New York dispatch. [volume], October 11, 1885, Image 1

About New York dispatch. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1863-1899

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PUBLISH BY A, J.. WILLIAMSON’S SONS.
VOL? XL.-NO. 52.
Entered at the Post Office at New York,
N. ¥., as Second Class Matter.
THE NEW YORK DISPATCH,
PUBLISHED AT
NO. 11 FRANKFORT STREET.
The NEW YORK DISPATCH is a journal of light, agree
able and sparkling Literature and News. One page is de
voted to Masonic Matters, and careful attention is given
to Music and the Drama.*
The Dispatch is sold by all News Agents of the city and
suburbs, at FIVE CENTS A COPY.
TERMS FOR MAIL SUBSCRIBERS:
SINGLE SUBSCRIPTIONS $2 50 a year
TWO SUBSCRIBERS 400 “
FIVE SUBSCRIBERS 900 “
ALL MAIL SUBSCRIPTIONS MUST BE PAID IN AD
VANCE. POSTAGE PAID EVERYWHERE BY THE
DISPATCH OFFICE.
Address NEW YORK DISPATCH,
Post Office Box No. 1775.
PLAYnNTPLAYERS.
THE JUDIC EYES.
Nancy Sykes’s Eyes — The New Fac
tor in Dramatic Art — A Boon for
tlie Daily Critics—Exit Legs, Enter
Eyes — Shrewd Mr. Grau.
BY JOHN CARBOY.
After the eminent slugger Mr. William Sykes had
murdered his mistress Nancy, and followed by his
dog was wandering in the suburbs of London, ho
was tortured by the presence day and night, sleep
ing or awake, by something even more horrible
than the chance of very speedily finding himself
under the gallows in the hangman’s grip.
At the wayside fan, in the fields, the hedges,
above and below—wherever he looked he was con
fronted by a pair of spectral eyes.
They were the eyes of the murdered Nancy—wide
open and glaring at him as they did in her dying
moments; as they did when he threw the cloth over
her dead face and fled away.
"The eyes again.” -The eyes haunted him,
were before him, until in the presence of the howl
ing mob thirsting for vengeance, he threw himself
from the house roof and deprived the hangman of a
job.
As was Mr. William Sykes so now the critics,
alleged and otherwise, of the daily press are haunt
ed by Eyes. The presence of those Eyes has intro
duced
ANEW FACTOR IN THE MENTAL PROCESS OF
CRITICAL ANALYSIS.
Unlike the supernatural duplicates of the visuals
of the dead Nancy, these Eyes are the eyes of a par
ticulary lively and healthy Anna.
In full her name is Madame Anna Judic.
In age, thirty-five; physique, robust; pulse, nor
mal; pus, laudable; temperature,and respiration fair
to middling; native of France; business, an actress;
present residence, Now York.
This diagnosis is not that of the eyes but of the
owner of the eyes.
As for the eyes, which —according to the critics,
are all there is of Madame Judic, her acting and
singing—they are not ghostly, they do not glare
stonily at anybody, be he car-driver or pen-driver.
On the contrary, they are as full of expression and
rhythmic beauty as the poet’s corner in a country
newspaper.
You can however get around that corner, and
away from the overpowering influence of the jing
ling tintinabulation of its lines and rhymes.
But a corner on the Judic eyes is quite another
thing. Look as you will, road whore you please in
your favorite looming or evening paper, and you
will have the Eyes.
In the Tribune dramatic department Judic does
nothing but " make eyes ” at the readers. While
her “ gloriously sensuous ” dexter orb is doing A
neat little job in the " subtlety of her art/’ the rare
"radiant ” sinister optic is softly warbling a
cbansonette. " ’
These eyes never permit a vulgar wink to mar
the "surface of their fathomless depths.” They
never roll. Their stock is never watered by tears.
They are—l am forced to acknowledge after a care
ful perusal of the Dailies—the most remarkable ani
mate curiosities—ocular freaks, as it were—ever
before seen outside of a dime museum.
They are French eyes—brilliants, not paste imita
tions. Judic merely came over with them as their
keeper, and by claiming them as a portion of her
personal effects, saved Maurice Grau from paying
the usual custom house duty upon jewels. It was
really
THE JUDIC EYES
which Grau engaged; it was the eyes which all Paris
worshiped and France glorified. Judic with any
other eyes would be no more attraction than the
average imported D’Oyly Carte chorister.
The critical analysis of the appearance, costume,
makeup, acting and singing of these artistic idylic
eyes is astonishing in its variety.
Ono describes them as " dove like in expression
and smoky topaz in color,” and that their line oi
work is " comedy in the gloaming.” And they
gloam accordingly. Mind you, their keeper Judic
gets no credit for having trained these performing
eyes.
We have had all sorts of trained curios as the
leading features of drama and comedy. Trick dogs,
educated bears and intellectual mules, and their
keepers and trainers have shared with them the
critical commendation of the press.
Joe Murphy is given equal prominence with his
pigeons and the horse in his " Kerry Gow.”
The Kiralfys are never forgotten in the mention
of their elephant and camels in their spectacular
leg shows.
Even there came in for a free luncheon of praise
on toast the keeper of the late lamented illus
trious Jumbo.
