The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1889-12-10
WAS HBRNAMH "SPACE?!"
Another Pointer for the En-
qu1rers into the Rah-
way Mystery.

- ~eS's ~ SNeAASoNefLS StNAAA1As3 ~
the probable connection of the Froat
family, whom Mamie Hughes story of
abduction brought to the surface last
week, with the Railway murder mys-
terry, is bearing fruit in searching en-
quiry into the matter by those who have
the time to give to it. The writer of this
article was among the newspaper men
who worked on the Railway mys-
terry at the tune the mangled corpse Of
the victim was found lying by the
roadside two OF three years ago. He may
claim the credit of having first struck the
clue, and worked on the theory that it
was the right one for a week after the
detectives had pretended to have followed
it out to nothing. This Detective Gregory,
who is now the chief accuser of the
Froats, was among the first to say that
the family had accounted for the only
girl missing from their household, and
that the theory of their connection with
the murder was an exploded one.
A GIRL NOT ACCOUNTED FOR.
But all the trails the not-to-be discour-
aged reporter struck while investigating
the murder kept leading to that rookery
ON the outskirts of Railway as unmistak
ably as though the detectives had not
pooh-poohed'' the theory. The reporter
learned that the girl Nancy, who the
Froats said was the one who had been in
their household and gone, was engaged
by family in Railway proper, but the
description Froats' neighbors gave of the
young woman whom they had seen hang
ing clothes in the Froats' yard before the
murder but whom they never Saw
afterwards, did not answer to
Nancys :. and the reporter was
convinced that there was yet another
friendless creature who had been Of the
squalid household to be accounted for.
The young woman, whose butchered
corpse lay in the morgue, answered the
description with perilous closeness: but
the neighbors, pretending that they had
caught only casual glimpses of the
clothes-hanger, were unable, or Drofessed
to be unable, to describe her closely, and
were unwilling therefore to attempt an
Identification of the body 1t was very
apparent to the reporter too that the
Froats. neighbors had dread of them,
and were not eager to encounter their
antagonism and arouse their resentments
by bringing one or more Of them to the
bar of justice.
WAS THIS THE VICTIM?
The reporter was not only satisfied that
his Investigations at that time put him in
possession of valuable clues as to the per-
petrator of the daStardly murder; but he
was satisfied that satisfactory identifi-
cation of the unknown woman was made.
Among the thousands who called at the
Railway morgue to identify the remains
was the middle aged wife of farmer
from among the hills of Sussex County.
Her name was Space or Spence, just
which it was cannot now be recalled In
early life-twenty years ago-she had
come from England leaving sister be-
hind her. Some time before the Railway
murder she had received information
from home that this sister had started to
join her in this country. Mrs. Space gave
her careful directions as to the route to
follow to Sussex County after reaching
New York.
sShe was TO cross the river TO the Penn
sylvania Railroad depot in this city and
take thence Midland Railroad train.
She had been long overdue, when Mrs
Space, having read a description of the
murdered Railway woman, became sus-
picious that she was the sister from
whom she had been so long separated,
and she travelled from Sussex to view the
remains.
REMARKABLE sIMILARITEA
Everybody who saw her fd3Bs TO face
with the dead remarked the Wonderful
similarity of build and face between the
two women. They were alike as two peas
in pod, as the expression is and Mrs
Space declared, as positively as she could
after twenty years of separation, that the
body in the morgue was that of her sister
Her theory was that, ON arriving al the
Pennsylvania Railroad depot the young
foreigner had become confused as to
trains, and had taken a PENNSYLVANIA
train instead of Midland train, and that
in that way she became wanderer at
Railway to fall into the clutches of just
such people as these Eroats are now seen
to be,
The Identification was so strong that a
relative of the young woman's in this
city was for a time under grave suspicious
that happily proved unfounded; but the
atmosphere that the suspicion threw
around him became SO unpleasant that q
few months ago he Went back to his
English home to escape it.
Mrs. Space was seen on Pennsylvania
ferrybo a year after the Railway mur-
der, and no tidings of the girl had up to
that time been received.
IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.
There was party ut the F'roats, house
on the night of the murder. Those
who believe that Froat had hand in the
crime, think that it may have been pre-
pared to facilitate it. No one would sus-
pect the convivial host of the evening of
being in q humor to murder, and so sus-
picion was measurably disarmed. On the
other hand the gathering of the neighbors
at the entertainment might have served
the end of taking spying eyes from this
usual place of observation.
1t may be added, however, that the
body was SO much identified while it lay
in the morgue by people anxious for the
this late day must be of little value, and
that the only chance of ever bringing to
justice the brute who committed the
crime is that of his making q confession