Omaha daily bee., 1888-04-01

him off. together with his full outfit of
engraving tools and spurious bank note
plates.
Thieves galore have for years hid
their n%efarious profession from their
wives for q greater or less period, ac-
counting for their irregular hours on
various p%retexts. The records of bigamy
cases in the courts present d large num-
Der OF these cases of doubtful lives. In
large cities like New York or Philadel-
phia there have been a dozen cases of
men actually raising two families in the
same city. In the memoirs OF Inspector
Walling, of New York, he tells of how
two young men,, one named Mcpherson
and the other named Percival, walking
arm in arm on Broadway, both saluted
al elderly gentleman of dignified and
prosperous appearance.
"Do you know that gentleman" said
Mcpherson.
do | know my W father2" replied
Percival, in surprise at the staange in
qeiry. "Of course | know my father"
But l don't mean your father,I mean
my father, said Mcpherson.
mo, l have never met him."
But you just saluted him."
"Saluted whoI'
"Why, my father"
"Do you know what you are talking
about? Are you crazy?"
mo, l am not crazy, and If | was l
would know my father"
"Do you mean to tell me that the man
we Just passed was our father"
Certainly | do. That mar was John
G.. Mcpherson, the well-known Wall
street broker, he lives in Fifth avenue,
where 1 was born twenty-one years
ago"
Nov [ know you are crazy; that q
| - ,.,- F,t11, INI, ~ IDAr,, 80 h, Il.
the travelling salesman of the Baldwin
Locomotive Works, lives in State street
Brooklyn, with my mother, and in the
same house in which | was born twenty
four years ago"
And such was the case. In Brooklyn
John G.. Percival lived and reared his
family. He was absent from home a
great deal, his business as a salesman
requiring his absence. He supported
his family in luxury, but rarely went
with his wife into society. In New
millionaire broker, reared his family in
a%fluence. He was frequently absent
from home on business.
CLAIMED BY THREE WOMEN.
A year or two ago three women
claimed the body of a man at the st.
Louis morgue. Each of them had a
marriage certificate. and imagined that
she alone had a valid claim. But the
deceased in this case was a steamboat
clerk, and one wife was from New Or
leans, one from Memphis and.the other
from st. Louis.
A man named Harvey Lamkin is now
serving out a sentence at Jefferson City
for bigamy. H~e,,undertook the dangerous
experiment of maintaining a North st.
Louis and a South st. Loui wife. With
North st, Louis on his arm at the expo
sition he met South st. Louis escorted
by her brother. He was q pool gambler,
but to his wives he was a travelling man,
home one week, on the road the next.
Perhaps the most famous case of a
man leading a duality of lives was that
of the erstwhile strolling actor, and sub
sequent sewing machine many-times
millionaire Singer, whose will, making
provisions for five wives and five sets of
children, was a revelation as startling
as it was u~nequalled.
A common form of the double life APP
pears in the newspapers, when the Sun
day school superintendent, moral model
and immaculate bank cashier, turns
out an embezzler, and then it is learned
that for years he has beer a gambler,
and the nocturnal associate of the most
depraved of both sexes. Several cases
of this nature in st. Louis are SO re-
cent as to preclude the necessity of de-
tail.
Instances of human whited sepnlchres
might be multiplied indefinitely. The
subject suggests convictions on circum-
stautial evidence. and mistaken iden-
tity. Many a man gone to the gallows,
or to Il living death within the walls of
a prison for a crime committed by an
other. There are often cases of mis-
taken identity. Any negro knows the
danger of being arraigned in court. Not
one person in a thousand can distin-
guish men Of color apart, unless there be
something or distinguishing as unusual
height, dwarf stature or deformity. The
fact that NEGRO run when he sees a po-
liceman coming towards him is by nc
means evidence of guilt. He knows
that once in court the chances are that
he will be promptly identified"
ATTORNEYS TALES.
A conversation between a group OF
well read lawyers and a Globe-Demo-
crat reporter, who was an attentive
auditor "a few days since, revived recol-
lection of some OF the most famous cases
of improper conviction under Circum-
stantial evidence. The subject was
brought up by reference to a celebrated
case in st. Louis many years ago, when
a man was hung for the murder of his
wife. He had quarrelled with her fire.
duSDllg u DSCh oCSl w IhhO = vi
the river in a boat and return without
her. The body was never recovered
but the surroundings so clearly indi-
Gated murder that conviction followed.
In contrast to hat case there was
tried during Judge Laughlin's term in
the criminal court a case in which three
men had gone to the river and but two
returned. The two were indicted for
the murder of the third. The body OF
the man was never recovered. Thomas
B. Harvey, as attorney for the accused,
moved their discharge on the ground
b that the corpus deficit had not been
proved. Judge Laughlin ruled that
while a view of the body was the best
evidence, it was not indispensable. The
disappearance, through violence, of n
, live man beneath the waters of n river
would make the corpus deficit. There
was, however, no evidence of murder in
this case, and the prisoners were dis
charged.
Similar was the ruling in the case o.
B John w. Beaumont, who was seen going
toward the river with a man in whose
absence from the world he was alleged
to have an interest. The man was
a%fterward found drowned, but Beaumont