FAMOUS CRIMES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 148, 24 June 1901, Page 2

FAMOUS CRIMES.

MYSTERIES NEVER SATISFACTOR-

ILY SOLVED,

"There are no undetected crimes," say the police, and with some show of reason, perhaps, for "murder will out,1' and in the long run daylight is generally let let in on lesser offences. The police contention ie that, if lajl erimdoala ore not invariably "run in," there is aiwaya some plausible explanation. It is eiiher that no sufficient evidence is forthcori,iiig to warrant arrest or secure conviction, or that during the inquiry certain facts have become perverted; the false has been taken for the true, and innocence has thus been wrongly established.

There are some crimes—a large number of them, indeed, that are mysteries, apd will remain myateries to the end of the chapter. No real solution has been offered aa yot of the notorious Whitechapel murders; po reasonable surmise made of the identity of that most mysterious monster, "Jack the Rippefi." Given certain favourable conditions, Bay the police, thus contradicting their own contention—conditions such as were present in that long series of gruesome atrocities—and a murderer will always escape retribution, if only he has the good luck to escape observation at the moment. If he is able to remove himself quickly from the scene of action, and can cover up his tracks promptly and cleverly, detection is, and must be, :it fault.

Various theories, based upon these alleged conditions, were put forward by the police In the WMtechapel affair. One was that the murderer only visited London at certain intervals, and that at all other times he was safe beyond all pursuit. Either ho was at sea—a sailor, a stoker, of foreign exitractiom1, a Malay or La>%air—or ha was a mail with a double personality; one so absolutely distinct from und far superior to tho other, that no possible suspicion could attach to him when he resumed the more respectable garb. It waw, in fact, a real case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Granted, also, that this individual was afflicted with peiiodip (its ,olf homicidal mania, accompanied by all the astuteness of this form of lunacy, it was easy to conceive of his committing the murders under sucli uncontrollable impulse^ and of his prompt disappearance by returning to his other irreproachable identity. No doubt thU was a plausible theory, but theory it was, and nothing more. It was uever, even inferentially, supported by facts.

To admit so much, then, is to concede beyond all question the existence of unsolved, and, presumably, unsolvablo mysteries of crime. Many such are to be mot with in the Judicial records of all times and climes; many more art! still occurring continually. However di^uuleting the statement, there is much to justify a belief that murder most foul, and still most mysteriously unreveaed, stalks constantly in our midst.

Tho fact that, every now and then, the vestiges of some foul deed are brought to light, the existence of which is undoubted, but of which all explanation is wanting, supports this unplea-

sant conclusion.

There was. the Norwich, England, case, as far back as 1551, when a do,g .turned up unmistakable human remains chopped to pieces, and buried in a plantation at Trowse,, a .suburb. doubt a murder had been committed, yet no one in Norwich was reported missing-, After a long inquiry the matter dropp.d for eighteen years, and but for the voluntary confession of the murderer then, the mystery would have continued inscrutable to tho last.

FAMOUS NORWICH CASE.

A man. Sheward, seized with remorse

at visiting: the place where he had married his first wife, admitted thus tardily that he had murdered her at Norw'ch, He had explained her absence at tha time by spreading: a report that she had gone out to Australia on a visit to her relatives. Sheward's confession was hardly credited at first. It was considered another of those sham statements of self accusation which men bo often make for purposes of their own. As everybody knows, when any crimes remain long unexplained, there arc always fools, idiots, or knaves anxious to accept the guilt .So Sheivard's story was largely disbelieved. His confession was commonly thought false, mainly because it waa shown that his wife's age at the time of the supposed murder was 54, while |the medic*.! testimony proved that the remains discovered had been those of a young woman between 16 and 25. In the end, however, Sheward •was bonvicted, sentancedy /and duly hanged. Yet the case may still be classed among the mysteries of crime.

