LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 870, 9 April 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

A STRANGE WITNESS. ( Continued ) ‘ No,’ returned Kretschmar with stern decision of voice and manner, ‘ no. I am not a Judge of Instruction or an examining magistrate. My duty is simple, however painful. I have only to arrest you on a charge of wilful murder, and to call upon you now to produce all your effects—everything in fact belonging to you here.’ So, whilst Tuchmann the father, assisted by the widow Lehmann, who was also most painfully affected by this dire calamity which had so suddenly befallen the wretched family, endeavored to restore his poor wife to miserable consciousness, the gendarme, attended by the three village officials, who, simple good fellows, could with difficulty keep back their sympathising tears and sobs, proceeded to search every nook and corner of the house. The result of the search was a pocketbook, with a few unimportant letters and a few occasional notes, which clearly did not refer to the crime the prisoner was accused of ; a small highly finished six-bai-relled revolver, with one out of the six chambers discharged ; about a hundred thalers in gold and siver coin and Prussian notes ; and an oilskin parcel with some twenty thousand thalers, or three thousand pounds sterling in American notes. When the search was ended, the gendarme sternly intimated to his prisoner that he should remove him at once to the assize town, there to await in the gaol his trial for the wilful murder of Joseph Maria Sprenger, and the robbery committed on the dead body. He told him to get ready at once. The prisoner meekly declared that he was prepared to go; he made a passionate appeal to Kretschmar and the Mayor to allow him once more to embrace his parents. The sou then went up to his father, who was still vacantly gazing through the win-dow-panes. ‘ Father,’ he said softly, ‘shake hands—you may indeed—mine are not stained with innocent blood.’ The father turned round sharply, and looked fixedly into his son’s eyes. * You are innocent, then Conrad ?’ * I am, father, as God is my witness ! I slew that wretched man in self-defence. He would have taken my life. I sought not to take his, God, who searches the heart, and before whom no falsehood can stand. He knoweth that I am speaking the truth.’ ‘ I believe it, Canrad, I believe it. God will bring it all to light in His own good time.’ The old man seized his son’s hand, and held it for a moment clutched in a spacmodic grip ; then he dropped it, and turning again to the window, said, in a broken voice, ‘ Go, my son, go ! God be with you !’ One of the constables had meanwhile fetched the vehicle for the prisoner’s removal to town. Conrad and the two constables guarding him got in, and the cart then drove off, Krethchmar riding behind. * * * * It was about four months after the scene just described. The assizes was on, and the court sitting. The case appointed for trial was a charge of wilful murder, with robbery from the person, preferred by the Attorney-General, Hr. Mertens, against Conrad Tuchmann, of Fichte haiu. The court was composed of Councillor Ortloff of the High Court of Appeal, president or chairman, and Councillors Franke, Wernecke, and Rodbertus, assessors or judges. The court was crowded in every part. * * # * After the act of accusation had been read, the president of the court, Councillor Ortloff, put the customary question to the prisoner whether he pleaded guilty or not guilty. Upon this the accused rose from his seat. * Not guilty,’ he answered, in a firm voice. The president was proceeding to the examination of the prisoner in the usual way of continental criminal courts, when the accused’s advocate rose to request the court to concede to his client the legal right o f declining to answer any questions until the depositions of all the witnesses had been heard. In compliance with this demand, the president abstained from his intended examination of the accused, and proceeded instead to the examination of the witnesses. The witnesses deposed to the facts already detailed. The only additional piece of evidence was a small conical bullet found in the dead man’s brain, which was exactly of the same shape and size as the live bullets

extracted from the undischarged chambers of the revolver found among the effects of the prisoner. Among the witnesses heard for the prosecution were of course the mayor and constables of Fichtenhain, Fretschmar, and the widow Lehmann. The attorney-general abstained from calling the poor parents for the prosecution, leaving it free to the defence to call them. The charge against the accused was supported by the clear facts of the case, his own partial admission, the depositions of the witnesses heard, and, more especially, also the damning statement in the letter found in the murdered man’s pocket-book, which mentioned the identical sum of money in American notes which he (deceased) was bringing home with him, and which was afterwards found upon the prisoner. The theory of the prosecution, based upon these facts and the almost inevitable corollaries deducible therefrom, was extremely