle ways, the circum
stance of murder being accurate, whel
wisely interpreted, confess and denot
with unerring finger, and "dead mel
tell no tales with hundred tongues
That the guilty sometimes evade de
lection does not prove the contrary,
Perhaps the old story of the murder
er, Eugene Aram, whose horrors pass
ed into English literature, assisted b,
the genius of Hoods shadowy poem o
that name best literatures what ha
been said of the curiosities of circum
stantial evidence in criminal causes
Aram was born at RamsgilI, Yorkshir,
l704,an though the son of a gardener
was of ancient British family an,
brilliant genius. With scant education
in youth, and serving for a time a
ook-keeper in London, yet he man