It is generally thought murder'would be made more easy if greater facilit es offered for the disposal of the corpus delicti. But murderers are often at no pains to conceal the guilty record of their crime. It is difficult, as jn the Norwich case ,to connect the discovery of remains with any particular individual. It was so in the Waterloo Bridge mys-

tery, 43 years ago,

One morning- in October, 1857, soon after dawn two boys in a boat came upon a carpet bag, locked and corded, hang-ing below Waterloo Bridge. The bag when forced open, was found to contain the mutilated fragments of a human body, a male, and a quantity of

■torn' and bloodstained qlathing*. A theory was soon set up, and generally believed that this was a hideous joke from the dissecting- room, and the prank of some reckless medical students. But closer investigation forbade any such conclusion. Medical evidence denied unhesitatingly that these fragments had been professionally dissected. It was as certain that they had ben cut or sawn ■asunder before the rigidity of death haa supervened —a condition that always proceeds all anatomical operations. It was shown that they had been boiled and partially salted.all processesthat are commonly practiced by murderers. Again, the evidence of a violent death was unmistakable. The remains presented no signs of disease; but thero was one single stab—a dagger stab, apparently— which pierced the cloth, nnd striking' between the third and fourth ribs of his left side, had penetrated the heart. As for the clothes, they showed by thelr tattered condition that there had been a violent struggle, bnt they had not been removed from the corpse until It was stark and stiff. Here was a plain story, but still no clue was left, and the mystery remains unsolved to this day.

A still more recent mystery of the «9tme fcin*i equally JnacepUcabde, was the discorery in 1880 of a woman's body in a cellar, under the pavement, of a fine

mansion In H&rley-st, London. The butler of the family, In cleaning out the cellar, came upon a cask, and within that cask he found the l>ody preserved in .quicklime, which had been used, no doubt, with the idea of destroying it, but the opposite result followed. Decomposition had, however, gone too far for recognition to be possible, and there was .never the slightest^ clue to the identity of the criminal or of that of the murdered person. The woman had been stabbed to the heart. Nothing whatever wag elicited in the- house its«lf. It had been occupied by the same gentleman, its proprietor, an unimpeachably respectablo person, for at least twenty years, and he could throw no light whatever upon the mystery. MURDER OF MARY ROGERS.

Even where a body has been clearly identified and within a short space of 1 time, the solution has not been reached. Liet us take some of the less famll ar cases as recorded in the criminal history of other countries. There was tho murder of "the pretty cigar girl," an she was called, Mary Rogers, of New York—the foundation .indeed, of Edgar Allen Poe's famous story, "The Mystery of Mary Paget,'' although he placed ; tho scene of the crime In Paris. Mary Rogers left her home one evening i for a walk in Hoboken, on tho Jers y ; aide of the Hudson River, and was nev^r afterwards seen alive. Some days later her body was found floating in the north river. She had been strangled by her own lace fichu. By and by the traces of a fierce and mortal Btruggle were found in a neighbouring wood, and in due course several arrests were ny fie, all of the men supposed to have been de* porateiy in lov"e with Mary Rogeus., Every one was able, however, to establish his innocence, although one, by name Payn, subsequently committed fiuicide near where the crime was peri petrated. This mysterious murder agitated the whole of the United Stut s ■to an extent unparalleled, except by ! the murders of Presidents Lincoln und Garfield, and no satisfactory clue via-} . ever obtained. Not long ago, at the death of the tobacco merchant, who had been Mary , Rogers' employer, and who, aa the years parsed, had become a very wealthy man, • certain facts were faid to have come out which in a measure implicated him with the crime; but these do not neom to have been more than a vague story of his being haunted on his deathbed ; in Parie by the ghost of the murdered girl. Other cases of a similar kind 1-ave occurred in the United States. There was the murder of Sarah Cornell, who was at first thought to have hanged her>eif, ! then said to have been killed by a Methoi dlst minister; but he was acquitted, ad ! the deed, now proved to be one of vio- | lence, was always a mystery. So was ihat ■ jof the girl fished up from the bottom ■of Manhattan well in the days when New York was a small place; but the murderer who had first strangled, then thrown Guilolma Sands down the well, was never discovered. THE NATHAN MYSTERY. Another New York mystery was tho murder of the rich Benjamin Nathan, In 1870. He came home one night from the country to his house in West Two ty-thirdst., close to Fifth Avenue, and as the place was dismantled, he slept on the floor of his reception room. Two of his sons and the housekeeper also I slept' in the house. The next morning i Nathaji was found lying in a pool of I blood, |?ashed and slashed and stab- ! -bed to death. Near at hand was a ! ship carpenter's chisel, besmeared with 1 blood. All his money and valuables, the • three costly diamond studs in his shirt, j ! his gold watch and chain, all had disappeared. More, the iron safe standing In the same reception room and the key of which was in the murdered man's i trousers pockeit, ihad |>een riflied and many securities and important papers l^toleo. Those who had occupied tht» house with him were at first suspected, i but their innocence was dearly es'ab- ; llshed; and other theories set up. It was I thought to be the work of a burglar come !to rob and forced to kfll to escape oap- '] ture; or, again, of a business man, In Nathan's power, and determined at all , hazards to become repossessed of danger-

