The Rice belt journal. (Welsh, Calcasieu Parish, La.) 1900-19??, 1909-08-06


BNAEI ence whose reverence for
ss&aaa&E.aAm the English bench Caused
him unWittingly to assume the person
al appearance of a wearer Of the wig
and eTmine Of BIacfstonian days
Judge bennett introduced him as
Judge Tanner and assured the club
that his guest was primed with many
a "reminiscences Of his long career and
would gladly furnish the story of the
evening. After the pipes of good fel-
lowship had been burned for a space
Judge Tanner arose and began his
story Of cirCumstantial evidence.
Il often wonder" he said. IF there
Is a trial Judge of any considerable
experience who has not carried some
one case as a load on his mind and
conscience for years after the verdict
OF the jury is in and the condemned
led away to execution 1t is a wise
provision Of the law that makes the
jury the Judge both Of the law and
the evidence, and the judge but the
medium through which the law
reaches the twelve; and cannot con.
celye the condition OF mind of those
early English judges, before whom,
when they had arrived at a conviction
OF guilt, even the jury was power
less. It was from their arbitrary and
unreasonable rulings, now happily not
held within the power of the Judge
that most Of our records of miscarried
justice have resulted.
Within my own experience there
has come one case which believe is
as strange as any Of record and which
for years, as | looked back upon it,
caused me to doubt the ability of man
ever infallibly to pass judgment upon
a fellow creature. The parties now
are all dead and l tell it for the first
time. But to the story.
I'm little city on the circuit in
which | have held court for more
years than | care to think of there
was at one time a hotel kept by a
very respectable man named iona
than Miller. 1t was the favorite stop
ping place for commercial travellers
and thus the most prominent and best
paying hotel in the city.
"One evening jewelry salesman by
the name of Robert Conway arrived
at the hotel just before supper. He
instructed Miller to send his grips up
to his room and remarked in the hear
ing of several at the desk that he did
not care to have them left in the gen
eral baggage room as he was carrying
a far more expensive line of samples
than usual. He also asked that the
door be carefully locked and the key
brought to him.
Supper over, he fell in with a
salesman for a shoe house and one
for a clothing firm and they repaired
to the bar where they played cards
and drank until II o'clock, when thew
all retired. 1t happened that the hotel
was we'll filled and the clothing man
and the shoe man had been forcsd to
take double room together. This
room was directly across the hall
from the one occupied by the jewelry
salesman.
About two o'clock in the morning
the two roommates were awakened bv
groans which seemed to come from
the room of their companion of the
evening across the hall.
They arose and without stopping tc
dress hurried out to see what the iron
BILE was, You can imagine their hor
ror to find Conway, the jewery man
dead, the bed blood-soaked and stand
ing over him. a dark lantern in one
hand and bloody knife in the other
Jonathan Miller, the landlord, who
trembled violently and gasped inco
herently when they burst into the
chamber of death.
THE case seemed black enough
against him. There was not a sus
p{cion in the mind of anyone in th,
city that he could be otherwise tina,
guilty Yet when taken before a ms
tice for preliminary hearing he mos
stoutly maintained his innocence AM
told a story which had it not pale,
into improbability by the side O
damning circumstances against hin
would have been plausible in the ex
treme
He said he had just reached hi
room after, as was his custom, sit
ting up until train due at half pas
one, came in. He had not had tim,
to remove his clothing when he, too
heard gFoans coming from the neigh
borhood of Conway's room. Like thu
two statesmen, he had hurried to in
vestigate, and as weapon of de
tense he had taken the knife. HI
also picked up the dark lantern which
he always used In making his las
rounds of the hotel and which wa:
still lighted.
When he reached the jeweler':
door he was surprised to find it stand
Ing open. The groans had ceased