But now the line has been drawn and Judic is the
first victim of the new code.
We are no longer to have any consideration for
the trainer.
It is the magnificent and shapely limbs, the swel
ling and suggestive outlines of the bust of Ninon
d'Enclos, which are the artistes that double up in
*’Nanon”—Pauline Hall, being merely the trainer, is
a matter of no possible consideration. No doubt
Catherine Lewis devoted many weeks of patient
and continuous rehearsal to the task of
TRAINING HER LEGS
and other untamed anatomical attributes for the
purpose of giving them the emphasis of unlimited
loudness, not to say exposure of their perfection
in the Olivette Farandole.
She. the trainer is forgotten, but the effect of the
wild exuberant exhibit they made will linger long
in the memory of dude and bald-head.
Exit, therefore, Judic the trainer. Enter the
trained Eyes,
Or, as one of the Analysts hath noted, "Those
weird and languishing, luminous, electric sparks,
with the Soul as their dynamo;” enter these visuals
which—and here I quote another victim—"seem to
have the phosphorescent gleam and calm grandeur
of moonlight flecks upon a waveless sea.”
How perfect these—another quotation—" dreamy
windows of the mind’s studio through which its
mistress, Art, looks out upon the common-place
world,” were as Mlle. Nitouche de Flavigny I How
admirably they acted and sang in "La Femme
a’Papa ?”
Judic the bumble trainer was there, but the audi
ence and critics—especially the critics—saw nothing,
heard nothing, but the Eyes.
The Eyes had the call by a large majority.
Before Judic came, trained Eyes were an unnoticed
adjunct in the impersonation of a role and an un
known quantity in the illustration of comedy,
vaudeville, opera and drama.
In cocnic opera and burlesque the eyes have been
ol no more consequence than the microscopic
debris of a stridulatlng, wingless lightning bug.
The recognized exponents of lyric, art and bur
lesque acting have hitherto been legs, arms and
busts.
The legs were the. rhythmic melodies and the
busts tho patter-songs—the "catches” of the score.
The mental resources and the larynx and voices,
were merely the outcome of an exposure of female
anatomy in its most perfect condition made the
more effective by illusive but artistic padding, a
brevity of skirts and a superfluity oi calcium lights,
It is certainly a change as unexpected and abrupt
as it is revolutionary of all our former ideas of Art,
which this abandonment of legs and busts and even
of faces, glorious in their masks of grease paint,
India ink and rouge and the substitution of Eyes as
the trained and all-potent factors of mimetic art.
Evon the dramatic cocktail monkeying of the viva,
cious Lotta, with her lack of properly educated
Eyes, must now be considered as
" DEAD IN THE COMMON THOUGHT ”
Bob Morris and the Pink domino to the contrary
notwithstanding.
The Dolaro will charm us no longer with the luxu
rious revelation of het concretion of adipose tissue.
She hasn’t the Eyes, you see.
The public will no longer find joy in the shrug of
the plump shoulders and the wicked grimacing feat
ures of the Aimee. There is no artistic speculation
in her Eyes.
The stage, henceforth, must have its Eyes—melo
dramatic, spectacular and lyric. And there must
be no squinting.
The critics are wearied with the round of analy
zing the acting, business and talent of legs lyric or
legitimate.
| They have found a saving opportunity in the
mild and beatific radiance of the Judic Eyes.
If Judic had left her Eyes in Paris, the result
so far as her success here is concerned, would have
been lamentable—particularly to Maurice Grau and
the Teutonic Sykes of tho Tribune, Happily alike
with her parrots, her lap-dog and cigarette case,
she remembered to bring her Eyes—which are her
talent, the very essence, so to speak, of her art.
Suppose—and it is awful to contemplate the con
dition of tho musical critics of the daily press, if
the supposition were a fact—suppose, I say, that
these acting and lyric Eyes had been dull gray,
bullet-bluo, rose-pink—a smoky black or an expres
sionless hazy chestnut in color—what would have
been the condition of these critics?
The subject would not have been Eyes. Nor even
a question of legs, of facial make up, of shapely
arms and lovely shoulders. It would have been
merely Judic; only Judic tho actress; Judic the
comedienne—speaking in French.
Only two or three of the entire guild of critics
have any more knowledge of the French language
than Harry Hill has of Greek. In this instance the
poor fellows might sit in their aisle seats till dooms
day and know no more of the woman's meaning
than deaf and dumb children, unless they made a
holy show of their ignorance by publicly consult
ing Fred Rullman’s libretto printed In English.
And to secure ono of these
"BOOKS OF THE PLAY”
would cost fivo beers—otherwise twenty-five cents.
And would a Kneibel submit to such a deprivation
—merely for the sake of reading the English of a
vaudeville in which there was neither action nor
female anatomy suggestive of gush ?
Judic, with only the common stage eyes—a pair
of expressionless spheres underlined with India
ink and surmounted by patches of vermillion—
would have come and gone without more comment
than is usually bestowed upon the commonplace
exponents of art who come and go in the season’s
processions of combinations and other similar
"aggregations of talent.”