ous and discrediting documents held by the money lender, in which case the theft of cash and valuables would be only a blind. An argument against the burglar was the ship carpenter's chisel, a weapon not commonly used by burglars. On the other hand, it was contended that this was sometimes carried by them as less suspicious than a crowbar or a jemmy. The suggestion of the business feud was highly plausible, as Nathan was supposed to be concerned in many strange operations. But he was a silent, reserved man, whose own wife never knew what he carried in his pocket or what was lodged in his safe. The police believed that the murdf>r»r hai srained access to the house during the day and. remained close concealed until the midnight hour of action arrived. Whatever the solution of th« mystery, it remains to this day unknown and undis-

ooverable.

TTeuerbaeh, the famous Bavarian judge. who unravelled so many priminnl mysteries, records a qjise not unlike that of Nathan's, In which the poMce rrere entirely at fault. It waa the murder of a rnldsmith. Christopher Kupprecht, a

vulgar, illiterate man, who eou'd neither read nor write, but yet did a l^gn business In usury. He trusted almost entirely to his memory, only occasionally •cfflimpr in aisplstarrce for the draww ing and arranging of his bills and noes of hand.

Btrpprecht was an evil tempered old miser, who had quarreled w'l'h nil Irs near relations and lived quite alon*. Hfs favourite resort was a beer =hop ral led "The Hell." And he pat there one

evening, in comnanv with a partyoor staid and respectable citizens till half past ten. Some one aijoiit tTnat time cam" to the front door and asked t>>e i^nd lord for Ruppre.cht. The usurer, v hen called, went out frito the street, nrd almost immediately loud groans were heard and a heavy fall. All ru=hed out nnd found Rupnrecht ly'ng just w'f'l'i the door, covered wtth blood flowingl from a jrrrat wound in his head. He ! was .iust able to murmur a few words, I "Wicked ropue." and "The ax—the ax." 1 T/Ster, when interrog-af.eii n.« to the mur-1 dor, ho gasped out. "My daughter." A QUEER WOUND. The wound which was in the skull | and evidently mgrt«U, had been infli ted ! by some sharp, heavy Instrument, posribly a sabre, wieiaed by a praet'sed hand. Rupprecht had been struck beyond doubt In the narrow street, a eul de sac at one end, and he muat hava rushed back Into the. house porch to drop, dyingl, in the hall. A^ain, the position of the

wound plainly showed that it had been given on the very doorstep. Here were many facts. Here, too, was the change of taking the criminal red handed at the very time of the crime. The victim, last of all, was never quite unconscious, and he gave his own explanation of the murder, with plain indications of the murderer; yet nothing was ever brought home to a soul. Rupprecht, when questioned, hanging betw.en Lti\) land death —at 'a moment when, presumably no man lie« —declared that he had been struck down by Schmidt, a woodcutter, with a hatchat; that he recognised him by his voice; that Schmidt owed him no money, but that they had quarrelled.

There were many Schmidts in the village, all woodcutters, and all were arrested; but to no one could the crime be brought home. On one suspicion long rested, Abraham Schmidt, but his hatchet did not fit the wound. Moreover, he proved a clear alibi, and it was shown that he was a hardworking, peaceblo man, a good husband and father, and he was In due course released. Then the law fixed upon the victim's daughter, whom he had mentioned after ho had been picked up; but neither she nor her husband, who was also Implicated, although both of them lived on bad terms with Rupprecht, could possibly have committed the murder. Many other persons were arrested1, interrogated, charged, but in every case suspicion, however plausible, fell to the ground. The mystery has remained a mystery, and |-v«lth Rupprecht was buried the secret of the crime.

