Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1876 — A SCENE IN A JURY ROOM. [ARTICLE]

A SCENE IN A JURY ROOM.

I once had the extreme felicity of leaving my business to serve on “ the jury." I plead in all manner of ways for a release, but to no effect. I could not swear that I was deaf, nor blind, nor yet non. compos, but did tell them that I had formed an opinion. They asked me .if my opinion would prevent me from receiving the testimony in good faith and rearing a vqrdict according to it. I repned, that of course I should weigh the evidence carefully and be governed by it. Twm meh informed that I “would do.” The case to be tried was that of arson—then a capital offense —and the prisoner at the bar was a young man named Charles Ambold, whom I had known from boyhood, and who was naturally ope of the finest youths of the town where he resided. He had a widowed mother who depended upon him for support, and his circle of friends was large and choice. I was morally, certain that he did not commit the criipo, I am sure those were friendly to him got me on the panel, and had me retained. The trial commenced, and we twelve men took oar seats in the jury box. I had a very respectable set with me—only there was one man whom I didn’t like to see there. This man was Moulton Warren. He was a dark, sinister-looking fellow—at least to me. I knew that young Anfbold had One fault. He had been addicted. to. drink,, wd. had beep known to visit houses df evil resort. It was one of those houses that had been burned, for setting lire, to which be had been apprehended. Now I had often tried to persuade Charles Anfbold from the course he was pursuing. He had repeatedly promised me that he would reform, and as repeatedly had he broken away.; I had often talked to him of his poor mother until he had wept like a child: blit the effect was not lasting. There was a power of temptation more effective than any influence I could wield. He would fall away into evil companionship, and for a while his manhood was going. And I knewthat this very man who was gowon the jury-rtliis Moulton Warrep—was one who had done more than all others to lead the poor youth away. It w as Warren who had drank with him, and who had led him away to those abominable haunts of evil. Why was he upon the jury * I could only account for it upon the ground that Charles still supposed him to be his friend. The poor scorched insect was still ignorant of the flame that scorched him. He really believed that . Moulton Warren was his friend. The trial commenced. The indictment set forth that Charles Ambold had “ with malice aforethought,” and witfi all sorts of wicked and felonious intents, set fire to a certain dwelling bouse, thereby endanagering human life. This dwelling, as I *ave already intimated, was a low sink of iniquity, where the abandoned of both sexes were wont to congregate, and where the youthful prisoner Sad spent much of The evidence for the prosecution came on and I was startled. One after another ■gave in their testimony, some of them very reluctantly, and I was frightened when I saw how plainly it all pointed to the prisoner as the guilty party. Several creditable witnesses swore that they had heard .him threaten to burn the house donw; and others had repeatedly heard him say that he wished it was burned down! ’Then

came several witnesses—three of the prominent citizens—who saw him lurking about the premises on the night of the fire. . ) With regard to the provocation on the prisoner’s part for such a deed, it was proved upon his own admission that he had been heard to say that his salvation of soul and body depended upon the destruction of that house. Next came more testimony stronger still. The fire had been set in a back basement room where shavings and other stuff for kindling were kept. Entrance had been gained through a back window, which had been partly pried open with a stout knife. This basement wall was brick, and beneath the sash was the blade of a knife which had been broken off in trying to raise the sash. The blade was recognized as belonging to the prisoner’s knife! A maker of cutlery had made a knife to order for Ambold only a month previous, and he knew the blade at once, and swore to it. But this was not all. The fire was evidently set first to the shavings which lay upon the stone floor, but piled up against a wooden partition. The floor was damp, and some of the outer shavings, even, were not wholly burned up. But Just at the edge where the fire commenced, lay a Eiece of paper, rolled up, and about half urnt, and from the manner in which it lay, it was very evident that the fire had been set with it. This piece of rolled paper had been ignited with a match, a number of which were scattered around, and as soon as it was on fire it had been laid upon the floor with the burning end just in the shavings. Of course these shavings were in a blaze instantly; but the paper torch being on the damp stones, had not burned wholly up. And the paper was found to be part of a letter belonging to the prisoner! A letter which he had received from a friend of his (and a friend of mine) only a week before. That friend had to come forward and swear that piece of charred paper was a part of a letter he had written to the prisoner! This friend’s name was Stephen Grant. He was a young merchant, and the letter had been written for the purpose of inducing Ambold to reform. Stephen tried hard to avoid testifying, for he knew, as did others, that the fire must have been set with that identical paper; but he was summoned, and he could not deny