The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-01-22
London Tit-Bits.)

specially manifested itself to bring
home guilt to the criminal" declared
Lord Coleridge once, In addressing
jury. The circumstances In the case
were truly remarkable. The prisoner,
who was condemned and executed,
confessed to the prison chaplain that
so carefully had he planned the muir
der and 50 strangely had his scheme
been discovered that ne regarded him
self as peculiarly marked down for
punishment by heaven.
In. the recent trunk murder case Dew
ereux owned the discovery of the
crime TO the strange presentiment his
mother-in-law had concerning her
daughters disappearance. She was
sure that something i'll had happened
to her. When she heard Of the large
trunk that DeVereux had deposited In
the furniture warehouse she felt
certain that in that trunk lay the solu-
ton of the mystery. 1t is not a light
thing to open trunk confded to ones
charge by a customer, and the mother,
tortured with awful doubts, had much
trouble before she could induce the
warehousemen to accede to her wishes.
Only for her pePsistency, in obedience
to the strange feeling she had, Deve-
reux might have remained unpuniEhed
A most extraordinary case was heard
some years ago at the Oxford assizes,
in which a foul crime was brought to
light through a presenttment. In
this case, however, the person who was
to act the part of a minister of ven
geance was one quite unknown to the
guilty person.
Two laborers were working IN a field
one day when one, an entire stranger
to the district, inquired of the other,
a native in those parts, the nearest
way to his lodgings in a village about
three miles away. The native informed
him of short cut. 1t was by means
of a footpath, which at q certain place
turned off round a little wood.
You might cut through the wood"
said the guide, but it would not be
safe. There's an old dry well In 1t,
and you might pitch down before you
knew where you were. Stick to the
fOotpath and you'll be all right"
The inquirer thanked him and said
he would follow his advice. During
the rest of the days work. however,
that old we'll in the wood haunted him.
When the work was finished he
begged his companion to show him the
we'll Why he wanted to see it he
could not say, but find that well he
must. He was so persistent that his
cOmrade at last agreed to go with him
to the place. AS they looked down into
the dark pit. the mouth of which was
nearly closed with bracken and bram-
bic, they heard a faint cry come from
it's depths. The cry was that Of a little
baby boy. His discovery led TO the
arrest of his mother, who confessed
that she had put the child down the
well. She was sentenced to penal SER
vitude for life. An extraordinary fea-
ture of the case was that the wretched
woman, relating her crime, said that
when she came to the we'll she could
not summon the heart to throw the
child down, so she lowered him to the
bottom by means Of a string.
! The eminent doctor, Sir Ashley Coop
| er, told Sergeant BaIlantine Of a weird
experience which once befeH him when
/ he was a young man and as yet undis-
| tinguished In his profession. He had
| been called in by the police to see a
man whom they had arrested on a
! charge of murder. Cooper, relative,
| a Warder and the prisoner were in the
| cell together, and the door was closed.
! Having made his examination. Cooper
was preparing to leave when, to his
amazement, he saw a dog walk up to
| the prisoner and sniff at place on his
! coat.
The animal disappeared, and Cooper,
| requesting the man to take Off the
| garment. examined the spot to which
| the dog had drawn his attention. There
was a strange stain there, and subse-
| Quent examination proved that 1t was
| human blood That stain did much to
send the owner of the coat to the gal
lows. But what had become Of the dog
! Cooper had so mysteriously seen? The
] warder laughed at the idea of such a
| thing being IN the cell. The door had
been shut all the time, and the closest
search failed to discover the slightest
| trace Of the animal. Cooper always be-
lieved that the dog was a specter sent
to drag the criminal to his doom.
How, again, can any one explain the
! extraordinary presentiment Of nagis-
trate which came to light in case
heard at the Taunton Assizes2 A man
| was charged with the murder OF his
child, a little girl Of s years Of age The
murderer was an agricultural laborer
and a widower, with this one child
whom he placed with q relation to take
care OF. Some years after his wife's
! death, again contemplating matFimony
he commenced to pay his addresses to a
young woman in the neighborhood. II
| occurred to him, however. that the girl
| might refuse to marry him so long as
| the child was alive, and he determined
| to murder IT.
Calling on the relation who had the
| little girl in charge. he took her away
with him, and she was never again seer
| alive The father was suspected, but
! the most energetic search failed to dis
cover any trace Of the missing one. But
the news Of the strange occurrence
! spread through the district, and It came
\ to the ears of a gentleman who was 6
Somersetshire magistrate. It occurred
| to him that the girl had been muir
! dered. and that her body had beer
! thrown into a coal pit in the neighbor-
hood. The pit was full of water. Il
4 would be hard to discover whether his
surmise was correct. The pit would
indeed, have to be pumped dry first.
Night and day. however, the magis
trate was haunted by that vision OF the
child in the pit. He tried to drive Il
from him, but 1t refused TO leave him
In the end, all other efforts to explore
the pit having been futile, he actually
ordered it to be pumped dry, an opera
ton which cost him over 4200. It re-