The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-05-27

HI S1SLEE AelAAA2--7 %-AH@~ s--N dust was arsenic, and the murderess was condemned to death and was exc cuted.
 l Who was the murderer of Mary Web ] bsr? was a question which some years I ago sOrely perplexed the Lancashire police authorities. Webber was ser want, and left her mistress house one evening to keep an appointment with respect to which she had, CT mistress subsequently, remembered, appeared particularly anxious. Mary Webber never returned home. Her dead body was discovered the next day in a lone l ly spot near wood. There was no doubt she had been murdered-stran- gled by some person with large, power fuI hands, the fingermarks of which were to be seen upon her throat.
 No one could say who it was she had gone to meet, but it was generally sus- pected that she must have had an ap- pointment with some lover at that spot where she met with her death. Upon examining her box the detectives found three notes in strange handwriting, seemingly disguised, and only signed "G. L." These letters were evidently from an admirer. They were peculiar ly disappointing, however, for each contained only a few words making ap- pointments for meetings at various places one appointment being for the fatal night at the spot where Wehher's body was found. The writer Of that letter was in all probability the mur- derer. Suspicion now centered around a young fellow in whose company. Web- Der had been seen. .>,..
 The day before the murder the sus- pected man had, it was developed, wis ited shop to purchase sheet of note paper. He had then asked for a pen and an envelope, and requested permis- sion to sit at the counter and write a
 brief letter. When he had gone the
 shopman found a half sheet of paper left on the counter in the plotting pad at which the prisoner had been writing. This half sheet the man put back into the box with the other paper. The last note found in the dead girls box, mak-
 ing the fatal appointment, was written on half sheet of paper. This and the piece left by the accused man in the
 shop were put together. Microscopic
 examination revealed the fact that the
 two halves made one sheet. The man
 was executed. *.
 A piece of paper played an extraordi-
 nary part in the trial of a Wiltshire
 farmer at the Salisbury Assizes, The
 prisoner was charged with having sent !an anonymous letter to o neighbor. 1 Witnesses acquainted with the prison
 CTS writing were called to prove that
 the letter was in his hand. Others,
 equally as well able to judge, declared
 that the writing was not his. But the
 prosecution had what appeared to be
 most conclusive evidence of the prison
 CTS guilt.
 Three of these anonymous letters had been written on three pieces of paper,
 which had been roughly torn out of a single sheet. In a writing desk in the
 prisoners house the detectives found a
 scrap of paper, which, when fitted with
 the three pieces on which the letters
 were written, exactly formed one sheet. The ragged edges of the different DOT
 tions exactly fitted each other, and the
 watermark and name of the maker,
 which was divided into three parts,
 were perfect when the pieces of paper l were placed together. The evidence
 appeared overwhelming, and the pris-
 oner, protesting his innocence, was sem
 tencsd to penal servitude. The prison- CT was removed, when suddenly a per , son stood up in court and denounced
 himself as the real criminal. He was
 the son of the prisoner-a youth of eighteen. He wrote upon a piece of paper from
 memory of the three threatening let ters. His handwriting was exactly that in the criminal epistles; mistakes . in spelling which appeared in them
 were reproduced in the sons writings
 He had, he explained, had access to the writing desk in his fathers room and had abstracted the paper from it There could be no doubt of his guilt and the father was pardoned while the . son went to prison for seven years. : A piece of stamp sticking paper wa: te means of assisting justice to secur<
 a notorious burglar named Berrett . who made a speciality of jewel saft
 breaking. He one night entered 2 wealthy gentleman's country mansion ] in Surrey, and working with his usua. skill, he succeeded in effecting an en | try into the safe and abstracting jewels : worth several hundred pounds In his - Operations on the safe, however, one ol - his tools inflicted a slight injury to ont l of his fingers, and Berrett tearing off 2 [ piece of stamp paper from some he car } ried in his pocket applied it to tn, } wound. The remainder of the pape } accidentally dropped on the floor where it was discovered by a detective 2 The next day Berrett was arrested The piece of stamp paper he had put or - his finger was still there and proved useful in obtaining i'm seven years pen } al servitude. ts
 $ A piece of newspaper which had beer l used as book marker was one of tn f strong links in 8 chain of circumstan . tial evidence which brought Po1ltin, 5 train assassin, to his deserts. Pontil 7 murdered a gentleman traveller in 5 French express and having hid his vic 5 tim as well as he could under seat - alighted at a station and coolly walked
 away reading 8 newspaper.
 5 M. CanIer, the head of the Frencl f detective system, was quickly on tn