CHAPTER II.

CASES OF DISPUTED OR MISTAKEN IDENTITY.

Lesurques and the Robbery of the Lyons Mail--The Champignelles Mystery--Judge Garrow's Story--An Imposition Practised at York Assizes--A Husband Claimed by Two Wives--A Milwaukee Mystery--A Scottish Case--The Kingswood Rectory Murder--The Cannon Street Case--A Narrow Escape.

LESURQUES.

The most famous, and perhaps the most hackneyed, of all cases of mistaken identity is that of Lesurques, charged with the robbery and murder of the courier of the Lyons mail, which has been so vividly brought home to us through the dramatic play based upon it and the marvellous impersonation of the dual _rôle_, Lesurques-Duboscq, by Sir Henry Irving.

Lesurques was positively identified as a man who had travelled by the mail coach, and he was in due course convicted. Yet at the eleventh hour a woman came into court and declared his innocence, swearing that the witnesses had mistaken him for another, Duboscq, whom he greatly resembled. She was the _confidante_ of one of the gang who had planned and carried out the robbery. But her testimony, although corroborated by other confederates, was rejected, and Lesurques received sentence of death. Yet there were grave doubts, and the matter was brought before the Revolutionary Legislature by the Directory, who called for a reprieve. But the Five Hundred refused, on the extraordinary ground that to annul a sentence which had been legally pronounced "would subvert all ideas of justice and equality before the law."

Lesurques died protesting his innocence to the last. "Truth has not been heard," he wrote a friend; "I shall die the victim of a mistake." He also published a letter in the papers addressed to Duboscq: "Man in whose place I am to die," he wrote, "be satisfied with the sacrifice of my life. If you are ever brought to justice, think of my three children, covered with shame, and of their mother's despair, and do not prolong the misfortunes of so fatal a resemblance." On the scaffold he said, "I pardon my judges and the witnesses whose mistake has murdered me. I die protesting my innocence."

Four years elapsed before Duboscq was captured. In the interval others of the gang had passed through the hands of the police, but the prime mover was only now taken. Even then he twice escaped from prison. When finally he was put on his trial, and the judge ordered a fair wig, such as Lesurques had worn, to be placed on his head, the strange likeness was immediately apparent. He denied his guilt, but was convicted and guillotined. Thus two men suffered for one offence.

French justice was very tardy in atoning for this grave error. The rehabilitation of Lesurques' family was not decreed till after repeated applications under several _régimes_--the Directory, the Consulate, the Empire, and the Restoration. In the reign of Louis XVIII. the sequestrated property was restored, but there was no revision of the sentence, although the case was again and again revived.

THE CHAMPIGNELLES MYSTERY.

One day in October, 1791, a lady dressed in mourning appeared at the gates of the Château of Champignelles, and was refused admission. "I am the Marquise de Douhault, _née_ de Champignelles, the daughter of your old master. Surely you know me?" she said, lifting her veil. "The Marquise de Douhault has been dead these three years," replied the _concierge_; "you cannot enter here. I have strict orders from the Sieur de Champignelles."

This same lady was seen next day at the village church, praying at the tomb of the late M. de Champignelles, and many remarked her extraordinary resemblance to the deceased Marquise. But the marquise was dead; her funeral service had been performed in this very church. Some of the bystanders asked the lady's maid-servant who she was, and were told that they ought to know. Others went up to the lady herself, who said, "I am truly the Marquise de Douhault, but my brother will not acknowledge me or admit me to the château."

Then followed formal recognition. People were summoned by sound of drum to speak to her identity, and did so "to the number of ninety-six, many of them officials, soldiers, and members of the municipality." The lady gave many satisfactory proofs, too, speaking of things that "only a daughter of the house could know." Thus encouraged, she proceeded to serve the legal notice on her brother and claim her rights--her share of the property of Champignelles as co-heir, and a sum in cash for back rents during her absence when supposed to be dead.

Where had she been all this time? Who had died, if not she? Her story, although clear, precise, and supported by evidence, was most extraordinary. To understand it we must go back and trace her history and that of the Champignelles family as given in the memoir prepared by the claimant for the courts.

Adelaide Marie had been married at twenty-three to the Marquis de Douhault, who coveted her dowry, and did not prove a good husband. He was subject to epileptic fits, eventually went out of his mind, and, after wounding his wife with a sword, was shut up in Charenton. The wife led an exemplary life till his death, which was soon followed by that of her father. Her brother now became the head of the family, and is said to have been a frank blackguard, the real cause of his father's death. He proceeded to swindle his mother, who was entitled by settlement to a life interest in the Champignelles estates, subject to pensions to her children, and he persuaded her to reverse that arrangement--she to surrender her property, he to pay her an annual allowance. He had gained his sister's concurrence by obtaining her signature to a blank document, which he filled up as he wished.

The son, of course, did not pay the allowances, and very often the mother was in sad straits, reduced at times to pawn her jewels for food. She appealed now to her daughter, who naturally sided with her, and wrote in indignant terms to her brother. There was an angry quarrel, with the threat of a lawsuit if he did not mend his ways. For the purpose of conferring with her mother, whom she meant to join in the suit, the Marquise de Douhault proposed to start for Paris.

Having a strange presentiment that this journey would be unlucky, she postponed it as long as possible, but went at length on the day after Christmas Day, 1787. Arrived at Orleans, she accepted the hospitality of a M. de la Roncière and rested there some days. On the 15th of January, 1788, she was to continue her journey, but in the morning she took a carriage drive with her friends. All she remembered afterwards was that Madame de la Roncière offered her a pinch of snuff, which she took, and that she was seized with violent pains in the head, followed by great drowsiness and stupor; the rest was a blank.

When she came to herself, she was a prisoner in the Salpêtrière. Her brain was now clear, her mind active. She protested strongly, and, saying who she was, demanded to be set at large. They laughed at her, telling her her name was Buirette, and that she was talking nonsense.

