Year: 1875

duced and laid Upon chair place


within reaching distance of the table


. guess well find out now if oil
Jake Hinghaus was crazy or not whel
he made that will said one of th
students; to which another replied


Yes, indeed, we will. It's NJ
great interest to US; but if there i
going to be a fight over that tel
thousand dollars of his, there will b.
some satisfaction in knowing for our
selves whether his real wife was en-
titled to it, or whether it should go tt
the children of his mistress, as ht
willed it. Do you know what the
trouble was between him and hi;
wife?"


This remark being addressed to the
third member of the party, he an
swered:


''I know no more than any one
.Hinghaus was queer old Dutchman.
and would have his tod In fact,
that's what killed him as we all know
of course. Well, it's my opinion that
his will was made very recently, and
the money left to his old gals chill.
dren, because his wife was given to
quarreling with him about his drink
ing"


At this instant a tremor passed
through the corpse a second and a
third succeeded; a wild shrek fol-
lowed, and with cry of most soul
curdling agony, the supposed dead
man leaped from tie table. The stu
dents affrighted to death. could only
huddle in a corner and gaze at the
apparition.


Shrek after shrek followed, and
the sufferer tore the bleeding scalp
from before his eyes, and glared
about him with frothing mouth and
looks of demoniacial ferocity. When
his eyes at last rested upon the stu
dents. he uttered a shrek more ap-
paIling than it's predecessors, and
rushed upon them. He seized upon
the one who held his body in posi-
tion; with a grip of iron he clutehed
his throat, and with giants power
bore him to the door.


It was a question of life for the
students or death for their assailant.
The man who had the knife realized
the situation upon the instant, lean
ed forward and plunged the knife to
the hilt in the heart of the unfortu-
nate wretch. With horrible cry he
sank down upon the body OF the half
strangled student, and in an instant
a cold shiver that convulsed his
frame, told that indeed he was dead
man. Now that the deed was done,
the students looked at one another
as if one and all were stupefed.


Then, with the bloody knife above
his head, the man who had commit
ed the act called upon his compan-
ions to swear an oath of eternal Sc
crecy then and there. With their
left hands clasped together, and their
right hands on high. the three men
swore eternal fidelity to each other
in the great and damning secret that
must forever darken their career
This done, the the body was again
wrapped up in the sack. A large





then concentrated in the room aud
the torch applied. Ere the flames
had time to spread. the guilty men
were on their way homeward.


The fire did its work effectually in
destroying the evidence of the crime.
There were no living witnesses save
the three participants, One of these,
Alfred Burgess. was killed at the
battle of Pittsburg Landing, while
serving as a surgeon in the Union
army; Robert Crawford, the man
whose sturdy right arm had driven
home that weapon Of death, was kill
ed upon an Illinois railroad in July,
1869. and Orson IIolmes. the last ac-
tor in the drama, died but a few
weeks ago. in Parsons, Kansas. It
is from little weekly paper, pub
lished in that place. that his confess
sion, giving all the details in the ilor-
rible affair, as related above, was ob-
tanned.