The idea of any actress claiming attention upon
our stage merely because she is a great artiste from
France having only ordinary Eyes for the interpre
tation and translation of a language of which the
critics are profoundly ignorant, would be absurd.
With tho old formula of legs and a plentiful lack of
costume, perhaps Judic might have had something
of commendation bestowed upon her, especially if
she had come endorsed as the queen regnant of the
Quartier Breda, or as the idol of the Quartier Latin.
Maurice Grau, however, understood the situa
tion.
"These ink-sprinkling gushers” quoth he
shrewdly unto Samuel of Grau, "don’t know any
thing of French, except the Fourteenth street
publisher French—they’re tired of the legs, bust
and ' magnificent beauty/talent dodge. We’ve got
4 to work up the boom another tack. We’ll give
'em the tip on Eyes.
"EYES ARE THE RACKET.”
Maurice’s head was level.
" Look at her Eyes !” he said with a majestic wave
of his maroon-colored glove.
" And Anna,” he whispered to the Judic,” work
’em on the Eyes, Make ’em gush I”
The Judic followed his instructions to the letter.
And now—Eyes—are trumps upon Wallack’s stage.
It is not the music of Herve, the libretto of Mm.
Hennequin and Millard; it is not the delicacy and
fineness of the French school of comedy acting; it
is not the excellence of the ensemble; in fact it is
not Judic as Antonine, Amelie or Anna; it is the all
pervading Eyes which are to lull to sweet forgetful
ness the sense of the musical and dramatic analysts
of the press.
What a tremendous and profound impression the
Janish—she is a J. without Eyes—might have made
if when she came over here to us she had polished
up her visuals.
Gone for instance to some lapidary of oculars in
Paris and had him recut her visual sparklers and
fashioned them into the brilliance and lustre of
solitaires.
There is Rhea, too, who needs a reburnishing of
the fascets of her not particularly flashing "jewels
pf sight.”
We will hereafter have no Lyceum Schools to
teach " the young idea how to shoot” for the next
town from a one-night stand. Action and speech
will be no longer necessary,
The art of acting will be all ih yoUr Eye. Scorn,
rage, love, joy, greed, hunger, thirst, sorrow and
all the varying emotions and conditions of life as
represented upon the stage will be expressed by
well-trained Eyes.
Their mute eloquence will know neither French,
Italian, English nor Spanish. It will arouse the
soul of the critic to a loftier plane of gush and
feuilleton flapdoodle, and will relieve him of the
trouble of coming down to the vulgar level of criti
cizing the merit of either actors or the play. It
will make it unnecessary that the critic shall have
had any previous knowledge of the drama, the
stage, tho art of acting, music, or in fact anything.
Like Old Buskin’s patent corn-husker, "Lor’
bless you, a child kin start it a-goin’, and it’ll run
right on and grind ef ther ain’t a year of corn with
in a mile of it.”
Give ’em Eyes, and even Judic’s French will not
stay their judgment.
And as long as we have her Eyes, age will not
wither nor custom stale their Infinite variety.
TELL THE TRUTH.
HOLD NOTHING BACK FROM TRF.
JUSTICE,
Margaret Dam (colored) entered the store of
Thomas Morris, No. 387 Seventh avenue, and after
buying two yards of oilcloth asked him to wrap it
in paper and tie it up. Because he declined to
make a parcel of it, she lifted a chair and him on
the eye, leaving it marked.
"Is that all that occurred?” asked Justice Power.
"Yes, sir.”
The girl said after she asked him to tie the oilcloth
he said: "Do you think this is a wholesale house?”
She had paid him and when he attempted to kick
her out of the place, she lifted the chair and hit
him.
A witness said he saw Morris run across the street
and hit the girl.
"Why didn’t you tell the whole truth when I
asked you ?” said the Justice.
“She came back after she bought the oilcloth. I
told her she had to take the oilcloth as it was—this
was not a dry goods clothing bouse.”
" Did you call this young woman any names ?”
"After she abused me.”
"She is discharged. You should have told the
truth when you were asked,” said the Justice.
NEW YORK. SUNDAY/ OCTOBER 11, 1885."
THE FARHER’S/rWO GUESTS
The Strange Story of a Mid
night Crime.
A Stranger Found Murdered in
the Spare Room.
His Money Discovered, in an Old
Teapot.
How the Real Criminal Was Brought
to Justice.
Robert Ormsby was a well-to-do farmer In Shrop
shire, England. At New Year’s, 1821, his eldest
daughter, Mary, who was head housemaid in a gen
tleman’s family in Cheshire, came to spend a week
with her parents. A heavy snow storm set in, and
in a few days the roads were blocked with the drift
ed snow. The farm-honse stood some two hundred
yards from the main road, running from Shrews'
bury to Birmingham, between which towns the
mail was carried in wnat was then known as a
mail-cart, somewhat resembling the present dog.
cart. The drivers of mail-carts in those days were
generally staid, respectable men, noted for s'rength
and courage, as it was no unusual thing for high
waymen to stop them, in the hope of finding money
in the mails, The driver very often took a passen
ger who sat alongside, and, of course, paid liberally
for the privilege.