Her detention lasted for seventeen months, and she was denied all communication with outside. At last she managed to inform a friend, the Duchess of Polignac, of her imprisonment, and on the 13th of July, 1789, she was released, to find herself alone in Paris in the midst of the horrors of the Revolution.

She was friendless. Her brother, to whom she at once applied, repudiated her as an impostor; an uncle was equally cruel; she asked for her mother, and was told she had none. Then she ran to Versailles, where many friends resided, found refuge with the Duchess of Polignac, and was speedily recognised by numbers of people, princes, dukes, and the rest, all members of that French aristocracy which was so soon to be dispersed in exile or to suffer by the guillotine. They urged her not to create a scandal by suing her brother, but to trust to the king for redress. Soon the king himself was a prisoner, and presently died on the scaffold.

Her case was taken up, however, by certain lawyers, who advanced her funds at usurious rates, and planned an attack on her brother, under which, however, they contemplated certain frauds of their own. When she hesitated to entrust them with full powers one of these lawyers denounced her to the Committee of Public Safety, and she narrowly escaped execution. Bailly, the mayor of Paris, was a friend of hers, but could not save her from imprisonment in La Force, where she remained a month, then escaping into the country. Here she learnt that her mother was not dead, and returned to Paris to see her at her last gasp. After that she wandered to and fro in hiding and in poverty till, in 1791, she reappeared at Champignelles.

Such was the case the claimant presented to the courts.

A story is good till the other side is heard, and her brother, M. de Champignelles, clever, unscrupulous, and a friend of the Republican Government, had a very strong defence. His first answer was to accuse his sister, or the person claiming to be his sister, of having tried to seize his château by force of arms, declaring that she had come backed by three hundred men to claim her so-called rights, and that he had appealed to the municipality for protection.

This plea failed, and his second was to accuse the claimant of being someone else. He asserted that she was a certain Anne Buirette, who had been an inmate of the Salpêtrière from the 3rd of January, 1786. This date was a crucial point in the case. The claimant had adopted it as the date of her entry into the Salpêtrière, yet it was clearly shown that at that time the Marquise de Douhault was alive, and that she resided on her property of Chazelet through 1786 and 1787. On other points the claimant showed remarkable knowledge, remembered names, faces of people, circumstances in the past; and all this tended to prove that she was the Marquise. But

this error in dates was serious, and it was strengthened by a mistake in the Christian names of the deceased Marquis de Douhault.

The case came on for trial before the Civil Tribunal of St. Fargeau, where the commissary of the Republic stated it fully, and with a strong bias against the claimant. As he put it: "One side asked for the restitution of a name, a fortune, of which she had been despoiled with a cruelty that greatly added to the alleged crime; the other charged the claimant with being an impostor seeking a position to which she had no right whatever." Between these two alternatives the court must decide, and either way a crime must be laid bare.

Was it all a fraud? The defence set up was certainly strong.

It rested first on the death of the Marquise. This was supported by the certificates of the doctors who attended her in her last illness, documents attested by the municipality of Orleans, which bore witness to both illness and death. Another document testified that extreme unction had been administered, and that the burial had been carried out in the presence of many relatives. The family went into mourning, and the memory of the Marquise was revered among the honoured dead.

There was next the suspicious commencement of the claim: a letter addressed by the claimant to the curé of Champignelles, two years and a half after the death above recorded, asking for a baptismal certificate and another of marriage. This letter was full of faults of spelling and grammar, and was signed Anne Louis Adelaide, formerly Marquise de Grainville, names that were not exact. It was asserted that the real Marquise was a lady of great intelligence, cultured, highly educated as became her situation, knowing several languages, and a good musician, and especially that she was well able to write prettily and correctly.

Then for the identity of the claimant with Anne Buirette there was seemingly conclusive evidence, the strongest part of it being her own statement of the date on which she was received at the Salpêtrière. All the story of her release through the appeal to the Duchess of Polignac was declared to be untrue. The past life of this Anne Buirette was raked up, and it was demonstrated that she was a swindler who had been sent to gaol for an ingenious fraud which may be narrated here. When in 1785, on the occasion of the birth of a royal prince, the queen wished charitably to redeem a number of the pledges in the Mont de Piété, the woman Buirette, being unauthorised, drove round in a carriage, calling herself a royal attendant, to collect pawn tickets from poor people. She recovered the sums necessary to redeem the pledges and applied the money to her own use. For this she was sent to the Salpêtrière, from which she was released in October, 1789, and not, as she stated, on the day of the barricades.

From this moment, according to the defence, the fraud began, whether at her own instance or not could not be shown. Her movements were traced from place to place as she went about seeking recognition and assistance, now accepted, more often rejected, by those to whom she appealed. Finally the commissary closed the case by pointing to the physical dissimilarity between the two women, the Marquise and the claimant. The first was known as a lady of quality, distinguished in her manners, clever, well-bred; the second was obviously stupid and low-born, stained with vices, given to drink. The Marquise was of frail, delicate constitution, the claimant seemed strong and robust; the first had blue eyes, the second black; the first walked lame, the second showed no signs of lameness.

Yet the claimant persisted, and her counsel upset much that had been urged. It was shown that the death certificate was not produced; that the ill-written letters so condemnatory were copies, not originals; that the official documents purporting to set forth the past life of Anne Buirette were irregular in form and probably not authentic. The claimant showed that she was lame, that her eyes were blue; more, that she carried the scar of the sword wound made by her mad husband years before. It was all to no purpose. The tribunal refused to enter into the question of the alleged falsity of the documentary evidence, and taking its stand upon the date of entry into the Salpêtrière, declared that the claimant could not be the Marquise de Douhault.

Then followed a long course of tedious litigation. The claim was revived, carried from court to court, heard and re-heard; one decree condemned the claimant, and recommended that the case should be dropped; after five years the Supreme Court of Appeal sent it for a new trial to the Criminal Court of Bourges. The points referred were: first, to verify the death of the Marquise de Douhault; second, to establish whether or not the claimant was Anne Buirette, and if not, third, to say whether she was the Marquise.

