Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1892-06-07
A CITY EXPERIENCE,
ClRCUMSTANTlAL EVIDENCE AGAINST
A YOUNG MAN.
An Incident Showing How an Innocent
Person May at Times Be Placed in a
Dangerous Situation with Regard to
the Lava WOman's Predicament

pCiISliCe has IL Dteu SHOWN UldC clrcum-
stantial evidence was a cruelty beyond de-
scription! / have told the story before,
but as it is pertinent let me give it in brief
again. Some years ago, in Brooklyn, at a
boarding house table young invalid from
Minneapolis discussed with great earnest
ness with his fellow boarders in general,
but more especially with bright New
England girl, then school teacher in the
City of Churches, the insanity of Hamlet
1t was bright December day, and either
Booth or Davenport-and think the form
er-was playing Hamlet" in Booths
theater in this city. Half in fun and half
in earnest the young man suggested that
he and the young lady should attend the
performance that night and renew the dis
cussion later on.
They did so.
At the end of the second act, being trou-
bled with asthma, the young man excused
himself, saying it would be necessary for
him to take the air and that he might not
return to his seat until the close of the fol-
lowing act. To his surprise when he
reached the front door the sky was filled
with snow, a brisk breeze was rapidly drift
ing it and the pavements were covered to
the depth of at least an inch. He muffied
himself up and trotted literally toward
Broadway. Then turning, he walked
briskly back toward the theater While
SO proceeding man rushed rapidly past
him toward Sixth avenue with the fleet
ness of a deer. As he did so he dropped
something which shone in the snow.
The young man picked it up
1t was u watch and broken chain As
well as he could he called after the rapidly
retreating individual, and, failing to make
him hear, endeavored to catch him I'm
conscious of Il group of men behind him,
he ran as quickly as possible until he
reached the corner of Sixth avenue and
Twenty-third street, where to his amaze
ment, as a police officer grasped him. a
crowd from behind pounced upon him,
shouting: 1--WE have got him! Here he is!'
One of them remarking as he snatched the
watch from his hands, by heavens, he has
got it here"
THE NORMAL SEQUENCE.
The young man was bewildered, amazed,
dumfounded.
Hurriedly he was taken to the station
house, where he was charged with feloni-
Gus assault ut the corner of Fifth avenue
and Twenty third street and with highway
robbery.
How so?
Some one, and the crowd believed it to
NC III, huh idLDbtN an OlNl SGllllCllldL dDOul
the throat, dealt him a tremendous blow
behind the ears with blunt instrument,
roughly grabbed his watch and with VIC
1ence broke the chain ere he rushed away
OF course you see it was the man who had
run on past our friend. OF this he knew
nothing. All he could say was that man
had dropped his watch in the snow and he
picked it up. He was laughed at. He
was thrown into cell. In the morning he
was taken, in serious physical distress and
mental discontinue, before Il fat, sleepy
judge, and sent to the Tombs to await the
action of the grand jury
And his friend, the young lady?
Well, perhaps you can imagine her con-
dition. She waited patiently during the
third act, impatiently during the remain
der of the play, wondering at the absence
OF her escort. At last, the curtain down.
she walked slowly toward the door, where
she was encountered with the usual gang
of cab shouters and street loafers, more
serious even in their insulting attentions
than the tremendous storm which then
hurtled through the air. She hadn't q
dollar in her pocket; she was unfamiliar
with New York.
What should she do?
The night Waterman in a very few mo-
ments told her that she must step outside
as the theater must he closed. A cabman
asked her where she wanted to 60 She
said to Brooklyn. With lie he told her
that the ferryboats stopped running at L.
and recommended that she should drive to
the United States hotel.
A TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE
So she said she would like to, explained
the absence of her escort as well as she
could, and asked the man if he would trust
her until the following morning, when she
could send to her friends or go to her home
in Brooklyn. He laughingly replied that
that would make very little difference
jumped on the box and started, as she be-
lfeved, for the United States hotel. ON Full
ton street, near the ferry.
During the long, long drive, with the
storm beating outside and her heart tu-
multuously moving inside, the poor girl
was nearly distraught. Something, a wom-
anly intuition, told her all was not right,
and as she looked out, seeing nothing, she
was convinced that they were beyond the
line of residence. Her repeated blows upon
the window made no impression upon the
driver or his companion.
Desperate, frightened, she burst open the
door and sprang as well as she could into
the snow, tripped and fell in front of a gin
mill on the boulevard, as u door opened
and the light from the interior revealed
her, disheveled, in tears to IL group of half
drunken merrymakers who emerged at
that moment. She was taken into the
room, revived, given something to drink,
which she at first hesitated to take, and
after much urging accepted the hospitali
ty of billiard room until the following
morning, when the kind hearted wife of
the proprietor, who was his own bartender,
enabled her to retuI n, half crazed, en-
tirely demoralized woman, to her Brook
Ign home.
Then began the search for her escort.
And nothing under heaven but the clean
cut New York experience Of well known
newspaper friend spared that young man
the disgrace of an indictment, a trial and
a probable conviction for felonious assault
and highway robbery, he being as guilty
as it is possible to conceive man judged
by circumstantial evidence, yet as innocent
as babe unborn judged from the factual
point of yiew-,Joe Howard in New York