Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-04-18
lawyers here cannot remember off hand

) when the last previous case was, was a | good-for nothing son of respectable par entS whose father, now dead, was a l music teacher. and whose sister has for | a number of years been teacher Ill the | public schools here. She has been sue cessful as teacher, and very popular
 for her personal brillial.cy and charms. |
 and is engaged to marry an estlmabie | young man, a clerk in a Hartford bank. Five years ago Swift, then a boy of nine
 teen, married Katie AIcCann, girl then about 20 years old. It was not pleas |
 ant sort of a wedding, although Swift is
 said to have been well pleased when it
 took place. Swift had been intimate
 with the girl, and her mother, discover
 ing this and suspecting that her daugh- ter's error was about to be exposed. com
 pelled her to marry Swift. Swift Is | alleged to have loved the girl devotedly, and to have been more than willing to marry her. but she had conceived a dis like to him, and didn't want to marry
 him. Urged by her mother, she at last
 consented that the wedding would take
 place, but vowed that she would never
 five with him. She kept her word.
 Swift, at that time, drank some, but IS
 said to have been not at all bad young
 fellow. His affection for the girl with
 stood her coldness, and he continually
 besought her to live with him. She was
 at work in factory earning her own living and we'll satisfied to let things
 stay as they were That she sometimes
 was inclined to yield to her husbands;
 importunities is indicated by his moth
 CTS testimony that frequently he would
 come home seeming very happy and
 would say, "katie's going to live with
 me- after all ma.' At other times he
 would come home gloomy and morose, saving that his W fife would have nothing
 to do with him. At such times his fits of depression would last for several days
 and he would drink heavily. Gradually
 these fits grew upon him, and his habits
 became constantly worse. 1t does not
 appear that his W fife had another lover,
 or that iealously added to his despond-
 ency The talent for piano playing,
 that he had inherited from his father,
 was d curse to him, for it enabled him to
 visit certain low groggeries in Hartford and get all the rum he wanted for play
 Ing tue. For a week before the murder it is
 claimed Swift had been drinking hcav-
 fly. A day or two before the murder he borrowed pistol Afterwaru he told a
 saloon keeper he was going to shoot his
 wife He made similar remarks to
 other persons and told one man to, come
 up to the jail next time he wanted to see him. Nobody paid any attention to his
 drunken gabble. On the 1th day of July. 1887, the day of the murder. he
 loaded the pistol and went out where he
 knew he would meet his wife on her
 way home from work. She came along with two other girls and he stopped her, and after talking with her for a moment . pulled out his pistol and shot her. the ball penetrating a lung. Blood gUshed ] from her mouth as she ran from him. , He followed her and tried to fire again, but could not cock the pistol, and threw ) it away. Twenty people saw the mur- der. There was not the slightest attempt at secrecy on the part of the murderer. He was arrested at once. The first thing he said was: Give me some
 whiskev." He was taken to the police ], station begging for a drink. His wife
 died in a short time, after making an ante-mortem statement in winch. she 5 said that Swift had asked her again to } live with him, ar d whs she refu sed had 7 shot her. He had threatened her before : she said Sine said that she had not l noticed that he was drunk.
 Public opinion was hot when Swift
 was placed on trial. Premeditation was held to be proven by Swlfts remarks to 5 the saloon keeper and others. That he 5 was drunk when he fired the shot the , prosecution denied, but alleged that l even if he was it only showed that he had filled himself with liquor to brace himself up for the deed. The defence ) made the best that it could of a bad case, denying reconciliation, but inc Jury 5 promptly brought in verdict .of mur- der in the first degree, and Swift was l sentenced to hang on April last. An ' appeal to the s'- oreme court was unsuc- } cessful. Counsel for Swift, early dis l covering that an appeal to
 this tn board oo of nI pard9ns sroa ~9hld 3nat } the board could not commute a death
 sentence, and prepared a petition to the legislature praying for the passage of l resolution committing Swifts sentence
 to imprisonment for life
 Soon after the opening of the session good looking young woman, Mary A. . Swift, the sister of tine condemned man, appeared in the lobby. She is teacher 5 in Brown School, Hartford and is highly
 harder to save a loved one than Miss;
 Swift labored to rescue her brother from , the gallows. She was always ladylike and made good impression. A petition 5 to commute Swifts sentence was intro } duced and then the sister began her work in earnest. During two months ! she had interviews with nearly all the 215 members of the assembly. leaving . her school in care of another to work for her brother.
 {, The petition was referred to the ju- dietary committee and it reported almost unanimously in favor of communication. , This was Miss Swift's first victory. Then ' came the action in the senate, which Sus- , tained the report by vote of 14 to g.. D The house concurred by vote of 112 to 5 1O6 and every body believed the sister had saved the neck of her mnrderous brother. : The signature of Gov BulKeley was all
 that was needed, or the resolution would . become law in three days without be- e ing signed by the governor. The house . passed the resolution Thursday March 2S. II 1t laid on the table during Friday,
 when the legislature adjourned until ', Tuesday and that day it was sent to the II II governor. Friday April 5, the day Swift . was sentenced to swing, the governor . . reprieved the condemned man until the e 18th and vetoed the resolution.