Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 June 1874 — Appearances Against Him. [ARTICLE]

Appearances Against Him.

The history of English law contains few more startling judicial tragedies than that to which the statute against murder owed such humane amendment as to make the finding and positive identification of the body of the slain person essential to the conviction of the murderer; and as the same remarkable case had a peculiar moral ami social significance fortheyoung lovers of all times, who, in their passionate devotion to each other, are altogether too apt to disregard the fortunes of every body else in the world, it may be recalled appropriately for modern reading. Upon the death of Mr. George Perkins, a widower of considerable property, in London, it was found that his will appointed a brother of his, living near Epping Forest, the sole guardian of his only daughter, and directed that said guardian should inherit the whole fortune devised in case his young ward should die either unmarried or without children. Implicit confidence in his brother, who was a middle-aged bachelor of limited means, had, of course, inspired the dying man to make such a will; but a numtierof family relatives pronounced the document an extraordinary piece of servile fatuity, and darkly hinted that harm would ensue from 'it. This feeling caused an alienation between the occupants of the Epping Forest residence and the aforesaid prophets, and made the latter the bitterest prosecutors of the dead man’s brother in the strange and tragic succeeding events, which have been described as follows: Uncle and niece were both Been one day walking together in the forest, but the young lady suddenly disappeared, and the uncle declared that he had sought her as sooths he missed her, and knew not whither she had gone or what had become of her. This account was con sidered improbable, and, appearances being clearly suspicious, he was arrested and taken before a magistrate. Other circumstances, hourly coming to light, rendered his position serious. A young gentleman in the neighborhood had been paying his addresses to Miss Perkins. It was stated and generally believed that he had gone, a few days before she was missed, on a journey to the North, and that she had declared that she whtuld marry him on his return. The uncle had repeatedly expressed his disapprobation of the match, and Miss Perkins had loudly reproached him with his unkindness and abuse of his authority over her as his ward. A woman named Margaret Oass was produced, who swore tba< at about eleven o’clock on the day on which Miss Perkins was missed she was passing through the forest and heard the voice of a young lady earnestly expostulating with a gentleman. On drawing nearer the Bpot whence the sound came Margaret Oaks testified that she heard the lady exclaim: “ Don’t kill me, uncle, don’t kill me!” The woman was greatly terrified and ran away from the spot. As she was doing so she heard the report of firearms. On this combination of circumstantial and positive evidence, coupled with the suspicion of interest, the uncle was tried, convicted of murder, and almost immediately afterward- -according to the customs of those days—was hanged. About ten days after the execution of the sentence upon the uncle the niece reappeared, and, stranger still, showed by the history she related that all the testimony given on the trial was strictly true Miss Perkins said that, having resolved to elope with her lover, they had given nut that he had gone on a journey to the North, whereas" he had merely waited near the outskirts of the forest "until the time appointed for the elopement, which was the very day on which she had disappeared. Her lover bad horses ready saddled for them both, and two servants in attendance on horseback. While walking with her uncle be Reproached her with her resolution to marry a man of whom he disapprove, and after some remonstrances she passionately exclaimed : "• I have set my heart upon him. If I don’t marry him it wilt be death to me; and don’t kill me, uncle, don’t kill me!” Just as she proclaimed those wordsshe heard a sun fired, at which she started, and she afterward saw a man come from among the frees with a wood-pigeon in his hand, which he had shot. On approaching the spot appointed for a meeting with her lover, she fbrtnpd a pretense to induce her uncle togo off’before her. She then fled to the arms of her lover, who had been waiting for her, and they both mounted their horses and immediately rode off. Instead, however, of go mg to the North, they retired to Windsor, and abtfut a, week afterward went on a tour of pleasure to France. There they passed some months so happily that in those days, when newspapers were scarce, when there was no very regular postal communication and no telegraphs, they never heard of their uncle’s sad fate until their return to England.—-N. T. Graphic. —The saddest thing in life is the spectacle afforded by a young person who has burnt all her hair off her forehead with a hot slate pencil and cannot afford to buy a row of curls. V Domestic prints are so pretty this summe- that housewives of taste are using shilling calico for home wrappers, and luxuriating in half a dozen of the various patterns. v