On the night of January sth, in the year named,
there came to the door of the Ormsby farm a stran
ger. He was a large, well-made young man,
dressed in the garb of a respectable yeoman, carry
ing a knapsack and a strong stick. He said he was
.traveling to see his folks in the neighborhood of
Wolverhampton, and found it impossible to go on,
as the roads were so blocked with snow as to be im
passable in the darkness. He asked for shelter for
the night, and offered to compensate the farmer for
his trouble. Farmer Ormsby was a good-natured
man and admitted the stranger, remarking that he
must content himself with the settle before the
kitchen fire for a bed. The stranger said he was
satisfied, and was soon on familiar terms with the
family. He knew all about farming and cattle and
horses, and a great many things beside. He told
amusing stories and made himself very agreeable to
his host and hostess and their children,
STRANGER NUMBER TWO.
Just when they were about to sit down to a plen
tiful supper, a knock came to the door and another
stranger presented himself. He said that his name
was Hill, and that he was a lawyer from Birming
ham. He had gone to Shrewsbury on business and
was returning by the mail-cart, when Ned Brent,
the driver, found it impossible to proceed on ac
count of the depth of snow and the darkness, and
had therefore determined to return to Shrewsbury
until next day. The lawyer said he was benumbed
with the cold, and desired a shelter for the night,
offering a guinea for such accommodation as he
could get. The farmer hesitated at another addi
tion to the family, but at last consented, and there
upon the lawyer gave a whoop to the driver of the
mail-cart to let him know he would not return to
Shrewsbury with him.
It was arranged that the elder daughter who, as a
visitor, occupied the spare room, should give it up
to the lawyer and sleep with her mother, the farmer
being satisfied to turn in with the hired man for a
night.
At supper the talk turned on the storm and on
mail carts, and finally on highwaymen and thieves
in general. One story followed another, until the
farmer took a hand in and related how once he
came home late from market with a large sum of
money in his pocket and, being tired, went to bed
leaving the money in his clothes, and how next
morning he was going out to the field with the
money still on him when he remembered it. Go
ing back to the house, he said, he didn’t want the
bother of going up stairs to his bedroom, and so
slipped the notes into a jug that stood in the cor
ner cupboard, intending on his return to deposit
the money in his bureau. While he was away, and
while his wife was busy in the dairy, a thief en
tered the house and ransacked the bureau for
money, finding however only a few shillings. The
money was safe in the jug.
"Well,” said the lawyer, "I have £2,500 in my
possession, and shall keep it under my pillow. I
have a good sized pistol in my valise and any one
who attempts to rob me will fare badly.”
IN THE SPARE ROOM.
The family retired, the lawyer went to his room
and the first stranger lay on the settle by the fire
and smoked his pipe. Next morning when the two
sons of the farmer came down stairs, the stranger
was gone and the fire was nearly out. Breakfast time
came and the lawyer did not appear. The farmer
went to his room but could not gain admission. One
of the sons got a ladder and ascended to'the window
of tho room occupied by the lawyer. It was open
and tho young man entered, unbolted the door and
admitted his father, and drawing aside the curtains
of the bed, the lawyer was found lying on his back
with his throat cut. The bed was rumpled and
saturated with blood. The lawyer’s clothes lay
scattered around. His valise, emptied of its con
tents, which covered the floor, was lying in a cor
ner.
When the officers irom Shrewsbury came to the
farm, thus they found things in the bedroom. Out
side, beneath the window were footsteps in the
snow. A nimble man could, with the help of the
shutters of the room below, easily ascend from the
outside to the window above, which/iad not even a
hasp. The lawyer’s partner came on from Bir
mingham with expert detectives and made a search
ing inquiry into the murder and robbery, for the
money which the lawyer had had in his possession
was gone.
ThS footsteps below the window were so obliter
ated by the snow which had fallen as to be distin
guished with difficulty. Suspicion of course rested
on the nameless stranger and hQ wa§ bracked for
six miles on the road toward Birmingham. He was
last seen by a laborer, named Jackson, as he turned
into the coppice that ran by the park of Penn Hall,
and then all trace of him vanished. The officers
went to the hall but found that Mr. Tinsley, the
owner, had departed that morning for London. In
quiry showed that no person answering the de
scriptions of the stranger had been seen near the
hall.
In the meantime the coroner had commenced an
inquest. From the hired man of farmer Ormsby a
most important fact was obtained. With much re
luctance he testified that on the night of the mur
der the farmer occupied the same bed with him.
He awoke and found Mr. Ormsby out of bed, dress
ing. Wondering what it could mean, he lay mo
tionles. The farmer quitted the room and was away
about half an hour, as near as he could judge.
Search was now made about the house for the
missing money and in an old China teapot on the
mantel-shelf in the kitchen, the exact sum which
the lawyer had received in Shrewsbury was found.
FARMER ORMSBY’S STATEMENT.
Farmer Ormsby was placed under arrest and the
coroner’s jury brought in a verdict of wilful mur
der against him, though the man stoutly main
tained his innocence and told this story :
He went to bed in the hired man’s room at the
head of the stairs about ten o’clock. He had two
strangers in the house and it made him feel rest
less. He was just dozing off, however, when he
heard a footstep on the stairs and almost imme
diately afterward a door was gently closed. Fearing
that something might be wrong, he arose, put on
his breeches and jacket and in his stocking feet de
scended the stairs to the kitchen. There he found
the young stranger lying on the settle in front of
the fire, smoking. Ho told him he had heard a loot
step on the stairs and a door close and it had
alarmed him.
