grievous mistakes, growing out of remarkable personal resemblance.
There have been cases in which two men have been seen fighting in a
field—an old enmity existing between them—the one found dead, killed
by a stab from a pitchfork known as belonging to the other, and which
that other had been carrying, the pitch-fork lying by the side of the
murdered man—and yet its owner has been afterwards found not to have
been the author of the murder of which it had been the instrument,
the true murderer sitting on the jury that tried him. There have
been cases in which an innkeeper has been charged by one of his
servants with the murder of a traveller, the servant deposing to
having seen his master on the stranger’s bed, strangling him, and
afterwards rifling his pockets—another servant deposing that she saw
him come down at that time at a very early hour in the morning, steal
into the garden, take gold from his pocket, and carefully wrapping it
up bury it in a designated spot—on the search of which the ground is
found loose and freshly dug, and a sum of thirty pounds in gold found
buried according to the description—the master, who confessed the
burying of the money, with many evidences of guilt in his hesitation
and confusion, has been hung of course, and proved innocent only too
late. There have been cases in which a traveller has been robbed on
the highway of twenty guineas, which he had taken the precaution to
mark—one of these is found to have been paid away or changed by one
of the servants of the inn which the traveller reaches the same
evening—the servant is about the height of the robber, who had been
cloaked and disguised—his master deposes to his having been recently
unaccountably extravagant and flush of gold—and on his trunk being
searched the other nineteen marked guineas and the traveller’s purse
are found there, the servant being asleep at the time, half-drunk—he
is of course convicted and hung, for the crime of which his master
was the author! There have been cases in which a father and daughter
have been overheard in violent dispute—the words “_barbarity_”,
“_cruelly_”, and “_death_”, being heard frequently to proceed from
the latter—the former goes out locking the door behind him—groans are
overheard, and the words, “_cruel father_, _thou art the cause of my
death_!”—on the room being opened she is found on the point of death
from a wound in her side, and near her the knife with which it had
been inflicted—and on being questioned as to her owing her death to
her father, her last motion before expiring is an expression of
assent—the father, on returning to the room, exhibits the usual
evidences of guilt—he, too, is of course hung—and it is not till
nearly a year afterwards that, on the discovery of conclusive
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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