Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-01-20


presently. He got into bed again
but lay sleepless, until, hearing
some distant clock strike four,
he rose, clothed himself, took
his bundle, and left the house, carrying
away the boatswaln IS knife, which he
would have left behind, had he remem-
bered that it was in his pocket He was
unable to account for his possession
of the Spanish piece of gold
which the witnesses swore had be-
longed to Mr.. Worksop; nor could lie ex-
plain how if was that there were blood
stains upon his shirt, in the bed, on the
floor, not to mention the marks which
terminated at the water side
Having heard the evidence, the magis-
trate committed him 10 take his trial for
wilful murder at the forthcoming assizes
to be held at Sandwich.
There was probably but one person living
at that time who believed III Jeremy
York s innocence, and this was his
sweetheart, Jenny BaX. The Widow
Bax, after much mental swaying TO and
fro, arrived at the conclusion that the
youth was guilty. How could it be other
wise? she reasoned, rs did all others who
discussed the matter The mysterious
disappearance of Mr. WorkSop-the
knife and coin III York's poeket-the
blood stains, the discriminating
marks discovered on hiln-if these
things lid not point to his being
the assassin of the unfortunate boats
vain, what, in the name of truth, could
they signify? But what had he done
with the guineas, to obtain which, of
course, he had committed the dreadful
deed? Well, that was a thing not to be
conjectured 1t was strange, no doubt,
that the money should not have been
found upon him when he was searched;
for one might well think that if he had
been artful enough to conceal his
booty somewhere on the road
have taken care to hide such
'damynifying testimonials to his guilt
as the knife and the Spanish coin. But
it is always through some oversight on
the part of the evil-doer that he is
brought to book However it might be
as regards the concealment of the guineas
and the retention of the knife and coin,
it was beyond all dispute manifest that
Mr.. WOrksop lay somewhere secreted, a
murdered man, and that York was his
assassin.
Jenny alone believed in his innocence.
She and her mother were poor: but had
the widow been well to do, she would not
have advanced groat in defense of the
man whom she believed a murderer.
In the brief time that the lovers had been
together before the arrival of the con-
stable, York had told his sweetheart that
he was in hope of obtaining the balance
of his wages as second mate from the
owner of the Cecilia, and this coming into
Jenny s mind while her sweetheart lay in
Sandwich jail she wrote imploringly to
the owners of the brig, spoke of the ter
rible charge that had beeh brought
against Mr.. Jeremy York, and how
neither of them had funds to enable them
to procure counsel and she prayed
them, with all the might of
her little bursting heart, to send
her the money her sweetheart said
was owing to him, that some effort might
be made to rescue him from the gibbet.
In response to this piteous entreaty, the
owners of the brig sent her fifteen
guineas, with which money she fastened
to Canterbury and there engaged the
services of the likeliest lawyer that that
ancient city containes This lawyer had
several interviews with York, and he
was candid enough to represent to Jenny
Bax that though he would dONbis best
You'd his solemn assurance of in
nocence.t coupled with the careless
ness, which certainly did not look Grim
inal, Of his suffering the knife and coin to
remain in his pocket, the young man
seemed incapable of stating single
point upon which me defence could
rely, or which it could make any
thing of. And it turned out as the
lawyer had predicted; the evil
dence that had been previously rendered
was gone over again, and far more dill
gently examined; the bloOdstained
shirt, the knife, the coin, were
produced. The landlady of the Lonely
Star, along with her husband and
six other witnesses were present to testify
to the coin, to the knife Though the
name scored upon 1t abundantly indi-
Gated the ownership, to the money in
possession of the boatswain at the time of
his disappearance, to the circumstance
of Jeremy York having shared the bed
with him, to the avowed poverty of the
young man, to the bloodmarks terminal
ing at the timber extension, from which
point beyond all question the corpse had
been thrown into the sea.
The judge summed up, making but lit
tie of the circumstance of what he re-
ferred TO as the heedlessneSs of York in
upon his person such incrimin-
ating articles as the knife and the coin
The jury conferred a few minutes with
out Withdrawing and returned a verdict
of Guilty Whereupon his lordship
put on the black cap, and after tedious
sermon on the hideousness of the crime
for which the prisoner was to suffer, SEN
fenced him to be hung by the neck until
he was dead.
VII.
In the days in which Jeremy York -four
ished the gibbet was a much less
detail of the civilization of
the century than the gallows now is.
Pirates and blOodstained smugglers
were, to be sure, hanged in chains
upon gaIlows erected on Thames mud.
Execution dock and the lower reaches
were fixed points in Jack Ketch s pro-
gramme when it came to maritime TRACE
lies or felOnies committed in the home
waters round about the coast within con-
venient distance; but the ordinary land
going felon was again and again turned
off, in places adjacent TO the scene of |
MS wrong-doing. There seemed to the |