" Did you suspect me ?” the stranger said, with a
smile.
"I suspect no one,” the farmer replied; "but I
had two strangers in the house and I was bound to
be watchful.”
Ratios antr
After further talk, the stranger asked the farmer
to join him in a smoke and handed him his tobacco
pouch. The farmer filled his pipe and the two sat
talking for about twenty minutes. Tho clock struck
eleven as the farmer entered the kitchen and it was
twenty minutes past when he bade the stranger
good night. As they sat together, they heard a
horse neigh from the direction of the road two or
three times. The next evening, tho farmer said, he
and his sons found that tho door of the barn,
which opened on the road, had been wrenched open
and there were signs that a horse and vehicle had
been inside during the night. On the ground were
tobacco ashes, as though some one had been
smoking.
THE BOW STREET RUNNER.
Ormsby was committed to Shrewsbury Jail on the
coroner’s warrant.
Three weeks had passed away, when Mr. Wilson, a
Bow street runner, as the London detectives were
then called, drove up to the farm in a gig with the
coroner. He saw Mrs. Ormsby and her sons, but de
clined to say by whose authority he had oome. The
coroner, however, assured them that Mr. Wilspn was
duly empowered to investigate the murder of Law
yer Hill and that it was in the interest of the ac
cused man that he was there.
" I have read over all the testimony taken by the
coroner," said Mr. Wilson, "and made notes of what
I consider the important points. These I am going
to investigate, and I want you and your sons to aid
me in every way you can and to do just what I tell
you.”
He took a memorandum book from his pocket
and, having glanced over it, added :
"I see that farmer Ormsby says in his statement
that when he came down stairs about eleven o’clock
on that night and was sitting, smoking, with the
stranger, they heard a horse neigh twice or thrice
from the direction of the main road. I am also in
formed by the coroner that the morning after that
night your sons and your husband, Mrs. Ormsby,
found in the barn, near the road, signs that ahorse
and vehicle had been inside it over night. Has the
barn been touched since ? Anything moved or any
thing put into it ?”
" No, sir,” answered John, the elder son; ’’no one
has entered the place since that morning. We fast
ened the place up and it has not been disturbed.”
IN THE BARN.
"Ah, that is good,” the officer said; ”we will visit
the barn, if you please.”
On reaching the barn there were still the marks of
the wheels of a vehicle and signs that a horse had
been there. John and his brother George pointed
out the tobacco ashes on the hard floor.
"Just so,” said the officer; "with the horse and
vehicle, there was a man and he smoked.”
Then he walked over to the barn and carefully
examined every spot. Up against the side was a
wheelbarrow. The officer stooped over it and
reached down with his hand. He brought up a
short pipe which he held to the light and closely
scrutinized.
"Coroner,” said he, "this pipe had been just
lighted when it was placed there. See—the tobacco
is barely scorched. Observe too, a piece has been
broken off it and the sharp edges show that it was
not smoked after the fracture. See, too, this sharp
piece projecting at one side. There is a custom
among inn-keepers to write the name of a customer
on his new pipe, so that he may know it when he
calls again. You may observe that here is the first
stroao of a capital letter, the rest of the word being
gone with the piece broken off. Now, if we can find
the piece that fits this, we shall have the name of
the owner or the man who smoked it, and that is
doubtless the person who sought shelter in this
barn with his horse and vehicle on the night we are
interested in. This man had evidently that evening
quitted an inn where he was in the habit of going,
and, on starting on his journey, had broken the
long stem off so that he might be able to carry tty?
olher part in his pocket, ho#, in what pocket does
a man carry his pipe ? In nineteen cases out of
twenty in his waistcoat pocket. And how does he
carry it ? With the head downward, so that the pipe
stem sticks out, and if he leans up against any
thing, or is climbing, or has a struggle with any
man for instance, the stem is liable to be broken off.
What was this man doing that night which was like
ly to bring him in contact with anything that
would break off the stem of his pipe ? Fixing the
harness of his horse ? Then the broken stem would
be here. Let us go back to the house, if you
please.”
THE CHAMBER OF HORRORS.
On reaching the house, they went direct to the
spare bed-room. It was in exactly the condition in
which it was left when the body of the murdered
lawyer was removed. The officer searched all over,
among the bed-clothes, underneath the bed, shook
the strips of carpet, left no spot unscrutinized.
The broken pipe stem was evidently not there.
" Now,” said the officer, "wo will examine the
outside.”
They went round to the side of the house and
stood under the window of the fatal room. The
ground was still covered with snow, but a rapid
thaw had set in and the snow was quickly disap
pearing.
" Bring me some old fence rails, gates, or any
thing of the sort,” the officer said to the young men.
They departed, and soon returned with a quantity
of old rails and a couple of light gates.
“Now get me a hammer and plenty of nails,” the
officer said.
This request was complied with, and then the
officer went to work and put up a fence around the
spot of ground under the window, so as to take in
a space ten feet by six.