There were now great discrepancies as to the date and the circumstances of death. Some said it occurred on the 17th of January, 1788, some on the 18th, some again on the 19th. Other facts also were disputed. As to the second query, 18 witnesses swore that the claimant was Anne Buirette; 14 saw no resemblance between Anne Buirette and her, and among these was Anne Buirette's own husband. As to the third point, 153 out of 224 witnesses declared positively that this was the Marquise herself; but 53 said either that she was not or that they had never seen the claimant, whilst among the number were several who had been satisfied as to her identity in the first instance.

These inquiries were followed by others as to handwriting, and many new and surprising facts came out. It was asserted by experts that the letters written before her alleged death by the Marquise and after it by the claimant were in one and the same hand; that the documents the claimant was said to have written or signed were forgeries, and must have been concocted with fraudulent intention.

Now, too, the claimant explained away the famous date of entry into prison, and laid it to her poor memory, enfeebled by so many misfortunes.

There seemed enough in all this to reverse the decision of St. Fargeau, but the Court of Bourges upheld it. The Procureur-Général pronounced his opinion, formed at the imperious demands of his conscience, that the claimant was not the Marquise de Douhault; more, that "between her and that respectable lady there was as much difference as between crime and virtue."

The law was pitilessly hostile to the very end. On the revival of the case the claimant was successful in proving that she was certainly not Anne Buirette, but although she published many memoirs prepared by some of the most eminent lawyers of the day, and was continually before the courts during the Consulate and First Empire, she was always unable to establish her identity. The law denied that she was the Marquise de Douhault, but yet would not say who she was. To the last she was nameless, and had no official existence. When she died the authorities would not permit any name to be inscribed on her tomb.

JUDGE GARROWS STORY.

Our own criminal records abound with cases of disputed or mistaken identity. Among the most remarkable of them is the one which Judge Garrow was fond of recounting on the Oxford circuit. He described how a man was being tried before him for highway robbery, and the prosecutor identified him positively. The guilt of the accused seemed clear, and the jury was about to retire to consider their verdict, when a man rode full-speed into the courthouse yard, and forced his way into the court, with loud cries to stop the case; he had ridden fifty miles to save the life of a fellow-creature, the prisoner now at the bar.

This strange interruption would have been resented by the judge, but the new arrival called upon all present, especially the prosecutor, to look at him. It was at once apparent that he was the living image of the prisoner; he was dressed in precisely similar attire, a green coat with brass buttons, drab breeches, and top boots. The likeness in height, demeanour, and especially in countenance, was so remarkable that the prosecutor was dumbfoundered; he could no longer speak positively as to the identity of the man who had robbed him. All along, the prisoner had been protesting his innocence, and now, of course, the gravest doubts arose as to his guilt. The prosecutor could not call upon the second man to criminate himself, and yet the jury had no alternative but to acquit the first prisoner. In this they were encouraged by the judge, who declared that, although a robbery had certainly been committed by one of two persons present, the prosecutor could not distinguish between them, and there was no alternative but acquittal.

So the first man got off; but now a fresh jury was empanelled, and the second was put upon his trial; his defence was simple enough. Only the day previous the prosecutor had sworn to one man as his robber. Could he now be permitted, even if he wished, to swear away the life of another man for the same offence? All he could say was that it was his belief that it was the last comer that robbed him; but surely if the jury had acquitted one person to whom he had sworn positively, could they now convict a second whom he only believed to be guilty? The jury could not but accept the force of this reasoning, and as the second man would make no distinct confession of guilt, he was suffered to go free. But the truth came out afterwards. The two men were brothers; the first had really committed the crime, and the whole scene had been got up between them for the purpose of imposing on the Court.

A CASE AT YORK.

A very similar case occurred at York. A gentleman arrived there during the assize, and having alighted at a good hotel, where he dined and slept, asked the landlord next morning if he could find anything of interest in the town. Hearing that the assizes were in progress, he entered the court, just as a man was being tried for highway robbery. The case seemed strong against the prisoner, who was much cast down, for he had been vehemently protesting his innocence. Suddenly, on the appearance of the stranger, he rose in the dock and cried, "Here, thank God, is someone who can prove my innocence." The stranger looked bewildered, but the prisoner went on to declare that he had met this very gentleman, at a distant place, Dover, on the day of the alleged robbery, and he now reminded him that he had conveyed his luggage on a wheelbarrow from the Ship Inn to the packet for Calais. The stranger was now interrogated, but could not admit that he had been in Dover on that day, nor had he any distinct recollection of the prisoner. The judge then inquired whether he was in the habit of keeping a diary, or of recording the dates of his movements. The gentleman replied that he was a merchant and made notes regularly in his pocket-book of his proceedings. This pocket-book was at that moment locked up in his trunk at the inn, but he would gladly surrender his keys and allow the book to be fetched, to be produced in Court.

So a messenger was despatched for the book, and in the meantime the prisoner at the bar questioned the stranger, recalling facts and circumstances to his mind, with the result that their meeting in Dover was pretty clearly proved. The stranger had given his name as a member of a very respectable firm of London bankers, and altogether his credibility appeared beyond question. Then came the book, which fixed the date of his visit to Dover. All this remarkable testimony, arrived at so strangely, was accepted by the jury, and the prisoner was forthwith discharged. Within a fortnight, the gentleman and the ex-prisoner were committed together to York Castle, charged with a most daring act of house-breaking in the neighbourhood!

HOAG OR PARKER?

