Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations: The Veil Lifted, and Light Thrown on Crime and its Causes, and Criminals and their Haunts. Facts and Disclosures.Howe, William F.
History
Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations: The Veil Lifted, and Light Thrown on Crime and its Causes, and Criminals and their Haunts. Facts and Disclosures.
Howe, William F.
Crime -- New York (State) -- New York; Criminals -- New York (State) -- New York; New York (N.Y.) -- Social conditions
Judge Russel: Mr. Howe, I have already ruled that these kind of
questions are improper.
Mr. Howe (with pertinacity): Your honor, I desire to show that this
witness is not the wife of Mr. Bethune; and I contend that, in justice
to my client, the question should be answered.
Judge Russel: I rule it out.
Mr. Howe: I take exception to the ruling of the court, and will now put
another question, namely:
Is Mr. Bethune your husband? (Sensation in court.)
Judge Russel ruled the question inadmissible, and exception was taken.
Detective John Young, of the Eighteenth Precinct Police, was next
called, and deposed: I am connected with the Metropolitan Police of this
city; I was sent with a requisition issued by Governor Fenton to
Pittsburgh to arrest George Hemmings for grand larceny; I went there
with Mr. and Mrs. Bethune; I took Hemmings into custody at the
Pittsburgh Theatre; he made a violent resistance, and scuffled with me;
I was necessitated to handcuff him in the cars; he became very abusive
and threatening; in fact, so much so, that I was compelled to hit him on
the head with the butt-end of my pistol; at the time of his arrest he
had upon him the ticket of the ear-rings.
Alexander Barnard, a pawnbroker at No. 404 Third avenue, was the next
witness, and said: I know the prisoner at the bar; he pledged me with
two diamond ear-rings on the 20th of last October, which Mr. Lynch
subsequently identified as his property.
Cross-examined by Mr. Howe: Hemmings has frequently pawned articles of
jewelry with me; he pledged them in the name of Mrs. Bethune.
Mr. Howe here requested that the pawnbroker should be directed to
produce his book in order that the jury might see the dates, the
production of which the counsel insisted would entirely contradict Mrs.
Bethune's testimony.
The book was subsequently produced, and Mr. Barnard testified, on
further cross-examination by Mr. Howe, that Hemmings had pledged with
him a watch belonging to Mrs. Bethune on the 17th of November, being
_nearly one month_ after the date the ear-rings were pledged.
Mrs. Lynch proved that the ear-rings were her property, and that she had
loaned them to Mrs. Bethune.
Mrs. Bethune now took the witness stand, and she was asked by Mr. Howe
how long she had known Hemmings, the prisoner at the bar?
Mrs. Bethune: About twelve years.
Mr. Howe: Where did you first become acquainted with him?
Mrs. Bethune: At Philadelphia; I was employed in the United States Mint,
and we boarded together in the same house.
Mr. Howe: Did you subsequently come on to New York with him?
Witness (hesitatingly): I did.
Mr. Howe: Were you on terms of peculiar intimacy with him?
Mrs. Bethune: I was not (sensation in the court): we were friends.
Mr. Howe: Was it not at your solicitation that he was taken to live in
the same house with yourself and Mr. Bethune?
Mrs. Bethune: Yes, it was; but I merely took him in out of charity, as
he was poor and had no clothes (sensation in court).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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