simple. Deceased and accused had been together in search after gold in the land of California ; they had been successful; they had divided the produce of their labour; they had left America and returned to Germany in company. The prisoner would seem to have lost by some means or other the whole or greater part of his share ; or, upon the assumption even—which would stand altogether unsupported, however—of some exaggeiation in the figure stated in the letter found in the murdered man’s pocket-book, he (the prisoner), not satisfied with his own fair share, would seem to have- coveted his partner’s also. So it appeared quite clear that, knowing his trusting companion to be an entire stranger in these parts, and believing therefore that his disappearance would pass unnoticed, he had, with malice prepense, led him through a part of the wood wh.ch he, a child of the land, knew to be rarely trodden by man, and had there foully assassinated him, and appropriated his wealth There was one point more particularly insisted upon as an aggravating circumstance telling fearfully against the accused, to wit. that he had obstinately refused to aid the authorities in their official endeavour to ascertain something of the origin and antecedents of the murdered man.. He had malignantly taken refuse, it was averred, behind his pretended total ignorance of the former life of his late companion. The New York passport simply stated Austria to be Sprenger’s native land, and in the letter found in the pocket-book there was not even one family name mentioned or one locality alluded to that might put the authorities upon the right scent. All efforts, then, to know something of the victim had unhappily proved ineffectual. The pretence put forward by the accused that he knew no more than the name of the nun with whom he had lived for several years in the closest intimacy must be hold to be barefacedly false upon the face of it. When the examination of the witnesses for the prosecution had come to end, the president addressed the prisoner. * Accused,’ he said, ‘in the course of the preliminary proceedings against you, you have given your version of this most fatal affair. It rests with you now to decide whether you will repeat your own statement here, or whether you will wish me to read your deposition to the j ury. ’ The prisoner held a brief consultation with his counsel, when the latter intimated that his client claimed the court’s leave to make his statement to the jury. I eave being granted, the prisoner rose to speak. His voice, uncertain and trembling at ffrst, gained contidence and ffrmness as he proceeded. ‘ Sir President and honourable court and gentlemen of the jury,’ he said, ‘ I am a native of these parts, as you all know. I left the place of my birth very early in life—at the age of fifteen, I went first to Weimar, afterwards to Erfurt, to learn the handicraft of a locksmith. The c r iminal judge, before whom I have had to appear so often has kindly told me that all the inquiries made about my conduct in Fichtenhain, Weimar, and Erfurt have shown that I was not a lad of evil life. I had saved a little money—l was always dreaming of the marvellous land beyond the great ocean ; 1 wanted to try my luck there. So, about four years ago, I went to see my dear parents, after an absence of six years, to take leave of them. In due course of time I reached New York, not in search of fortune, but to gain a decent living by hard honest work in my trade. Well, I did not find there what I was seeking. At this time marvellous tales came to me from the gold laud of California, Finding that in New York I could barely succeed in securing a hand-to-mouth subsistence, I made up my mind to try my chance in California as a gold-seeker. I had been told by some who had returned from there with comparative wealth, that it always takes two stout honest fellowworkers, that will stick to one another, to succeed in the gold-seeking business. So I was looking out for a partner. On my way to California I came acroes a chap who, it seemed to me, would suit. This was Joseph Sprenger. He was a few years older than I, but to all appearance a light-hearted devil-may-care fellow. He told me he had been wandering about in search of fortune, and had found a slice of it several times, but had always somehow thrown it away again. I was much taken with him, and we easily struck a bargain between us. We reached the gold land all right, and after a time we fell in luck’s way. We worked hard for something like three years, after which we returned to New ork with with the produce of our labor. When we had realised, we found ourselves in possession of about thirty thousand American dollars, to be equally shared between the two We resolved to go back to our native land. We purchased cash for fifteen thousand dollars American notes ; the remainder of our store was to pay our travelling expenses. ‘ I had even in California found that Sprenger was far from steady He was over fond of the company of topers and gamblers it appeared to me ; still he was easily led, and I had great influence over him ; so no great harm was done till we reached New York. (To he continued.)