his own chirography. The case looked dark. Many witnesses were willing to testify to the prisoner’s good qualities, but no one could swear that he was not dissipated and degraded. The house had been to him, indeed, a region infernal. Its destruction cried out for his bodily life; and its existence had long been eating away his soul. Poor Charley! I had before been sure of his innocence; but now I could only shake my head and pity him. Finally he w-as allowed to speak for himself. He said he was innocent of the crime imputed to him. He said he had threatened to burn that house down—that he had said about all that had been sworn to. And, furthermore, he was round the house on the night of the fire. He was not ten rods on when the flames burst forth, and he was one of the first to give the alarm. He had uttered one cry of fire when he noticed where the flames must have originated, and the thought came to him if he was found there lie might be suspected of having set the fire, so he ran away. He also said that tltree hours before the fire he had been robbed in that house. His pockets had been emptied of everything in them, and his pocketbook, containing forty-dollars in money, and some valuable papers, had been taken. He had gone there on the night of the fire to try and persuade them to give him back his money and papers —or at least get what he could. When he got there, he saw a man go in whom he did not wish to see, so he had hung around waiting for him to depart. He was around by the back of the building once—and that was an hour before the fire broke out. He knew nothing—nothing. He clasped his hands, and with his tearless eyes raised toward heaven, he called on God to witness that he was innocent. I have told you that I knew him well. I knew him so well, that from that moment I knew him to be innocent! I knew his very soul —I knew how free and open it was—oh, how sinfully so! I knew there was no falsehood in. the story he told us. “My boy is innocent! My boy is innocent!” I heard the cry —and I saw an old woman sink back into the arms of a male companion. It was his poor mother. Her heart was w’ell nigh broken. Yet I saw that all this had but little effect upon the mass of spectators. The prisoner’s course of dissipation—his many threats against the house—and the very fact of his having been robbed and abused there were heavy against him. The counsel for the prisoner made his speech, which was labored and hard. He was foolish enough to intimate that if his client was around at the back part of the house more than once, he must have been intoxicated. In short, his plea had better been left out. The evidence he could not shake, and he did all he could to suppose evidence, some of it most absurd and ridiculous. I afterward learned that Moulton Warren engaged the lawyer for the youthful prisoner! The Government attorney made his plea. It was plain, straight-forward and conclusive. The judge finally gave his charge. He was fair and candid. He reviewed the evidence carefully, and pointed out such as bore heavily upon the case. He told us if there was a lingering doubt in our minds we must give the prisoner the benefit of it. But I could plainly see that there was no doubt in his mind. We —the jury—were conducted to our room by an officer, and there locked up. A silence of some minutes ensued. Motuton Warren was the first to speak. “ Welt,” he said, “Is’pose there’s no need of our bein’ here a great while. Of course we all know that the prisoner mutt have set fire to the house.” There was something in the manner of that man, as he said this, which excited my curiosity—l won’t say it was suspi. cion then—only curiosity. He spoke with a forced effort at calmness which I at once perceived. The more I looked at him the more I became strongly nervoufl and uneasy, and wondered why he should be so anxious to get rid of the case, and have Ambold convicted. I knew that he frequented that evil house, and that he had done much toward tempting Charley to dissipation. I knew that he was in that house on the night on which the 'prisoner was robbed—for Charley had tola me so when I visited him in the cell. I had then asked the unfortunate youth if he wag sure Warren was his friend. 0, he was sure of it. He should have hunted him up on the night of the robbery, only they toll him Warren had gone. By and by, the foreman proposed that we should each take up a piece of paper and write down our opinion, and thefi compare notes. I went to my hat, which I had placed upon a table with a number

of others, and took out a sheet of paper. I had got half way back to the table when I found I had made a mistake. I had got Fart of a letter from another man’s hat. was about to turn back when the name of the writer of the letter arrested my attention. I looked more closely and read: “ Stephen Grant.” Next I caught this sentence: “ And now dear Charles, if not for your own, yet for your mother’s sake, let me hope you will do better.” I started as though a shot had struck me. I held in my hand the other half of the sheet which had been used to fire the burned house! I went to the table and found that I had taken it from Warren’s hat! I looked to see if I had been observed —and I had not. I put the paper back, and then took a piece from my own hat, which was of the same pattern as of the other, and by its side. I returned to the table and sat down. Warren was by my side. He had written his opinion, and took a knife from his pocket to cut it from tlie large sheet. “ Let me take your knife a moment, if you please,!’ I said to him. Without hesitation he did so. I took it. It was Charley Ambold?» knife! —the large blade woe gone. With all the powers I possessed I restrained my deep emotion, and having cut my papers I handed back the knife. Why should he have that knife so boldly about him. I afterward learned. He had not worn those pantaloons before since the night of the fire; and now he used the knife, probably without the least remembrance of the loss it had sustained during the very peculiar piece of work, to the execution of which it was made subservient. We talked for some ten minutes and I found that eleven of the jury were bent on rendering a verdict of guilty; though most of them were in favor of recommending the prisoner to mercy. Moulton Warren was decided. He had no mercy at all. Presently I started up, and pretending to be faint, I said I must go out for a few moments. I kicked at the door and the deputy sheriff came. He heard my plea and let me out. As soon as we had gained a safe distance, I told him all. He was astonished and went away; when he came back he brought the district attorney, and the district judge and the sheriff. I told him again what I had seen—l assured them that I knew that it was no mere suspicion. And I explained, too, Warren’s manner in the jury room, and his former connection with the prisoner, and his known character. The officers west away, and at the end of ten minutes they returned, a constable added to their number, and this constable had a freshly written instrument in his hand. The sheriff hade me to point out the hat to them as soon as we entered the room. The door of the room opened, and I pointed them to the hat. The sheriff took it, and asked whose it was. Warren leaped to his feet and seized it, but was held back. Word was instantly sent to the Judge that the jury could not agree. They were discharged, and then Moulton Warren was searched. The knife found upon him, and his behavior at once exposed his guilt. The presence of that letter was accounted fOr by him in a dozen different ways within an hour. A new jury was empanneled, and Charles Ambojd was acquitted. Shortly afterward Warren was tried. It was plainly proved that the woman who kept the house was to have been burned up in it, as he contrived to lock her into her room shortly after setting the fire. She had incurred his displeasure in various ways, and this was his revenge. Not only she, but two other inmates of the house had suspected him from the first, but they dare not complain for fear he would not be convicted, and would be sure to murder them. The hardened villian confessed his guilt after he had been condemned, and then it w’as that he told how he happened to be so careless in regard to paper and knife. It was he w’ho had robbed Ambold, and when he took the old letter from his hat to use it for a torch in setting the fire, he did not notice what it was, and even when that partly burned half had been exhibited in court he had entirely forgotten that he had tom off the other half and put it back in his hat, as he must have done. The letter had been found in Ambold’s pocketbook, and he had kept it, because in it the youth w r as warned against his influence. He confessed that he had a slight idea of calling the writer to an account when it should become convenient. With regard to the knife, it was as I before stated. He took that also from Ambold’s pocket and put it in his ow r n, and on the night of the fire he used it to pry up the sash, and when he had broken it he put it back in his pocket and forgot it. Thus was Charley saved —and saved from more than an ignominious death, too. He was saved to be a noble, virtuous man, and his mother once more took ample delight and joy in the love and tender care of her only child. When Charles Ambold knew that Moul ton Warren had expiated ills crimes upon the gallows he sat down and pondered upon his past life. The thought ofhi s old companion being hanged sent a strange thrill through his frame. But he was able to trace out, clearly and logically, this terrible result from the course of life the ill-fated man had pursued. He shuddered as he remembered how far he had gone in the same course himself; and he was able to see the only safe path for any youth. Not only must we shun temptation—not only keep clear of even the appearance of vice—but, above all, must we shun evil companionship. A youth may make all the good resolutions thought can afford, but if he continues one evil companionship he is not safe! The Texas Legislature recently passed a bill, which makes it a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of SIOO, for a person to use profane language in hearing of any Srivate dwelling. A man’s mule got alky in a Texas town the other day, and the man got mad. The animal would start off suddenly, run about twenty yards and then stop fifteen minutes to survey the neighborhood, and before the man got out of town he owed the authorities SBO,OOO. He told them they might take the mule tmd call it square.— Norrietown Herald. . Pbior to 1817 there had been three Congregational churches built in Lyme, Conn., and they were all struck by lightning and burned down. Then the church now standing in the center was built. At that time every one was taxed to support the gospel, and, if he did not pay, his property was seized and sold at the post. —Ebenezer Cobb, ot Massachusetts lived in three centuries. He was born in 1694 and. died in 1801. What his habits I were the papers don't say; but if, in the course of so long a life, Mr. Cobb occasionally got corned, history ought not.to be too hard on him.