Year: 1872

Charles Marlow, found guilty of having willfully murdered William Bachman, is sentenced to be hung. Some time last August stranger named William Bach- man came to the brewery of Marlow and asked permission to stay there over night. The favor was granted, and the stranger, protesting to have with him 8 considerable sum of money, and to be eeking for n business, made his head quarters with Marlow for several days. Suddenly he was missing, and the next news of him came from a Pole, named Benkowski, who appeared before a magistrate in Dunkirk and told story of his murder. He explained that he had been working as the hired man of Mar low, and had been witness of actions on the part of the brewer which left no doubt in his mind that he (Marlow) had murdered Bachman in the beer cellar and had burned the corpse in the furnace of the place. The premises were imme- diately examined and the remains of Bachman's body and clothing were duly found. Marlow was arrested and in time brought up for trial, complete train of circumstances pointing appa- rently with infallible sureness to his guilt

 His defense, suddenly developed, was certainly of 8 startling and unexpected character. It consisted in the bold and unqualified assumption of the guilt of the murder by the brewers old mother in-law, Mrs. Ortman. With her daugh- ter, she told story which, for ingenuity, under the circumstances has surely been seldom equalled. Her testimony was to the effect that. entering the house on the afternoon of the murder. she saw Bach man in the act of an outrageous assault upon her daughter. She seized hammer and struck him, as Jael smote Sisera, a blow upon the temple. Her daughter tainted, and Bachman rolled over dead. As soon as Mrs. Marlow came to her senses, the women testify, they carried the corpse to the cellar, thrust it into the furnace and piled the fireplace full of fagots. Then they washed the cellar floor and stairs, and resolved to keep their terrible secret in silence. Marlow in the meantime attempted to prove that he had gone to the village before the hour at which the murder had been com mitted.

 The first trial resulted in disagree ment of the jury, and learned lawyers were puzzled whether to credit or reject the persistent story in which this old woman swore human blood upon her own hands. At the second trial the same story was told again and as consistently, if not as consistently, as ever. But d continued fusilade of cross-examination speedily made breaches in the singular defence. Marlow failed to establish his alibi, and the fabrication of the women at various points fell to the ground. Once and again the old mother-in-law, realizing that her most energetic attes. tations of guilt were likely to be in vain, broke down and uttered her agony in heart broken ejaculations. The jury rendered an unanimous verdict, finding the woman innocent who pleaded guilty, and him guilty who sought 10 establish his innocence at woman's cost.

 What shall be said of the extraordi nary resolution, if not heroism of thii old woman Her case illustrates either the remarkable subservience to which weak mind may be reduced by strong and brutal one, or it reveals spirit o self-immolation such as has but fev parallels. It, is, perhaps, safe to sa. that such spirit could only have beer bred in the simple mind of a European peasant woman, reared in society wher the relations of the sexes are still undis turbed by the modern woman move menH