The advocate., 1895-06-05
CHATTER III.
CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
Beyond the infinite and bOundless reach
OF mercy, If thou did'st this deed Of death,
A - 4. 4 -

-SHAKRsPEARE.
The twilight was deepening into the night upon
whose stars Sydney Stone was to gaze in hopeless
ness from the grated window of felons cell.
The candles had been lighted III Isaac StilWell's
home and he sat down to enjoy an evenings con
yersstiOn with his younger brother that day arrived
from long residence abroad. There were no fast
steamers in those old days. There were no steam
ers at all, and he would have been bold man,
utterly reckless of his reputation for sanity, who
would have suggested the possibility of driving Ves
sells across the Atlantic by steam. Steam was we'll
enough in its place-as kind of atmosphere
lowering over punch.bowls or making music in it's
exit from kettles spout, but steam as a power to
haul great loads of merchandise or of people; to
prOpe mills to send ships careering with no need
to lie to and wait for breeze-Very pretty to talk
about, of course but as something practicable i'm
possible Ships in those good old days sailed across
the Atlantic, and they were not FLOATING palaces"
either You did we'll to leave America the first of
July and reach England the first of August. And
there yet no telegraph; and the mere serious
suggestion of such a thing as an Atlantic cable
would have Ostracized man as q lunatic. Imagine
how George Washington would have slipped out
and told his household slaves to stay close to his
room, had you suggested to him a scheme for en-
ablng the people of China to read next day of the
visit Madison was then paying him The mails were
not what they should have been. If you wished to
send letter or a newspaper to friend in England
or in France, you watched till vessel was about to
SAIL then hunted up somebody who was going to
New York, or wherever the vessel was to sail FROM
and induced him to find somebody who was going
the vessel and persuade that somebody to deliver
your letter your paper when he got across-if he
ever did. If a man was sick in Boston you could
not 'cable'' his wife in Paris and have her home in
time to publish card of thanks for the prompt pay
ment of the life insurance by the High. Flyer Sure
Pay company, in which she hoped all her friends
would at once insure. BY the time you could haze
got word to her and she could have got around the
deceased would have been in no condition to receive
company and it would have been too late to even
prove he was dead for the purpose of claiming the
insurance.
To these serious drawbacks in receiving informa-
ton from home, Reuben StilWell had added others
on his own account. He had stayed nowhere any
great length of time He was an eccentric man. and |
was always moving from one place to another in |
Europe. lie remained months at time in Paris It |
is true but he moved once month, oftener, from
one side of town to another; from the city to the
suburbs from the suburbs back to the city; and had
no desire that his friends should keep track of him.
Indeed, his object in moving 80 often was to avoid
being "bored" by friends coming to see him. for he
liked to be alone, studying geological specimens, of