THE VALUE OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 269, 27 March 1873, Page 5

THE VALUE OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

A nice question, which raises the above issue, has been started in Melbourne. On January 25, there appeared in the South Australian Register, a report of the suicide of an named Antonio Silvestro, who called at a police station at Streaky Bay, and told the officer in charge that he had just taken the contents of a bottle of strychnine, which he produced. Silvestro had fits and convulsions, and during the intervals of these the policeman obtained the following statements :— "That ten years ago, at Caßtlemaine, he, Antonio Silvestro, committed a crime, which placed bis life in jeopardy, and ever since the fugitive had wandered about the wild bush, never venturing near a town or any place of human habitation, except occasionally in an outlying shepherd's hut, fearing detection. The murderer lived on wild animals that he could catch, and such roots and fruits as he could find in the desolate and hungry Australian bush, till he at last resolved to end a life of miseiy." These are the particulars of the account. Let our readers carry their recollection back te the year 1863, when Castlemaine, in Victoria, was agitated greatly by a shocking murder, which had been perpetrated at Daylesfo.d. The victim was a young woman named Margaret Graham, who was found murdered in her dwelling ; the alleged murderer David Young, who was prosecuted and convicted, but up to the last moment denied his guilt. In this he was bomeoutby his clergyman— the Rev. the Dean Crawford, of Castlemaine — and by Mr Otto Berliner, the well-known detective, who at that period was a member of the Victorian detective department, and had been specially called up from Melbourne to assist Mr -Superintendent Nicolson in the enquiry into the murder case. Berliner all along expressed his belief that Young was innocent, and that an Italian was the murderer of Margaret Graham, and, be ause of that belief, refused a reward tendered to him for Young's conviction. The Age starts an investigation of the c?se, and calls upon

the Victorian police to satisfactorily answer these queries :— What other murder was committed in 1863 in the Castlemaine district ? Was Antonio Sylvestro not an inmate of the hotel at Blanket Flat, where Margaret Graham was once a dancing girl? Is Antonio Silvestro not the man who last met Margaret Graham in Albert street, Daylosford, and had a dispute with her a few hours previous to her death, in the presence of Anne Jewett, the witness found by detective Berliner, who was not examined during the trial of the Young murder case ?