A MILLIONAIRE MURDERER SENT TO PRISON FOR LIFE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 55, 5 March 1877, Page 4

A MILLIONAIRE MURDERER SENT TO PRISON FOR LIFE.

Peterboro, Onlario, Nov. 22.*— The speotacle of a millionaire, leaving his rich possessions behind him, and, accompanied by the officers of the law, boarding the train for the Penitentiary, there to remain for the term of his life is one rarely seen ; 'tis even rarer than hanging in New York or Chicago. This morning James Ryan was taken from the gaol here, put on board the early train by tho sheriff and bis constables, and conveyed to the Provincial Penitentiary at Kingston. He was fouod guilty of wife murder at tbe Peterboro Assizes, on tbe 18th: of Ootober last, and sentenced for death to-day. The Executive at Ottawa, however/heard the prayer of almost the whole province, as expressed through a petition asking for the merciful exercise, of the executive power, and the sentence of the condemned man was commuted to imprisonment for life. Ryan, in personal aud real estate is worth, so it is estimated, 1,200,000d01. Twenty years ago, when he was of age, his father, Patrick Ryan, now a millionaire of seventy, gave him 500,000J015. in gold with which to ,start in business James bought a large tannery, and by energy in business, and tbe wise and profitable investment of his surplus capital, soon doubled his father's gift to him. Eight years ago he married a highly accomplished young lady of Montreal, tbe daughter of a wealthy French firm of clothiers there, everything be handled prospered, and he was regarded as tbe ooming Dives of the Dominion. In 1857, when, owing to the sudden panic which then prevailed throughput the continent and Europe, real estate waa selling dirt cheap, he purchased largely in Chicago, St Louis, New York, and elsewhere, and obtained an interest in some property at Birkenhead, tbe city opposite Liverpool, and the chief ship-building centre in the north of England, which brought him in a handsome yearly income. He sold out his. Chicago, property in 1869, just before the great fire, and is said to have realized heavily upon it. In the early part of the year, however, Mr Ryan, from some cause tbat has never been cleared thoroughly up, took to drinking, and on the Bth of May be bad an attack' of dilerium tremens. He fled from his house in the forenoon, and took refuge from his imaginary pursuers in bis tannery, hard by. Towards evening be sent a workman for a bottle of whisky, and, haying drunk it, felt nerved again, and returned home. He sat down in his parlor and called his young wife to him. She, believing no doubt that he wanted more whisky, at first pretended that she did not hear him, but ultimately -walked up to him, and pot ber arm around his neck. Their two children, one seven and the otber five years old, were in the room at the time. Suddenly Ryan, so the eider boy stated in. evidenoe, rose from his chair and struck bis wife io. the side. - She staggered from the room into the hall and down the steps, and, with a piercing cry fell ou the lawn outside the front door. The servants heard her cry, and rushed to her assistance, but she was dead — stabbed through the heart. The town constables were Bent for, and they arrested Ryan, who sat motionless in hia chair. On being charged with tbe murder of his wife, he wept bitterly, but made no answer. A long, tbin-bladed knife, tinged at tbe sharp point with blood, was found on the carpet by bis chair, and was recognised as a knife used by tanners for paring peltries. The prisoner was duly committed for trial at the fall assizes, and a true bill having been found against bim, be was placed in the dock, before Justice Gwynn, on the llth of December last. The defence was temporary "insanity, in plainer words delirium tremens — and wheu that failed the learned counsel made ao effort to show that the deceased committed suicide in distraction at her husband's drunkenness. The suicide was abandoned before tbe close of the trial, however, and the prisoner was found guilty, after a trial extending over eight hours, and sentenced for execution today, . During tbe trial the Crown counsel put the delirum tremens plea in this light; "Insurance policies distinctly except delirium tremens from deaths commonly know as 'natural,' and who dies therein or therefrom is counted as one guilty of felo dese, and the privileges conferred upon him — or, in other words, on his family — are voided. So. it is with the spirit of the English law. Those who commit crime /while laboring under delirium tremens are denied the immunity, if I may say so, tbe law accords to other forms of insanity, which are considered ' natural .' The jury recommended Ryan to mercy, and this recommendation being backed by a petition by tbis town at large, and by some of the most reputable physiciuns in the country, Mr Blake, tbe Minister of Justice, advised the Governor-Gene-ral to commute the sentence as already stated. By the old English law a feicn coodemed to death became " attaint by the Crown," and his property, like his body, was forfeited to the Crown. But that practice has* been dropped, mercifully enough, and Ryan's million aud a quarter is invested with trustees, of whom his father is one, for the benefit of the two children. — Chicago Times.

_** „ r " ■ — ■■■"-=__• ( . A fashionable but illiterate lady, who was travelling on the Continent, in writing to a friend, said that she had just seen the' " couseum of iniquities " in Genoa.