" Young men,” he said to the two youths, “see
that no living thing goes within that fence until I
return on Friday, when I expect the snow will all
have passed away. Now, be very particular, for the
life of your father may depend on your preserving
this enclosed spot untouched.
THE PIPE STEM.
The promise was given to guard it carefully, and
the officer and the coroner departed. On the Friday,
three days later, the officer with tho
Coroner, the stow was melted, and the ground
within the fence under the window was cleared.
Right against tho wall, and immediately under the
window, a piece of pipe stem lay. The officer picked
it up and wiped it. Then he drew from his pocket
the head of the pipe found in the barn. The stem
fitted it exactly. As the officer held it up, he called
the coroner’s attention to the name that now
clearly appeared written on the stem.
*• It is as I suspected,” he said; and they went
into the house.
"Let your mind be at rest,” the officer said to
Mrs. Ormsby; "in a short time we shall, I have no
doubt, clearly establish your husband’s inno
cence.”
The officer and the coroner got into their gig and
drove to Shrewsbury. They put up at the sign oi
the Old Talbot, went into the smoking-room and
called for pipes and ale. After awhile, the officer
said to the landlord :
“We shall want these pipes again, put our
names upon them and put them away. It will do
if you put a Y on my friend’s pipe and a W on
mine.”
The landlord took a pen and in laborious hand
put the marks upon the pipes and then placed them
in a closet with others. After the landlord had re
tired the officer went to the closet and examined the
pipes. Among them was one marked with the same
name as had been deciphered upon the pipe and
stem found on the Ormsby farm.
They went out and walked about the town. On
their return they had dinner.
THE MAIL ARRIVES.
"When do you expect the mail from Birming
ham ?” the officer asked the landlord.
" At two o’clock,” was the answer.
It was now one, and the two men sat and smoked
and conversed. A few minutes before two the mail
cart drove up to the inn and Nod Brent, the driver,
descended. He had already left the mails at the
post-office and had come to the inn to refresh him
self and his horse. He entered the room and called
for dinner. He glanced at the two men who were
seated with their backs toward him. Then he
walked toward the fire and turned his back to it.
As he did so be recognized the coroner who said:
" How are you, Mr. Brent ?”
The officer rose, laid down his pipe, stretched
himself and yawned.
•'lt is chilly.” he said and went toward the fire.
The coroner rose at the same time and went
toward the closet, saying :
"I'll put my pipe away whore I shall find it
again.”
At this moment the officer suddenly faced Brent
and said :
" You are my prisoner. If you offer any resis
tance a bullet will go through your brain in an in
stant. Look there I” and he pointed toward the
coroner.
Brent turned his head and saw the coroner stead
ily aiming a pistol at his head. At the same mo
ment and before he was aware, the officer had hand
cuffed him.
"For the murder of Lawyer Hill at the Ormsbry
farm,” the officer said quietly.
Brent made no reply. He turned deadly pale and
staggered to a chair. Greatly to the astonishment
of the landlord and the townsmen who happened to
be about, Brent was led, handcuffed, to the town
jail. Before night, however,, every one knew that
he was accused of the murder of the lawyer.
Farmer Ormsby, in the course of a week, was re
leased, and, on the assembling of the grand jury,
Brent was indicted. At the Spring Assizes he was
tried, convicted of wilful murder, and sentenced to
be hanged. The sentence was duly executed,
THE CONFESSION.
Brent confessed to the crime. When he found
the lawyer had so much money about him, he con
ceived the idea of murdering him and getting pos
session of it. The fact, however, that he had quit
ted Shrewsbury with him in the mail-cart, was well
known to a score of people, and this showed him
the folly of attempting to commit the crime on the
road with any chance of evading detection and
punishment. He had often, in the stress of weather,
stayed all night at Farmer Ormsby’s, and knew ex
actly the situation of the spare room and that its
window was without a fastening and easy of access
from the outside. Then he pretended that the
roads were impassable, and so worked upen the
lawyer’s fears that he grew anxious to stay at the
farm all night rather than face the storm and re
turn to Shrewsbury with Brent. Having satisfied
himself that the lawyer’s application for shelter had
been successful, from receiving the signal agreed
upon, Brent returned as far as the barn, where he
drew up. Descending, he easily wrenched open the
large doors and led his horse into the barn, closing
tho doors when the horse and vehicle were safe in
side. He extinguished one lamp—for the cart was
provided with a lamp on each side—and passed the
time until midnight in smoking and drinking from
the flask of rum which he always carried. Then,
having finished his pipe, he put it in his vest pocket
and went up to the farm without fear of discovery,
as tho snow was falling and must effectually shield
him from the view of any one; though it was highly
improbable that any person would be out about the
farm on such a night at such an hour.
Satisfying himself that all was still within the
house, he climbed the wall and entered by the win
dow, noiselessly. Drawing his jack knife, he
searched around for the valise, crawling on his
hands and knees. Soon as he was satisfied that the
valise was nowhere about the room, and then con
cluded that the lawyer must have it under his pil
low. Approaching the bed, however, he felt tho
valise lying on a small table at the head of the bed.
As he was about to grasp it, the lawyer started up.
