Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1910-05-11
B. CT PIONEER

b. c. L. PIONEER
coryright. 1slo. By Americas pssss
Association II
The city's moral health being sxcsI-
Isn't. the sergeant At the desk had moth
ing to do. Unemployed psopls are In
clinsd TO b garrulous, and the go.
gsant talked q stream.
The slickest pair, be said, ever
eams across were Darby and Williams.
They used to play confidence games to-
gsthsf. and they did them % naturally
that thAy could take In . police In
opsctoe - easily ~ Z countryman.
Darby used to do the work. willis VIII
nams would play confederate. We Of
ths police were on 30 thsm, but when
~ got them the dimcuity was to prove
anything against them.
Their villainies became % frequent
that We determined 70 lay . trap for
them. We started Z farmer down
among their moorinss. and, a. We ex-
pected. he fell afoul OF them. They
took . marked ten dollar bin from him
at least, Darby debut managed 70
ct nd Of It before We could catch him.
Nevertheless We had q strong case
Il We could prove his record.
On the day Of the trial. Just q We
were filling mp the last two or three
men on the jury, q gentleman Of svi-
dant respectability appeared and said
be had been summoned to serve. He
would like, II he must serve, 10 do %
at once since be was expected to At
tand the funeral Of q near relative
within Q few hours. The Judge, glad
10 got such . man on jury duty, closed
matters up. Mr.. Worthington-that was
the gentleman's name-being the last
man chosen.
We knew that Darby had served q
term at the penitentiary and that one
Of the physical characteristics noted
on its records was that his girls name,
agnes" had been tattooed on his
right forearm. We brought our farm
er to tell his story as to how he had
been bunkoed. but Darby. who had
way Of changing his expression, con-
fused the witness, and he wouldn't
swear that he was the rascal. But
II we could prove that the man who
had swindled him was Darby we were
sure Of conviction.
The prisoner was instructed to take
OF his coat and roll up his sleeve on
his right arm. He did SO. and we
were disappointed at hot seeing tat
too. Fancying we had been misin7
formed and that the letters might be
on the left arm, he was ordered to roll
up his left sleeve. There were no let
tiers on that arm either. Thus far he
had foiled us. In some way he had
got rid Of the tattoo. The next step
was to prove. II possible. that the man
had been tattooed. A medico-legal ex-
pert was called in. who applied strong
friction to the prisoners arm. This
had the effect to bring out white lines
with slight blush tint. These lines
were letters and spelled the word
agnes"
Having brought circumstantial evil
dence, though 1t was weak, to prove
that the prisoner was the man who
had swindled the farmer. this proof
that he was an ex-convict made
case so strong against Darby that we
did not doubt that we would get rid
Of his pranks for at least the period
Of another term In state prison. Our
only regret was that We couldn't send
his partner. Williams, with him. But
Williams had given us the slip. and.
though we sought for him everywhere.
we couldn't find him. You see, we
had evidence connecting him with
Darby that we had never had before,
and. having the deadwood on one Of
them. we would have no difficulty Of
convicting the other.
The judge virtually gave the jury in
structions to convict Darby, and some
Of us expected they would do 1t with
out leaving their seats. The foreman
held a brief consultation with the. 9TH
er eleven before retiring. but there
seemed to be opposition somewhere
among them-we couldn't tell where
to bringing In verdict that way, and
they got up and filed out Of the court
room
l waited around for half an hour to
make sure that we'd got Mr.. Darby
where we wanted him, but the jury
didn't come back. Then l waited an
other half hour. feeling certain that 1t
wouldn't require more than an hour
to settle the case Of man who had
been proved to be such an arrant ras-
cal, but sixty minutes didn't serve the
purpose. I fell to thinking Of Mr.
Worthington. the gentleman who ex-
pected to get through in time to attend
the funeral of his relative. The delay
must be very aggravating to him. In
deed. it was now past the time for the
funeral-that is, judging from what he
had said about 1t.
Well. l waited till dark. Then, being