A very remarkable case of the difficulty of identification is to be found in American records, under date 1804. A man was indicted

for bigamy, the allegation being that he was a certain James Hoag. The man himself said that he was Thomas Parker. At the trial, Mrs. Hoag, the wife, and many relations, with other respectable witnesses, swore positively that he was James Hoag; on the other hand, Thomas Parker's wife, and an equal number of credible witnesses, swore to the other contention. Whereupon the Court recalled the first set of witnesses, who maintained their opinion, being satisfied that he was James Hoag, his stature, shape, gestures, complexion, looks, voice, and speech leaving no doubt on the subject; they even described a particular scar on his forehead, underneath his hair, and when this was turned back there, sure enough, was the scar. Yet the Parker witnesses declared that Thomas Parker had lived among them, worked with them, and was with them on the very day he was supposed to have contracted his alleged marriage with Mrs. Hoag. Now Mrs. Hoag played Her last card, and said that her husband had a peculiar mark on the sole of his foot; Mrs. Parker admitted that her husband had no such mark. So the court ordered the prisoner to take off his shoes and stockings and show the soles of his feet; there was no mark on either of them. Mrs. Parker now claimed him with great insistency, but Mrs. Hoag would not give up her husband, and there was a very violent discussion in court. At last a justice of the peace from Parker's village entered the court and gave evidence to the effect that he had known him from a child as Thomas Parker, and had often given him employment. So Mrs. Parker carried off her husband in triumph.

A MILWAUKEE MYSTERY.

An extraordinary case of mistaken identity occurred some fifty years ago in Milwaukee, in the States, for the details of which I am indebted to a gentleman of that city, Mr. John W. Hinton. No fewer than ten reputable, straightforward witnesses swore positively to a dead body as that of a man with whom they were intimately acquainted and in more or less daily intercourse. They based their identification upon certain physical facts of the most unmistakable kind. They were not only satisfied as to the general features--the height, shape, size, the colour of the hair and eyes--but there were other peculiar and distinctive marks, such as scars, loss of teeth, a missing eye, that carried absolute conviction to the witnesses. Yet they were all absolutely and entirely wrong; completely deceived by the remarkable resemblance, the strange, almost incredible similarity of personal traits in two different people.

The case arose out of a mysterious crime. About 9 a.m. on the morning of the 14th of April, 1855, a party of rag-gatherers were seeking their harvest from the river just below one of the Milwaukee bridges. A mass of floating _débris_--chips, scraps of timber, and general rubbish--was collected in an eddy at the water's edge, and amidst it a boy espied what he at first thought to be a bag, and afterwards a bundle of rags. He dragged it on shore with his boat-hook and began to examine it. All at once he dropped the parcel with a loud yell and took to his heels. Some of his more courageous fellows then tore it open and exposed its ghastly contents. Inside was the trunk of a human body, with the head all but severed, and held only by a few ligaments. The brains had been dashed out by a blow on the back of the skull, which made a deep indentation several inches long. A great gash had been made in the throat; the left eye protruded; both legs had been chopped off and were gone. The bottom of the bag, as the cover proved to be, had been frayed out or forced open by the action of the water, and the missing portions of the trunk had fallen through or been washed out of the aperture.

The Milwaukee police, headed by the Deputy-Sheriff, who had been at one time Chief of Police, were soon upon the scene. The cause of death was plain. The weapon used was indicated by the wounds; it was evidently an axe which had cut into the skull, and the protruding eye had been sliced out by the same instrument. Close scrutiny of the bag revealed one or two clues of importance. The bag was a wheat sack, with the name of "Vogt" stamped upon it; it had been securely tied by peculiar knots, which an expert eye recognised as French, knots tied by no one but Frenchmen, and French sailors to boot. Weights had evidently been inserted in the "slack" of the bag, which had been thus knotted, and portions of the rope remained attached to the bag. The weights were gone, and had no doubt been detached at the bottom of the river, with the result that the corpse had risen to the surface.

The first step towards the detection of the murderer was to identify the body, and trace back the victim's habits, acquaintances, and surroundings. Here followed the marvellous mistake made by persons who on the face of it could not be believed to be in error. A mass of testimony was immediately forthcoming, all stating in the most explicit, positive terms that the deceased was a certain John Dwire, well known in Milwaukee. All who spoke did so definitely, declaring their reasons, which appeared conclusive. They knew Dwire well, they recognised his face and its features, his body, the colour of his hair and eyes. This last was a weak point, however. Dwire was said to have only one eye; the corpse had two. Although one had been nearly cut away by the axe stroke, it was still hanging to the head. The witnesses were not to be silenced by this discrepancy; they pointed triumphantly to other physical proofs: a scar or burn mark on the left cheek, the size of a sixpence, "a five-pointed starry scar" which all deposed that Dwire bore; again, he had lost two front teeth--one in the upper, the other in the lower jaw, just as was seen in the corpse; the whiskers, of the leg of mutton pattern, were Dwire's; the bald head also, for hair was growing round the base of the skull only, curly, and of a sandy hue, as in the case of Dwire. There was a cut, made in shaving the chin, Dwire's; scars on one finger of the left hand and on the thumb of the right hand, again Dwire's; and a nose slightly inclined to one side, also Dwire's. Such was the evidence of the witnesses, corroborating each other in every particular, the testimony of people who had known him for years, the woman of the house where he lodged, the keeper of the boarding-house where he fed, whom he had not paid in full, the associates who worked with him and frequented the same haunts.

Yet while the inquest before which these statements were made was proceeding, unequivocal evidence was adduced which entirely falsified the story as told. The John Dwire supposed to have been murdered was alive and well at no great distance from Milwaukee. A whisper to this effect had been put about, and some of the officials, another deputy-sheriff, and the city marshal travelled to a point higher up the river, some sixteen miles distant, where Dwire had been seen at work since the discovery of his supposed corpse in the stream. He was living near Kemper's Pier, and had been there uninterruptedly for months--since the previous Christmas, indeed. Had the Court hesitated to accept this startling news, all possible doubt must have disappeared by the next incident. John Dwire himself walked into the court, saying with some humour, "Lest anyone here should still think I'm dead I have come in person to assure him that I am not the corpse found in the river last Saturday morning."