In an instant, Brent slipped to one side. The law
yer drew aside the curtain, and asked " Who’s
there ? ’ The next moment ’Brent’s knife was
drawn across his throat, and he fell back, dead.
After Farmer Ormsby’s restoration to his family,
Mr, Tingley, the young squire of Penn Hall, called
at the farm,
THE UNKNOWN STRANGER’S STORY.
"You remember that dreadful night?” he said.
" Well, I am the stranger who lay all night on the
settle by the fire. I had been on a little adventure
in which a woman was concerned, and disguised
myself, and, finding the storm too much for me on
my return homeward, applied to you for shelter.
On my return home the next morning, I found a
message awaiting me, announcing the severe illness
of my inotner, and I started out at once for London.
Soon sfter my arrival there I received a letter from
my steward, giving me all the particulars of the
murder. Knowing what I knew about the lawyer’s
having descended in the night and placed his money
in the old teapot—evidently induced to do so from
the story you had told at supper about the jug and
the burglar—and of your having come down-stairs
and sat for some time with me, and remembering,
also, the neighing of the horse, I sought out the
most famous London detective, and sent him down
with a letter to the coroner, so that the matter
might be thoroughly investigated. I didn’t wish,
for good reasons, to appear in the case, though I
certainly should have done so rather than allow you
to suffer. The Rudd farm will fall in in a year, and
I will then give you a lease of it, if you would like
to become my tenant. It is the best land in the
county.”
PIE AND PIE-BITERS.
A Dainty Which is as Old as An
cient Egypt.
PIEDEVOURERS IN GREECE AND ROME.
Gluttons of the Middle and Pie-
Gourinands of the Last Century.
SOME MAMMOTH PASTRIES.
How Soma Popular Pies Were
Invented.
WILLIAM PENN AS A PIE-BITER.
A local dally recently regaled its readers with a
terrific arraignment of pies and pie-eaters. It de
nounced the one as a barbaric invention of America
and excoriated the others as barbarians fit only to
live in America. To judge from the tone of the ar
ticle, the writer should have been an Englishman
and the paper it was published in an English pa
per, instead of a writer and a journal appealing to
the American public for support. The most im
portant fact about the matter is, however, that the
pie was known as a gastronomic dainty long before
America had found a place on the maps ,of the
world. It is an old English Christmas song of the
time of Columbus which says:
Drink now the strong beer.
Cut the white loaf here,
The while the-meat is shredding.
For the rare mince pie
And the plums stand by,
To fill the paste that’s kneading.
About as far back as one can trace the existence of
the pie is to the ancient Egyptians. Pies and tarts
were among the dainties served at the banquet
table in ancient Thebes, and there is a record pre
served to that effect in one of the faded frescoes
still discernible upon its ruined walls.
GAME MONSTER PIES.
Meat piefl were probably the first invented. They
were known to the Romans who were fond of game
put up in this way; nearly everything edible and a
good deal that we do not esteem edibles nowdays
went into these old pies.
There is a story told of an entertainment at the
Earl of Carlisle’s, where one person ate to his own
share a pie that had cost ten pounds, and that had
in it, among other ingredients, ambergris, musk,
and "magisterial of pearl.” What "magisterial of
pearl” is, is not explained by the historian. The
nursery rhyme which tells us of four-and-twenty
blackbirds being baked in a pie was literally realized
by Queen Elizabeth, who used to have at every
state dinner a huge pie, from which, when the top
was lifted off, a covey of larks or thrushes flew out,
twittering and caroling for joy at their release.
The virgin queen’s fondness for meat pies was so
notorious, that when Sir Robert Sidney was gov
ernor at the Hague, and wished to obtain permis
sion to return, he sent her as a gift, along with his
petition to that end, two boar pies. He had a num
ber of these made up and shipped to his wife,
who, after presenting two to the queen, distributed
the others among the ministers whom she hoped
would help her lord’s suit along. The queen was
on the eve of signing Sir Robert’s recall when she
accidentally learned of this, and was so wroth that
she threw her pen away and permitted him to
remain. When any bribing was being done she
wanted It all herself.
The pie in which the dwarf Sir Geoffrey Hudson
was served up at the banquet to King Charles I.
and Queen Henrietta is a historical viand. It is
generally esteemed a huge article of pastry, but a
still bigger one was served at the table of Sir Henry
Grey, in London, for Christmas, in 1770. It was
nearly nine feet in circumference, and weighed
nearly two hundred pounds. It took two men to
lift it, and was fitted in a case running on four little
wheels, being shoved from guest to guest at the
table, for them to serve themselves.
Its contents included four geese, two turkeys,
two rabbits, four wild ducks, two woodcocks, six
snipe and four partridges, two curlews, two veal’s
tongues, seven blackbirds and six pigeons. Two
bushels of flour and twenty pounds of butter were
OFFICE, NO. 11 FRANKFORT BT.
consumed by tho crust. It was made by Sir Har
ry’s housekeeper at Bawick, Mistress Dorothy Pat
terson,
PIES IN OLD ENGLAND.
A fashionable pie in feudal times was made of a
peacock, its head and tail being fastened to each
side of the crust and the beak being richly gilt.
Served in this style, it was esteemed a noble dainty.
