Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1889-10-06
HAS NO PARALLEL
Raw Hamilton.--Eva Mann -
Josh and Mother Swinton.
SOME INSTANCES IN FICTION.
Curious Cases in Baby Farming-The Bur
dell-Cunningham Case - Terrible
Observation-Disclosures "Not to the Man
ner Born"

Qell-CunnIUSDR"
Observation-Disclosures "Not to the Man
ner Born"
Inspector Byrnes, New York,s big de-
tective, was right when he declared that for
audacity, low cunning and shrewd deprayity
on one side, and blind infatuation on the
other, the Robert Ray Hamilton-Eva Mann
Mother Swinton case, now before the courts,
has no parallel in the police records-of New
York Here is a man, rich, SO Intellectually
bright that he is chosen to represent his city
in the state legislature He is descended
from an aristocratic ancestry that comprises
Alexander Hamilton, the Schuylers, Van
Rensselaers, Beekmans and more than. a
score Of other old families, whose names are
tinged with the purple and gold Of inherited
wealth, and are like an open sesame TO the
best society,"" He visits, some four years
ago, the professional habitation of q strum-
pet and, falling in love with her, contributes
literally to her support.
Meanwhile the woman, with the means
thus supplied; supports one Josh Mann, and
with the knowledge of Hamilton lives with
him in open concubinage, taking his name.
According to his own testimony Hamilton
helps to find him when he goes astray from
his mistress, but the public confession Is
made with bowed head and shamed face.
Mann is always Swallowed by another crea-
ture-his mother, the SO called Mrs. Swinton
and together they concoct plan whereby,
with the younger adventures, a baby is
brought into the scene. Hamilton is made
20 believe that it is his own, and with chiv-
alrous sentiment difficult to explain he mar
ries the woman Eva.
Not merely one baby but three have been
provided before. The scheme moves success
fully. They were cheap children, however,
being purchased for song from convenient
midwives, and died from inanition-a lack Of
proper food. A little thing like this not being
permitted to interfere with the projects Of
the conspirators, they secured fourth in
FAINT, this time $40 babe, and Providence,
with its inscrutable ways, seems to have
chosen this little innocent, now months old,
as an instrument of vengeance. A nurse,
one Donnelly, was hired to take care of it.
In fit of wild passion the pretended mother
seized knife and sent the nurse to deaths
door. Then came the police, the investiga-
ton, the hastily concocted stories of Mother
Swinton and of commonplace Josh Mann, the
revelation that $40, 600 had been expended on
the crew during the last four years, and that
the pretended mother, Eva, had forced will
from young Hamilton for the benefit of his
child
1t was time now for the friends of the in
fatuated dupe to step in, and they did so,
although, still chivalrous, he attempted to
shield the woman he believed to be his lawful
wife and the legal mother of his offspring.
Securing the services of Inspector Byrnes an
investigation was begun and the plot above
detailed mraveled. Is it wonder that the
chief of New York detectives should declare
it to be one OF the most cunningly and auda-
ciously devised rejects known in his wide
experience to procure the transfer of man s
property to an Legitimate heir? Not few
people are even asking the question whether
the SEQUEL of the plot might not have been a
murder.
THE CUNNINGHAM-BURDELLM MURDER.
The incidents recall the tragedy that oc-
Cured on the night of the 30th of January,
1857, when Dr. Harvey Burdell, noted dem
fist of New 4 rk city, was found dead in his
own house on Bond street, then one of the
fashionable localities of the metropolis. His
landlady, Mrs. Cunningham, sustained the
relation of mistress to him, and claimed to
have been secretly married and therefore en-
titled to his fortune; but the subsequent teSti-
mony showed that the certificate of marriage
was based upon fraud, and that her as
sumption of widowhood was equally false.
Two of her boarders Eckel and Snodgrass,
were committed to prison as parties concerned
with her in the crime. The trial created
intense excitement throughout the country,
being scarcely less celebrated than those
of Professor Webster for the murder of
DR.. Parkman and of John c. Colt
for the murder of Adams. Like Eva Mann,
the woman had led vagrant life, lived in
various places under different names, and
with determined art had secured a hold upon
DR.. Burdell which he found difficult to resist.
Finally a quarrel ensued over lost papers, and
the next morning he was found dead upon
the floor of his office with fifteen stabs in his
body For want of legal proof the woman
and her alleged sccomphces were acquitted.
Not content with this, she opened another
chapter in the drama. Applying for letters
of administration upon the murdered mans
estate. she made up in her physical appear
ance those outward evidences that indicated
her alleged marriage had not been an I'M
fruitful one. Eventually she confessed that
her apparent condition was pretended, and
Z
cure her babe.
The then district attorney, Police In
spector Dilks and Capt. afterwards In
spector) Spe.sht being apprised Of the
plot, lent it every encouragement. One
of the officers was in her house even when
the child was supposedly born. Mrs Gun
bingham on being asked by the attending
physician, do you claim this child as the
child of Dr. Harvey BurdellT replied, 'Of
course; whose else should it be!" The officers
now entered the room and the sraud was ex-
posed. The doctor informed them of the
fictitious birth, and the borrowed infant was
sent back to Bellevue hospital and restored
10 its mother, a lying In patient In That IN
stitution.
Mrs. Cunningham escaped the penalty OF
her crime owing to the irregular means en-
ployed in obtaining the evidence, but she
failed to establish either her marriage to DR..
Burden or her right to any part of his prop
erty.
A TERRIBLE TEMPTATION.
Numerous cases might be cited in which
innocent children have thus been made the
instruments of atrocious schemes like the
above but they constitute the small ro-
mances of life that rarely come to the trou-
bled surface of a police court, and hence are
not OF official record. Unless crime is sus-
pected. it is nobody's business to 80 beyond
the advertisements of children for adop-
ton" that appear in the daily Journals, and
trace the careers of these little ones, but be
hind them al is some life story, and in not a
few instances it concerns the rich as well SIS
the poor and depraved-
Charles Reade in his thrilling novel, "A