His reappearance, of course, dumbfoundered all present, more particularly those who had sworn so positively to his mortal remains. It had another and more beneficial result: it saved an innocent man from arrest and probable conviction. The first act of the police on the mistaken identification of the body had been to commence a search in certain low haunts where Dwire had at times been seen, and they had come upon an axe recently used lying on a wood-pile in the possession of a French sailor, commonly called "Matelot Jack," who was the bar tender of a drinking-shop. The Frenchman had disappeared, but suspicion fell upon another foreigner, a German, who was an associate of Dwire's, and had accompanied him when the latter left Milwaukee. This German had come into the lodging-house asking for Dwire's clothes; he came twice, the second time armed with a letter from Dwire authorising him to receive the clothes, but they were impounded for moneys owing. Steps were being taken to arrest this German, and had not Dwire shown up it might have gone hard with the suspected person. It had been in Dwire's mind at one time to leave the neighbourhood, and had he done so the case against the German would have been pretty complete.

That there had been a murder still remained self-evident, but it was never positively known by whom it was committed, nor who was the actual victim. Some years later a man was arrested on suspicion as a thief; he was carrying a bag heavily laden, and it was found to contain a number of copper articles, all of them stolen. The bag was inscribed with the same name, "Vogt," as that picked up in the river. A farmer named Vogt now came forward and stated that about the time of the picking up of the unknown corpse he had sent his carter in with a load of wheat packed in bags such as the two mentioned. The man was supposed to have delivered his load, driven his team outside the city, the waggon filled with the empty sacks, and then made off with the price of the wheat. A more probable theory was that he had been murdered and rifled, his body being then thrust into one of his own bags, which was thrown into the river. The case was never carried through to the end, and neither the thief who was caught with the second bag nor the French sailor, Matelot Jack, was tried, presumably from want of sufficiently clear evidence to warrant prosecution.

A SCOTTISH CASE.

Our next case of mistaken identity occurred in Scotland many years ago, when a farmer's son, a respectable youth, was charged with night-poaching on the evidence of a keeper, who swore to him positively. It was a moonlit night, but cloudy. Other witnesses were less certain than the keeper, but they could speak to the poacher's dress and appearance, and they saw him disappearing towards the farmer's house.

An attempt to set up an _alibi_ failed, and the prisoner, having been found guilty by the jury, was sentenced to three months' imprisonment. On his release, feeling that he was disgraced, he left the country to take up a situation at the Cape of Good Hope.

Soon afterwards the keepers whose evidence had convicted the wrong man met the real culprit in the streets of the county town. He was in custody for theft, and was being escorted to the courts. His name was Hammond. The keepers followed, and after a longer look were more than ever satisfied of the mistake they had made, and they very rightly gave information in the proper quarter. Then a witness came forward who, on the night of the trespass, had seen and spoken with this man Hammond, when he had said he was going into the woods for a shot. Hammond himself, knowing he could not be tried for an offence for which another had suffered, now voluntarily confessed the poaching. Great sympathy was shown towards the innocent victim, and the gentleman whose game had been killed offered to befriend him. But the young man had already made for himself a position at the Cape of Good Hope, and would not leave the colony, where indeed he eventually amassed a fortune. On his return to Scotland, many years later, he was presented with a licence to shoot for the rest of his days over the estates he was supposed to have poached.

KARL FRANZ.

We now come to the famous Kingswood Rectory case. On the 11th of June, 1861, Kingswood Rectory, in Surrey, was broken into, in the absence of the family, and the caretaker murdered. The unfortunate woman was found in her nightdress. She was tied with cords, and had been choked by a sock used as a gag and stuffed halfway down her throat. There had been no robbery; the house had been entered by a window in the basement, but nothing was missing from it, although the whole place had been ransacked. Trace enough was discovered to establish the identity of one at least of the murderers. A packet of papers was found lying on the floor of the room, and it had evidently dropped from the pocket of one of the men.

This packet contained six documents: a passport made out in the name of Karl Franz, of Schandau, in Saxony; a certificate of birth, and another of baptism, both in the name of Franz; a begging letter with no address, but signed Krohn; and a letter from Madame Titiens, the great singer, in reply to an appeal for help. Besides these, there was a sheet of paper on which were inscribed the addresses of many prominent personages; part of the stock-in-trade of a begging-letter writer. All these papers plainly implied that one of the criminal intruders into Kingswood Rectory was a German. Moreover, within the last few days several German tramps had been seen in the neighbourhood of Kingswood, one of whom exactly answered to the description on the passport.

A few weeks later, a young German, in custody in London for a trifling offence, was recognised as Karl Franz. He himself positively denied that he was the man, but at last acknowledged that the documents found in Kingswood Rectory were his property. He was, in due course, committed for trial at the Croydon assizes. The prosecution seemed to hold very convincing evidence against him. A Saxon police officer was brought over, who identified him as Karl Franz, and swore that the various certificates produced had been delivered to him on the 6th of April of the same year. Another witness swore to Franz as one of the men seen in the neighbourhood of the rectory on the 11th of June; while a third deposed to having met two strangers in a wayside public-house, talking a foreign language, and identified Franz as one of them. This recognition was made in Newgate, where he picked out Franz from a crowd of prisoners. Yet more: the servant of a brushmaker in Reigate deposed that two men, speaking some unknown tongue, had come into the shop on the day of the crime, and had bought a hank of cord. One of these men she firmly believed to be the accused. This was the same cord as that with which the murdered woman was bound.

What could the accused say to rebut such seemingly overwhelming evidence? He had, nevertheless, a case, and a strong case. He explained first that he had changed his name because he had been told of the Kingswood murder, and of the discovery of his papers. They were undoubtedly his papers, but they had been stolen from him. His story was that he had landed at Hull, and was on the tramp to London, when he met two other Germans by the way, seamen, Adolf Krohn and Muller by name, and they all joined company. Muller had no papers, and was very anxious that Karl Franz should give him his. On the borders of Northamptonshire the three tramps spent the night behind a haystack. Next morning Franz awoke to find himself alone; his companions had decamped, and his papers were gone. He had been robbed also of a small bag containing a full suit of clothes.

