Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1897 — WILL LAST A MONTH. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WILL LAST A MONTH.

CHICAGO’S GREAT MURDER TRIAL DRAGS ALONG. Case of Sansagemaker Lnetgert Is Far from Being; Ended—Bhotgun Quarantine in Texas-Irrigation Congress Meets—Government Report on Crops, End Is Not Near. The beginning of the sixth week of the Luetgert trial in Chicago brought to the court room a large and more heterogeneous crowd than usual. Long before the court room doors were open, men, women and children surged about the main entrance of the criminal court building and made violent efforts to get in. Policemen and court bailiffs on duty at the doors had much difficulty in handling the crowds and admitting those with tickets. The State’s Attorney’s office was overrun by people who importuned Assistant State’s Attorney McEwen for pnsses. State’s Attorney Deneen and Assistant State’s Attorney McEwen avoided the solicitations only by locking themselves in the State’s Attorney’s private office, where they consulted for half an hour with Police Inspector Schaack and Police Captain Sehuottler. Luetgert came into court smoking a cigar and greeted his attorneys and his son, Arnold, pleasantly. The alleged wife murderer seemed to be in an exceptionally pleasant frame of mind and joked and laughed with his son and Wm. Charles, his business partner, until Judge Tuthill appeared upon the bench. Mary Siemering, the servant girl, whose cross-examination was in progress Saturday when court adjourned, was called. Around this witness, according to the theory of the prosecution, the motive for the alleged murder of Mrs. Louise Luetgert centers. Luetgert’s infatuation for his pretty servant girl is claimedby the prosecution to have been the instilling motive to this celebrated crime. When she went on the witness stand to again endure, as she supposed, the cross-examination of State’s Attorney Deneen, Mary Siemering appeared composed and defiant. Her cheeks were flushed, which indicated apparently some mental excitement, but the young woman, it was evident, had made up her mind to control her feelings, and not permit the State’s Attorney to confuse her. His efoss-examination was not severe. “Did you not say before the grand jury that Mrs. Luetgert was a good and kind mother?” asked Mr. McEwen. “I did,” confessed the witness. “Now you say she beat her children and was cross with them?” “When I went to the grand jury room

to testify Inspector Schaack was there, lie told me if I did not say what I did he would punish me," said the witness. The photographs which were identified by witnesses from Kenosha wehe handed to the witness and she identified them. The picture which included Mrs. Luetgert and her two children was taken two years ago, the witness said. Several questions of an impeaching character were asked and Mary Siemering was excused. She left the witness stand with a smile and took a seat within the inclosure and remained to listen to other witnesses. Jacob Melber of Wheaton, 111., testified that on May 0 he saw a woman at the depot in Wheaton at 5 o’clock in the morning whose description resembled that of Mrs. Luetgert. She inquired the way to Elmhurst. Melber is a butcher. He said he saw Mrs. Luetgert once last March. When asked upon cross-examina-tion to describe the missing woman he could not do so and was excused. Charles Boehnke, who had worked for Luetgert for sixteen years, testified that on April 28 he had a brief conversation with Mrs. Luetgert. She seemed much depressed, the witness said, and remarked that “things were going bad in the house.” She said, according to the witness, that she would go to the country and go to work as a servant. “We are about ruined and I will go to the country and work out. I cannot stay here,” the witness said were the words of the apparently distracted woman. “I told her that times were as hard in the country as they were in the city,” said Boehnke, “and advised her not to go.” When Mrs. Augusta Koch, a neighbor of the Luetgerts, who knew Mrs. Luetgert well, was called to the witness stand, Juror William Hurler was called upon to act as interpreter. Mrs. Koch said she had known Mrs. Luetgert for eleven years and had lived near her most of this time. She saw and talked with Mrs. Luetgert the last week in April. Mrs. Luetgert was depressed and talked about going away. She told the witness, according to the statement of the latter, that Luetgert had been swindled by a man who had promised to pay a big sum for an interest in the sausage factory. Luetgert had let the man have a large amount of money and the man had run away. This evidence was in support of the statement of ex-Judge Vincent at the opening of the trial to the effect that a promoter had swindled Luetgert out of $25,000 and that this was the beginning of the troubles of the sausage maker. Other witnesses testified along this line. William Charles, Luetgert’s partner, testified that the caustic soda taken to the basement of the sausage factory in March was brought there for the purpose of cleaning the establishment. Several barrels of tallow and a barrel of chipped bones were emptied into the middle vat to make soft soap, according to the witness. The first of the sealing fleet to return home to Victoria, B. C., the Casco, brought 1,064 skins, taken off the Japan coast and Cooper Islands. She reports that the Calotta, with 1,400 akins, and the Director, with 1,000 skins, are close behind her.

GUARDS DRIVING REFUGEES FROM FEVER STRICKEN DISTRICTS.