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
But to revert to the ownership. Mr. Lynch, in a moment of kindness,
loaned these ear-rings to his wife. Mrs. Lynch again loaned them to Mrs.
Bethune; and, as Hemmings says, whilst riding in a coach, she (Mrs.
Bethune) gave him those ear-rings to pledge. He did so pledge them. Mind
you, gentlemen, there has been no dispute about that since the
commencement; he has never denied the pledging. Having pledged them, as
he represents, a request was made to Mrs. Bethune for the return of the
ear-rings. She could not produce them, and for the best possible reason;
and not until nearly two months after the occurrence is the complaint
made before the police magistrate. She wished to hide from Mr. Bethune
(the gentleman who sustained the relation of husband to her) what had
become of the ear-rings; and, necessarily, she had no resort but to turn
round and say: "It is not very pleasant to tell my husband (or the man
who stands in that capacity) that I have given those ear-rings to a
lover! I cannot, without offending you, tell you the true cause of this
affair, but I must, in order to save myself, say, O, this George stole
them, and he is in Pittsburgh with Kate Fisher." This is _two months_
after the occurrence! And then, on the first of December, a requisition
is gotten out, and the more marvelous part of it is, that she goes on
alone in the first instance while Mr. Bethune followed subsequently. Now
see what occurred in Pittsburgh. She told you she did not know whether
he was arrested or not. She "believed" there was a form gone through of
getting out some papers. She "believes" she was taken before the mayor;
and what became of the case she did not know. But Mr. Bethune, who could
not shield himself in this way, very promptly answered that he was
arrested at the suit of this man; and Hemmings could not make idle
charges there. He was a theatrical manager in Pittsburgh, a public man!
and, as they told you, boasted that he was intimate with the members of
the press and police force, who were dead-heads at his theatre, and who
witnessed the performance gratuitously; so that you perceive he was very
well known. Do you believe, will any sane man of common sense credit the
statement, that a man who was as well known in Pittsburgh as G. L. Fox
is in this city, could afford to arrest a citizen and have the matter
made public unless he had reasons to do so?
I say, gentlemen, that the entire case, from the commencement to the
end, abounds in doubts suggestive of this man's innocence, especially
the fact which cannot be denied, that this lady, _she is not like
Cæsar's wife_, above suspicion, shields herself, as no honest woman
would, behind that protection which the judge afforded.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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