One or two more murder mysteries may be mentioned before leaving this branch of the subject. There was the Pook affair, as it was called—the case of tho grlrl found nearly dead in an Eltham lane, Liverpool, and the suspicion which fell upon her master, a printer in. Greenwich. This p«reon, Edmund Pook, was arrested or a speciously devised chain of reasoning, for which the police wero afterward blamed by the judge; Pook was held to be innocent, and no further light was thrown upon the affair. The triple murder in Ireland of Lord Lcltrira, his clerk, and the cab driver,

was an agrarian outrage on whlrrh the seal of secrecy was strictly enforced, and no clue to the mystery was ever found. At an earlier date, the supposed crime of Johan Pranz, accused of murCarkxe a housekeeper when he was committing a burglary, is an instance of the uncertainties of circumstantial evidence, strong suspicion of an individual's guilt being met by coincidences as strongly affirming his innocence. Certain papers belonging to Pranz were picked up in the room near the body; he had a shirt tied up with string . imJlar to that with which the murdered woman had been bound. Yet it was p oved by independent testimony that Franz had actually' lost his papers, and that the string of twine was of a kind Very commonly used, Pranz was acquitted, and the crime must be still attiibuted

to persons unknown

SOME OTHER CRIMES.

Of crimes less heinous than taking life many have occurred, and will yet occur, without being definitely cleared^

In 1848 a box of two thousand sovereigns wlas atoilan en Toutei between, Preads', the London ■ bankers, and Cornwall, without being traced. The same happened when the premises of Mersrs Baum, the bullion merchants, were broken into, and £10,000 in cash stolen therefrom. No clue was obtained to the robbery of Mr Cureion, of the British Museum, who was assaulted by three visitors who came ostensibly to se<> his ■eoUecrtion of icotae, and robbed him while insensible.

Jewol robberies, accomplished without leaving traces, have been frequent; for instance, the darinjr theft of the Duchess of Cleveland's diamonds from Battle Abbey, which was entered on the "portico burglary" principle at dinner time 'by means of ladders placed aga'nst the wall. The "swag," in this case, was valued at nearly £10,000, and included diamonds, rubies, emeralds, some of thorn the gift of royalty, but none of them were recovered; nor did the police ever come upon the track of the

thieves.

The immunity sometimes enjoyed by the criminal need not, 'however, encourage candidates for the perpetration of crime. There is nowadays a much keener ability on the part of the detective police, and they have greater chances of success from the publicity given to crimes by the newspaper press, the improved international arrangements for the tracking of suspected persons, and their extradition when caught! Great crimes are undoubtedly cosmopolitan nowadays; they are often planned in one European capital, committed in another, and the criminals take refuge In « third. This Is especially true of London, Paris, Brussels, Vienna, and Berlin; the detectives of all countries are in close touch, and when caller] upon render each other pompt and most effective assistance. Finally, the genrral acceptance of the principle of extradition ensures proper retribution in the end. But you must "first catch your hare," and, as has been shown in the foregoing account, the hunt is not always entirely successful.

The Salvation Army are holdingtheir annual meeting- and social in the Albert - street Barracks to-morrow evening-. Mr G. Fowlds, M.K.R., will preside. The chairman and others, and also local officers, will address the meeting-. There will be special singing, and a full brass band will play selections.

English flies give the result of the Amateur Golf Championship final tie between H. H. Hilton, last year's winner, and J. L. Low, of the .Royal and Ancient Club. The match took place at St. Andrew's. At The sixteenth hole Hilton was sl^ck on the green, and instead of getting a half tis he oug-ht to have done, gave a hole away and atood all square and 2 to s?o. Low was on at the seventeenth, while Hilton played the hole perfectly, and won it. The couple started for the home hole with .Hilton leading. There was much excitement ;ind v crowd of between 3000 mid 4000 persons surrounded the players. The lust hole was halved in 4. and Hilton, for the second rime, won the championship.

D.S.C.—-Large sale of English and colonial blankets, single size, 8/11 per pair, large size, 14/6, 17/6, and 21/.—D.S.C.—Ad.

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