The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-09-25

pardoned, or at least released from
prison, there being no really concur
sive evidence against him in that case.
At the time of his trial, though, Byrnes
| made out SO complete a case against
him that the jury found the man guilty
of murder in the second degree, and the
judge sentenced him to life imprison-
ment. When Frenchy had been behind
the bars several years, and after
Byrnes' enforced withdrawal from the
police chiefship, the case was over
hauled, the testimony of the police on
which he was convicted was seen to be
mere tissue of statements without
any corroborative evidence, and the
victim was set free.
Byrnes used never to deny that he
went far sometimes, in his efforts to
bring about conviction, but he justified
his course always by saying speciously
that every conviction, beside punish
ing the convict, helped along the
cause of law and order by reason
of its moral effect upon the
criminally inclined of the communi-
ty.
The man about to commit burglary,
Byrnes held, would often repent in adj
vance of the deed, providing arrests
for burglary were followed promptly
by conviction. 1t used to be said that
Byrnes was in favor Of convicting an
innocent man occasionally rather than
let convictions become few enough
to encourage lawbreakers in the
belief that they might sin with
IMMUNITY.
He never admitted the truth of this
as matter of course, but there were
unquestionably occasional slips under
his administration by which the inno-
cent were made to suffer, and he was
certainly greatly feared by the under
world.
1t was under Byrnes'l administra-
ton that the terrible Third degree, .
so called, reached its highest state of
perfection. Perhaps it was never ap-
piled more effectively nor with more
beneficial results than in a murder
case that came along just little
while before ByrneS got out of his
job. The victim had been killed in
his own room and his body, cut in
pieces and packed in trunk, had
been shipped away by the murderer.
Through some accident the grewsome
shipment fell into the hands of the
police.
The right man was suspected by
Byrnes, but there was no evidence.
The arrest was made, though, exactly
as If all the evidence in the world
were available. Then all the bloody
furnishings of the victims room
were taken to police headquarters.
and there arranged exactly as they
had been when the murder was COM
mitted. Then the suspected man was
thrust into the room and kept there
an hour or two in utter silence and
quite alone. Then the door was vio-
lently opened; the trunk holding the
cut up body of the murdered man
was brought in and unpacked of its
CORY contents.
By the time this operation was half
finished the murderer in a frenzy of
remorSe and terror cried out
Enough" and confessed to the
Byrnes took pains that the story
of the mans confession should be
printed, also that supposedly inside
details, too horrible for type, were
circulated among the denizens of the
under world.
1t was part OF his plan to terror
lie the entire criminal segment Of the
community by tactics of this sort,
and there are plenty of those now
criticising the present police admins
tration and its immediate predeces-
scrs, who declare that Byrnes'