This story was discredited. It is a very old dodge for accused persons to say that suspicious articles found on the scene of a crime had been stolen from them. Yet Franz's statement was suddenly and unexpectedly corroborated from an independent source. The day after he had told his story, two vagrants, who were wandering on the confines of Northamptonshire, came across some papers hidden in a heap of straw. They took them to the nearest police-station, when it was found that they bore upon the Kingswood case. One was a rough diary kept by the prisoner Franz from the moment of his landing at Hull to the day on which he lost his other papers. The inference was that it had been stolen from him too, but that the thieves, on examination, found the diary useless, and got rid of it. Another of the papers was a certificate of confirmation in the name of Franz. Now, too, it was proved beyond doubt that the letter written by Madame Titiens was not intended for the accused. The recipient of that letter might no doubt have been an accomplice of the accused, but then it must have been believed that these men kept their papers together in one lot, which was hardly likely.

Another curious point on which the prosecution relied also broke down. A piece of cord had been found in Franz's lodgings, exactly corresponding with that bought at Reigate, and used in tying the victim. But now it was shown that this cord could only have been supplied to the Reigate shop by one rope-maker, there being but one manufacturer of that kind of cord; and this fact rested on the most positive evidence of experts. Franz had declared that he had picked up this bit of cord in a street in Whitechapel, near his lodgings, and opposite to a tobacconist's shop. On further inquiry it was not only found that the rope factory which alone supplied this cord was situated within a few yards of Franz's lodgings, but his solicitor, in verifying this, picked up a scrap of the very same cord in front of a shop in that same street!

THE CANNON STREET CASE.

A very narrow escape from wrongful conviction occurred in the case generally known as the Cannon Street murder, which happened in April, 1866. Here the suspected murderer was tried for his life, and the circumstantial evidence against him was so exceedingly strong that but for a very able defence conducted before Mr. Baron Bramwell, one of the strongest judges England has had, the prisoner would surely have been convicted.

A certain Sarah Milson was housekeeper at Messrs. Bevington's, the well-known furriers and leather dressers of Cannon Street. She was a widow, and had been employed by the firm for several years. It was her duty to occupy the premises at night when the working hands had left the house. She was not alone, for a female cook also lived on the premises. It was the rule of the house that the porter, a man named Kit, should lock the doors when the day's work was over, and hand over the keys, including those of the safe, to Mrs. Milson.

On the night of the 11th of April, 1866, Kit performed this duty, and then called upstairs through the speaking-tube to Mrs. Milson, who came down to receive the keys. His last act was to extinguish the light in the lobby, after which he was shown out of the front door by Mrs. Milson.

A little later the same evening the cook, who was upstairs in her bedroom, heard a ring at the door-bell, and was on the point of answering it when Mrs. Milson, who was sitting in the dining-room, called out that the bell was for her, and she accordingly went down. This was about ten minutes past nine. The unfortunate housekeeper was never again seen alive. Later that night the cook, on going downstairs with a lighted candle in her hand, found Mrs. Milson dead at the foot of the stairs. The police were at once called in, and found that death was caused by the battering in of the woman's head, and a large quantity of blood was spattered over the stairs. A crowbar was found close to the body, and was probably the instrument by which the murder had been effected, although it was unstained with blood.

An inquiry was at once set on foot by the police, who ascertained certain facts. First, the cook declared that a man came constantly to call upon the housekeeper, that she herself had never seen the man, but that on one occasion, just before his expected arrival, Mrs. Milson had borrowed two sovereigns from her, which had afterwards been repaid. The identity of this man was discovered next day when a letter was found in one of the boxes of the deceased, signed "George Terry." This letter, a claim made upon Mrs. Milson for the repayment of certain moneys she owed, expressed great indignation, and threatened that unless Mrs. Milson could offer satisfactory terms the writer would complain to Mr. Bevington of his housekeeper's indebtedness. Attached to this letter was a receipt signed "William Denton, on behalf of George Terry, 20, Old Change."

It was not difficult to follow up George Terry from the address given, and he was presently found as an inmate of St. Olave's Workhouse. He readily told the story of his relations with Mrs. Milson. She had been acquainted with his wife, and as she was in difficulties, he had helped her to get a loan from a certain Mrs. Webber, the total amount being £35. Mrs. Webber appears to have been very urgent about repayment, and so Terry sent Mrs. Milson the letter which was found, but which he did not write himself, having secured the services of a fellow-lodger whom he knew by the name of Bill. "Bill" wrote the letter, went with it to Cannon Street, signed the receipt for such money as he received, and brought back the money. This had occurred some three months before. The man calling himself Denton was then traced, and proved to be a certain William Smith, who lived at Eton, at 6, Eton Square. The City detectives who had charge of the case went at once to Eton with the letter and the receipt, which were shown to William Smith and acknowledged to be in his handwriting.

There was enough in this to warrant the man Smith's arrest on suspicion, but the police soon had stronger evidence. A woman, Mrs. Robins, who acted as housekeeper at No. 1, Cannon Street, volunteered some very damaging information. She stated that on the night of the murder she returned to No. 1 at ten minutes to ten. As she was on the point of entering her house she heard the door of No. 2 violently slammed. Looking round, she saw a man go down the steps and pass her on the right. He was dressed in dark clothes and wore a tall hat. The light of the hall lamp shone on the man's face, so that she was able to know it; she noticed that he walked in a very hurried manner, leaning forward as he went along. In order to see whether Mrs. Robins could identify this man, William Smith was taken from Bow Street to the Mansion House through Cannon Street. He was between two police officers, but there was nothing to show that he was in custody. Mrs. Robins had been warned by the police to stand at her door at the time the party passed, and she was asked to say whether she could recognise her man. She made out Smith without hesitation; but to strengthen her evidence, she was sent for to the Mansion House, where the prisoner was placed amongst a number of people in a room through which Mrs. Robins was invited to pass. As she crossed the room for the second time she pointed to Smith and said, "This is the man I saw in Cannon Street."

Another very damaging witness was a boat-builder, Henry Giles, of Eton, who deposed that he met the prisoner Smith in an alehouse on the night of the 11th of April. Giles asked Smith to play a game of dominoes, but Smith replied that he had to travel forty miles that night. "How can you do that?" asked Giles. "Easy enough," was the reply; "if I go to London and back, that would make forty miles." Giles then said, "But you are not going to London, are you?" and Smith replied, "Yes, I am," at which Giles laughed and called him a liar. Another witness declared that he had seen Smith hurrying towards Slough Station about 7 p.m. The prisoner was said to be wearing dark clothes, a black coat, and a tall black hat.

