The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1916-10-25
LEGAL R0MANCES.
Court Cases Where the Unexpect'
ed Came as a Climax.
FACTS THAT RIVAL FICTION
Some Trials In Which the Heavy Hand
of the Law Was Curiously Turned
Aside From Inflicting Punishment
Upon an Innocent Person.

Upon an Innocent Person.
AS a rule, law proceedings are dry
affairs, but there have been some
wherein the facts rivaled the most ro-
mantle fiction.
About the middle Of the eighteenth
century q vessel arrived one day at an
English port from India. The captain
reported that, while sailing through
the Indian ocean. one Of his passen-
gers, a man Of wealth and rank, had
been murdered and then Accused one
of his passengers, young brother of
the murdered man, Of the crime.
Though protesting his innocence, the
accused. was brought to trial. When
put upon the stand the captain swore
that about midnight on the evening of
the murder, which was Christmas eve.
he had seen the accused leave his own
cabin, creep stealthfly along the deck
to the cabin of his brother and there
enter. Shortly after, the captain test-
fed, he heard the sounds Of struggle
and then saw the accused emerge and
return to his cabin. On going to the
cabin of the elder brother he found
him dead from strangulation. Under
cross examination the captain said that
he, himself, was concealed from the
view of the accused man by the deep
shadow cast by the sail in the light Of
full moon, while the accused had
been compelled to creep In the light
for quite distance, which rendered
him perfectly recognizable. The Sec
ond mate, who testified that he was
with the captain, swore to the same
facts.
There was no other evidence except
the denial of the accused, who, 1t was
shown, would profit largely by his
brothers death. Just as the case was
about to be given to the jury man
In the courtroom asked permission to
put a single question to the captain:
Now. said the stranger when the
captain had returned to the stand, III
you recognized the prisoner In the light
Of q full moon on last Christmas eve,
how do you, who know something Of
astronomy, account for the fact that
on last Christmas eve there occurred
total eclipse Of the sum-
Trapped thus in his own circumstan-
tial lies, the captain broke down and
confessed that he and the mate had
been hired to commit the murder By
q third relative, who, upon the death
Of the younger brother, would have
fallen heir to both their estates.
In q: celebrated court martial case
which came up for trial in 1871 q
young lieutenant was accused Of hav-
Ing forged another mans name, to
promissory note and obtained money
on It. The accusing witness produced
the note in question, which. was writ
ten upon a sheet Of blue ruled foolscap
paper and bore date Of the year 1887.
Everything had gone against the de-
fendant and the case was about to 60
to the jury, when the sweetheart of the
lieutenant, who was sitting beside him
at the trial, happened to pick up the
note and hold 1t In such way that
strong light from the window shone
through the paper. There, to her Joy,
she read the watermark, ''Swampscott
Mills, 1862" In other words, the note
purported to have been written on the
paper two years before the paper had
been manufactured.
The year 1869 figures In another
strange lawsuit. In the year 1880 Ger
tain persons in New Mexico claimed
huge tract Of hundreds Of thousands Of
acres as the heirs Of one Bartolomo
Baca, to whom, they alleged, the Span
ish government had, In 1917, made q
grant They exhibited the deed Of
grant and sued to obtain possession.
On the trial the deed Of grant stood
every test Of genuineness, and de-
cree was entered awarding the Inn
mense property to the claimants.
Some months afterward as John
Waldron, the attorney for the Santa
Fe railroad, who had been the princi-
pal losers, was reading a paper his eye
rested on this little paragraph, "Ani-
line ink was invented In 1869 In Ger.
many" As he read the thought flashed
through bis mind, "What kind Of ink
was the Baca land grant written in?"
BY permission of the court he had q
chemist make a quiet test Of the ink
Of the grant, and when he read the
chemists report he cabled to certain
German chemist In Europe. Six
months after, when the case was, by
permission Of the court reopened on
account Of newly discovered evidence,
q white bearded stranger took the
stand and In ten minutes sent the case
of the Baca heirs out of court and the
heirs themselves into the penitendary
by swearing that he was the inventor
Of aniline ink, that the invention was
made in 1859, and that the ink in
which the Bartolomo Baca grant, dated
1917, was written. was aniline.-Case
and Comment.