The Sunday morning news. [volume] (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1886-1891, 1891-07-12

TO A DEAR FRIEND OF MINE.
IT was spring again--not the spring OF
the north which May ushers in with VIC
let's and the return OF the song birds, but
The spring which comes creeping over
the landscape of the south, the vernai
season that follows the foods of Feb
ruary rains, which clothes the brown
fields with green almost before ono
knows it, and brings swiftly in its train
the summers promise of fertility. Twas
still in New Orleans, where had coma
from Memphis, though my thoughts
were turning northward again. had
been doing space work on The Picayune,
where Jones held desk in the city edi-
tors room. Some correspondence for
northern papers had fallen to me and
furnished pretty decent sort of liveli-
hood.
Since leaving Memphis not a word had
reached me of Jason Brigham. If the
river had swallowed him, as we con-
jectured, then it had not given up its
dead, or else had cast its prey upon soma
forsaken shore, perhaps in treacherous
eddy on the rim Of some great deselate
sandbar, or among the twisted roots
and broken tree trunks in cove upon
some wooded stretch where human eye
wonld never see it. The affairs had
ceased to be present memory to me.
thought with pity Of Brigham, and Of
the lonely woman whose heart had been
well nigh broken, but then theirs are
20 many tragedies in a newspaper mans
life that his nature hardens insensibly-
and he comes to pesslmisticaIly accept
The cruel reprisals of fate with fair
share of stoicism.
From the effects left by Brigham had
the photograph Of Emily Percival. She
had told me to keep it as Il memento
when offered to return it to her. There
were few things beside that, and such as
there were were left in The Avalanche
! Office in the hope that he might yet re-
turn to claim them
The winter had been a gay one in the
Crescent City--the season at the French
opera had never been better, the Mardi
Gras brilliant success the town was
! full of gay life, which renewed and re-
! hected the Latin graces among our Puri-
tanical institutions In the merry round
had had my share and borne my part as
well of the brunt of the work incidental
to the daily grind of journalism. So
| found myself upon the eve of starting
north in anything but pleasant frame
of mind, when the managing editor OF
The Picayune sent for me and said:
Il wish you would go up to Donaldson
vile and do that Mime. Armand murder
case for us. You know have no man
here to send, and it is too big thing for
the Indifferent local correspondent we
have at that point to handle"
Of course I couldn't refuse-to have
done SO under the circumstances would
have been unpardonable But criminal
affairs always nauseated me, and hated
the stuffy atmosphere Of court rooms
where ignoramuses make preteuse Of
knowledge to befuddle stupid jurors, and
where the whole performance is mock.
cry Of the solemnity of justice.
The case was famous or infamous
enough, as such things go. Mime. AR
1nand, who owned plantation down on
the Bayou Lafouche, had been murdered
in her bed. presumably for money which
she was popularity supposed to keep con,
cealed in the house. The criminal had
escaped detection for several months, and
then had been apprehended while en-
4 ployed in timber camp where he wa.
one Of gang Of loggers. Just what evi
J deuce there xaa arainst him the ofIicsrI