The evidence of railway officials proved that a train had left Slough at 7.43 and reached Paddington at 8.40. There was also a train down at 10.45, which arrived at 11.43. It was said in evidence that the interval of two hours was quite sufficient to allow Smith to go into the City by the Metropolitan Railway, commit the crime in Cannon Street, and return _viâ_ Bishop's Road to Paddington. Further evidence against the man Smith consisted of spots upon his coat which were believed to be blood-stains, but which he accounted for by alleging that he had cut himself in shaving.

Here was a man of indifferent character, an idle ne'er-do-well, known to have had dealings with the murdered woman, against whom very clear circumstantial evidence had been adduced. He was shown to have said he was going to London; he was seen close to the station where a train was on the point of starting for London; he was recognised by a respectable woman at just the time he could have reached the house in Cannon Street had he travelled up to Paddington as alleged, and added to all this there were the blood-stains on his coat.

Yet the whole case broke down on the production of the most complete and unquestionable _alibi_. It was proved beyond all question that Smith did not go to London from Slough by the 7.43 train. The prisoner admitted that he had walked in the direction of Slough Station with the idea of meeting a friend. But he was certainly in company with a man named Harris in Eton Square a little before 6.30, and the two remained together until ten minutes past ten.

A number of other witnesses corroborated this statement--a brazier, a photographer, a gardener, a bootmaker, and so on. Ten or twelve men in all had had Smith under their eyes through the whole of the time that he was supposed to be killing the woman in Cannon Street. One had been drinking with him, three others had played cards with him, an alehouse-keeper's wife had served him with beer after 11 p.m.

It was altogether absurd to suppose that these witnesses had combined to perjure themselves on behalf of Smith. But even if such a combination had been possible, although no motive for it had been produced, there was other evidence that spoke unconsciously for the prisoner. If Smith had really committed the crime he would never have denied that he went to London, as he did deny it; he would have made some excuse for his going, feeling sure that the fact would be discovered. Another curious fact was that, as he was undoubtedly at Eton at 7.30, he must have gone at great speed to catch the 7.43 train at Slough, a full mile distant. There was not the least necessity for it either, as the Windsor Station was only a few yards from where he had been seen. A defence of this kind was perfectly unanswerable; the judge summed up entirely in favour of the prisoner, and directed the jury to find him not merely "Not guilty," but actually innocent of the crime.

I cannot leave this interesting case, in which there was nearly a miscarriage of justice from mistaken circumstantial evidence, without relating a curious fact within my own knowledge that grew out of this murder. In December, 1869, when I was acting as Controller of the Convict Prison at Gibraltar, a convict came before the Visitors who appeared under strong emotion, and who told me in a broken voice, with tears in his eyes, that he wished to give himself up as one of the Cannon Street murderers. I cannot remember the man's name, but I will call him X. After hearing what he had to say, the Visitors asked him what had induced him to make this confession. "Because," said he, "I didn't do the job alone. My accomplice, Y" (as I will call him), "has just come out in the last draft from England. I have not yet spoken to him, but I am greatly afraid that he might forestall me in my confession." The man spoke with such evident contrition and good faith that the Visitors felt bound to accept his story; but they sent for the other, meaning to confront them.

Y started violently when he came into our presence and saw X standing there, but he positively denied his complicity in the murder. For some time, too, he refused to acknowledge that he knew X, and then followed a strange altercation between the two, X earnestly imploring Y to make a clean breast of it, as he himself had done; Y as stoutly repudiating all connection with the matter. Just when we had made up our minds to dismiss both the men and report the case home for instructions, Y's better nature seemed to triumph, and he admitted thus tardily that he had been concerned in the murder of Mrs. Milson. Our next step was to order both men into separate and solitary confinement until instructions could be received from home. We fully expected to hear in due course that both men were to be sent home to stand their trial for the Cannon Street murder.

I am not ashamed to confess that we had been completely humbugged. A full and searching inquiry had been instituted by the Home Office authorities, more particularly into the antecedents and movements of the two convicts, and it was established beyond all doubt that neither of them could have possibly committed the crime, seeing that both were in custody for another offence on the day of the murder. I am free to admit that in the many years I have since spent in the charge and control of criminals, I have been very loath, after this experience, to accept confessions, although I have had many made to me. Mine is not a singular experience, as most police and prison officials will say. Indeed, the general public themselves must have noticed that there are few mysterious crimes committed which are not confessed to by persons who could not possibly have been guilty. In the case of X and Y, the whole trick had been devised for the simple purpose of escaping daily labour and gaining a few weeks' complete idleness in the cells.

False confessions, it may be added, are a frequent source of trouble to the police. Whenever some great criminal mystery has shocked the public mind, silly people, whether from constant brooding over the fact or from sheer imbecility, are driven to surrender themselves as the criminals. It will be remembered that at the time of the Whitechapel murders numbers of people stood self-confessed as the perpetrators of these crimes, eager to take upon themselves the criminal identity of the mysterious "Jack the Ripper." I have recorded elsewhere[7] a curious case in which a lady of good position, married, having many children and a perfectly happy home, became possessed with the idea that she had committed murder--that of a soldier in garrison in the town where she lived. At length she wrote to Scotland Yard, and made full confession of her crime, adding that she meant to arrive in London next day, where she was prepared to submit herself to arrest, trial, and whatever penalty might be imposed. All she asked was that she might not be separated from her children, and that if they could not accompany her to gaol they might at least be permitted to visit her frequently. Next day she arrived as she had threatened, and drove up to Scotland Yard in a cab, herself and children inside, her portmanteaux and a huge bath on the box. There she sat, and positively refused to move anywhere except to gaol. The police authorities, after vainly arguing with her, were on the point of taking charge of her as a wandering lunatic, and sending her home, but the Assistant Commissioner hit upon a happy device for getting rid of her. This was to tell her that if she went to gaol she must be separated absolutely from her children. If, however, she would sign a paper promising to appear whenever called upon, she might remain with her children in her own home. The ruse was successful; she signed the promise, and returned as she had come.

