Roanoke Rapids herald. [volume] (Roanoke Rapids, N.C.) 1914-192?, 1922-03-31
Sentiment and
the Law
Observation-Disclosures
By DOROTHY WHlTCOMB
Copyright, 1929, Western Newspaper Union

same thing" said Rogers the old
corporation lawyer. Somebody had
been lamentlng the average juryman's
liability to bring in a verdict upon
the evidence alone. Sentiment Is
law" Rogers repeated ut Is law
In its embryonic state, uncrystalllzed,
but often better law than written
codes.
do any of you remember the Bright
murder trial of the late seventies|
he continued, looking round at US.
"No2 Well, there have been many
murders since then, and doubtless 1t
was not of epoch-making Importance.
Yet | was led to undertake the defense
Of Howard Bright through sentiment.
ut was pretty Lorna Bright, the
cousin of the young man, and secretly
engaged to him, who persuaded me,
by her protestatlons Of Towards In
nocence, to undertake 50 desperate a
case. Old Charles Bright had driven
his son from his home, because he
preferred the life Of a musician.
Charles Bright was one Of those
cantankerous old men who are cordial
" hated by their neighbors. He had
a big estate at Lanark, Nd, to which
he retired after having disposed Of
the business which he hoped Howard
would inherit, at a price OF two or
three hundred thousands. Among
those who hated him most strongly
was Pete Jones, small farmer whose
lands he had taken when a mortgage
fell due.
"Now we come to the murder. On
Thanksgiving eve, 1878, the servants
Of the old man were aroused by cry
and the sound of shot. They ran
out of the house and saw their mas
ter lying dead with bullet wound
through his head Some fifty yards
away stood Howard, a rifle in his
hands. He made no resistance and
was arrested and duly committed for
trial.
AS | said, gentlemen, 1t was Lorna
Bright who Insisted that l undertake
her cousins defense. She had been
in the house at the time Of the MUIR
der and had known no more than the
servants; yet she was confident that
her cousin was guiltless.
'tHIoward's story was that he had
come home on Thanksgiving eve, to
seek reconciliation that he had
brought an old rifle he had taken
away, with view of joining his father
duck shooting on the Potomac, a sport
to which the old man was very partial,
and in which he always used rifle.
When he was within fifty yards of the
house, however, he heard rifle dis
charged in the distance and saw his
father, who had been standing near
the door, fall forward dead.
~ was convinced Of the young
mans innocence by my first interview
with him. / assumed that Jones was
the guilty man. Jones was at this
time living In a cabin about fifteen
hundred yards from the site Of old
Bright's house There seemed no way
In which Jones could be trapped.
"All at once | had an idea. The
body had not yet been buried, though
the inquest was over. 1t occurred to
me that bullet fired at such a short
range would have had velocity enough
to have drilled a clean instead of n
jagged hole In the head examined
the wound and found, not only that
the wound was hopelessly torn, so far
as measuring its size went, but that,
instead Of being parallel with the
earth, or horizontal, 1t had q down.
ward angle Of some 35 degrees.
"Thnt discovery sent me wild with
eogerness. II was easy to deduce
from this that the bullet had been
fired from n considerable distance. AS
you doubtless know, gentlemen, at all
but point blank ranges the sight on
the rifle is elevated, 50 that the ball,
In its trajectory, takes first an upward
and then a downward course In
other words, had here triangle, one
angle Of which measured 35 degrees,
and the base line, as | surmised, about
1900 yards-that Is to say, the dis
lance between the murdered man and
Jones cabin. The two other sides, Of
course, represented the ascending and
the descending lines Of the bullets
flight.
"The rifle, / deduced from this,
must have been sighted to 1,1J0 yards.
"The district attorney consented to
take a walk Of inspection with me. !
explained to him that I wanted to look
over the ground; on the way I told
him of my theory. He ridiculed the
idea, but together we made our way
into the swampy bottom of the dried
up rlvulet. Suddenly We came upon
foot tracks converging toward a single
spot from either bank. stopped and
scraped up a few handfuls of earth.
After moment l came upon the
rifle barrel.
"When we had dlsinterred Ii we
found that 1t was sighted to 1850
yards.
"That Is all, gentlemen. Jones, sur
prised, made complete and dramatic
confession, and afterward paid the
penalty Of his crime. But, as was
saying, sentiment has Its proper place
In law, and If sentiment hadn't led me
to undertake young Bright's de-
Tense he would have died a shameful
death and Lorna Bright would not
have been happy wife for nearly
lnx,k..