A NARROW ESCAPE.

An innocent man narrowly escaped death through an artful plot which led to a mistake of identity, but which fortunately, at the eleventh hour, was brought home to its criminal contrivers. A certain Mr. Henderson, a respectable merchant of Edinburgh, was in 1726 charged with the forgery of an acceptance, signed by the Duchess of Gordon, although, as a matter of fact, he was ignorant of the whole affair. In the year mentioned it was discovered that a man named Petrie, who filled the post of town officer or constable in Leith, held a bill for £58 which purported on the face of it to have been drawn by George Henderson on the Duchess of Gordon, accepted by her, and paid over by Henderson to a Mrs. Macleod. This Mrs. Macleod owed a sum of money to Petrie, and she begged him for a further advance, which he made, to the amount of £6, Mrs. Macleod lodging with him as security the acceptance which she had received from Henderson. Petrie took no action on the bill in the way of demanding payment from the Duchess of Gordon; this was at the instance of Mrs. Macleod, who assured him that her Grace was at that time engaged in special devotional exercises, and that the Duchess's agent was absent from Edinburgh. Petrie was put off with other excuses. Mrs. Macleod continued to beg him to hold over the bill, and brought him a letter to the same effect purporting to come from Henderson. Petrie, although suspicious as to the genuineness of the bill, took no steps, and the matter came out otherwise; whereupon the Edinburgh magistrates issued a warrant for the arrest of the three parties--Petrie, Henderson, and Mrs. Macleod. Petrie was almost immediately exonerated, but Mrs. Macleod gave such evidence against Henderson that he was held to be fully incriminated, and was put back for trial. Mrs. Macleod asserted positively that the bill had been given her by Henderson.

In due course Henderson was arraigned. Several witnesses swore positively that they had seen Henderson sign documents, especially an acknowledgment of a debt to Mrs. Macleod. One, a man named Gibson, declared that the signature had been given in his own house by Henderson, and in his presence and that of other witnesses. He appears to have identified Henderson in the dock, asserting that he had often previously seen him and been in his company. Gibson further declared that Henderson wore a suit of dark-coloured clothes, and a black wig such as he now appeared in.

Henderson's defence was that he knew absolutely nothing of the whole proceeding. His counsel adduced in his favour that he was a man of excellent character, and his demeanour at the trial, his straightforward answers to all interrogatories, and the outward appearance of truth in all his details, no doubt made an impression upon the Court. The Lord Advocate, his prosecutor, pressed hard for a conviction, on the ground that the forgery of the bill had been fully proved. The judges, however, stayed proceedings, and postponed decision until the following session.

Now, when the case looked blackest against Henderson, a mere chance interposed to save him. The Lord Advocate, who seems to have had no doubt of his guilt, was on his way northward to spend the recess, when he paid a visit on the way to a Mr. Rose, of Kilravock. One day Mr. Rose took his lordship to see a house he was building, and while inspecting it Mr. Rose missed one of the carpenters. On inquiring what had become of him, the foreman took Mr. Rose aside and privately told him that the man, hearing the Lord Advocate was at Kilravock, had absconded, saying it was time for him to leave the country. The man in question, by name David Household, had gone to the coast, proposing to take ship for London. Mr. Rose felt it his duty to inform the Lord Advocate, and the foreman was questioned as to whether the carpenter had been guilty of any crime. The answer was that Household was suspected of being accessory to a forgery. The Lord Advocate forthwith despatched a messenger to the coast, who apprehended Household, and carried him prisoner to Edinburgh. Household was brought before the Court at the beginning of the winter session and questioned, when he confessed that he had been party to a very scandalous and deliberate fraud. Early in the year Mrs. Macleod had come to him and asked him to write out for her the very bill or acceptance for the forgery of which George Henderson was charged. Household admitted that he had penned the whole document, and had imitated the signatures of Henderson, both as drawer and endorser of the bill, but that he had not written the name of Gordon. Household further deposed that he had assumed, at Mrs. Macleod's request, the identity of George Henderson; that she had given him for the personation a coat belonging to her husband, and a black-knotted periwig; that she had carried him to a gardener's house at the Water-Gate, where she had dictated to him a part of the obligation which had been produced in court; and had then taken him on to a house in the Canon-Gate (Gibson's), where he (Household) had written the rest of the document, and signed it

"George Henderson" in the presence of the various witnesses whom Mrs. Macleod had produced. He also confessed that he had written the letter which Mrs. Macleod had given Petrie as coming from George Henderson. Finally, after Mrs. Macleod's arrest, a Highlander had come to him with a message from Mr. Macleod urging him to leave the country for his own safety. Household, however, did not take flight until the appearance of the Lord Advocate at Kilravock; then he went to Leith, and hid himself on board ship, where he was discovered by a Customs officer, and eventually arrested.

This evidence changed the whole character of the trial, and the Lord Advocate was the first to admit that Henderson was innocent of the forgery, which was now fixed upon Mrs. Macleod. The records of the case do not give any definite information as to who actually signed the Duchess's name to the bill, but when Mrs. Macleod was finally arraigned this forgery was laid to her charge, and her offence must have been satisfactorily proved to the jury, for she was found guilty and sentenced to death. Two law officers, the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor-General, characterised the whole "as an artful and horrid contrivance, only discovered by the good providence of God." It is stated in the account published that Mrs. Macleod went to her execution dressed in a black robe with a large hoop, and a white fan in her hand. When on the gallows she herself took off the ornamental parts of her dress, and put the fatal cord about her neck with her own hands. She persisted to the last in denying her guilt.

The Duchess of Gordon in this case was Lady Henrietta Mordaunt, daughter of the celebrated Charles Earl of Peterborough, and wife of Alexander, second Duke, whom she married in 1706, twenty years before the occurrences recorded.