In Scotland, when the Princess Margaret was mar
ried to Alexander lll.—some seven centuries ago—
apple pies were on the bill of fare. Herring and eel
pies wore popular in old England. The following
recipe for an ancient game pie, eaten at Christmas,
1394, by Richard IL, is said to have been tried by a
modern epicure, and found excellent:
"Take pheasant, hare and chicken or capon, of
each one, with two partridges, two pigeons and two
coningies (hares), and smite them in pieces and
pick clean away therefrom all the bones that ye
may, and therewith do them into a shield or case of
good paste made craftily into the likeness of a bird’s
body, with the livers and hearts, two kidneys of
sheep and seasoning or forced meats and eggs made
into balls. Cast thereto powder of pepper, salt,
spice and strong vinegar or catsup and pickled
mushroons; and then take the bones and let them
steeple in a pot, to make a good broth for it, and do
it into the case of paste, and close it up fast and
bake it well, and so serve it forth; with the head of
one of the birds stuck at the one end of the case,
and a great tale at the other, and divers of his long
feathers set in cunningly all about him.”
From the above it will be noted that catsup is a
much more venerable sauce than it is generally
supposed to bo. English catsup was at that time
made of walnuts.
Pepys, in his diary, speaks of taking dinner with
William Penn on his wedding day, at which they
had, "beside a good chine of beef and other good
cheer, eighteen mince pies—the number of years he
has been married.” Of another wedding feast, the
next month—that of Sir William Ballen—ho says,
somewhat obscurely, it must be confessed :
"Among other frolics—this being their third year
—they had three pyes, whereof the middlemost was
made of an oval form in an oval hole within the
other two, which made much mirth and was called
the middle pi&ce. We had great striving to steal a
spoonfull out of it, and I remember Mrs. Mills, the
minister’s wife, did steal one for me and did give it
me; and, to end all, one lady did fill the pie full of
white wine—at least a pint and a half—and did
drink it off fora health to Sir William and my lady,
it being the greatest draught that ever I see a wo
man drink in all my life.”
Penn and Pepys seem to have been quite intimate,
for the latter records how the founder of Pennsyl
vania borrowed dishes and utensils from him when
he ran short on great occasions. He speaks of at
tending, in 1667, a wedding at Sir William Penn’s,
where they "dined upon nothing but pigeon pyes,
which was such a thing for him to invite all the com
pany to that I was ashamed.” Among other pastries
to which the garrulous chronicler alludes is "a fine
salmon pie,” cooked by his wife, at a dinner where
they also had a roasted swan. A lamprey pie was
given at another of his dinners. Once when he had
Fenn to dinner, he gave him a shoulder of venison
roasted, another baked, "and the umbles baked in a
pie.” The umbles are the entrails of animals,which
were esteemed a dainty by epicures, and such a
worthless thing by common people that to eat
"umble pie” meant to take what no one else want
ed. TbS modem proverb, "to eat humble pie,” is
well known.
PASTRY IN FRANCE.
Pastry is first mentioned in France in the chroni
cles of the reign of Charlemagne. The French
invented the snail pie in the time of Louis XIV.
Among the pictures belonging to the Duke of Des
lYlouslipe inj the dressing-rooms at Cheswick House
is one by Murillo, representing a beggar boy eating
a small pie. Louis XIV. must have had a terrific
appetite and an iron-lined stomach it the old
Duchess of Orleans does not stretch the truth in her
memoirs. She says : "I often saw him eat four
platesful of different soups, a whole pheasant, a
partridge, a plateful of salad, mutton hashed with
garlic, two good-sized slices of ham, a dish of pastry
and afterward fruit and sweetmeats.” Poor Louis,
with all his appetite, dared not touch a mouthful
before it had been tested by an army of satelites,
who ate of each dish to ascertain if it was poisoned.
The priesthood has always had a weakness for
pastry. It was a venison pastry Friar Tuck gave to
Richard of the Lion Heart when be entertained him
in his cell in Sherwood Forest, as every reader of
"Ivanhoe” will remember, and you encounter the
pastry in all the old monkish chronicles. In Lent
it was made of fish and in other seasons of the best
of meat or game. Indeed, not a little of the good
cookery of the past originated in the convent, and
there is to this day in France a pie called the
"priest’s pie,” because it is a regular and his
torical conventional dainty.
Nobody knows exactly when the famous pate de
foie gras, or goose liver pies were invented, but they
are a French invention. They are pies stuffed with
truffles and the livers of geese, which are forced to
an enormous size by a peculiar system of feeding
•and confinement. They are a rich and costly dainty
and have gone out of fashion of late years. Most of
the pate de foie gras sold in America is made here.
Indeed the geese are fattened and pies made on the
Strasburg plan all the world over now.
Other fowl beside geese are reared in the same
way, and the pies are frequently adulterated with
chicken and turkey livers. There is a story of a
French queen who paid 1,600 francs to have three
geese fattened so that their livers should be big
enough to make into a pie for her. The same
method used for swelling the goose’s liver was prac
ticed in ancient Rotne. There is no secret about
the process. It consists simply in cooping the un
fortunate fowl up in a hot room and gorging it with
food till it dies. Then its liver, which owes its en
largement to a malady natural to this unnatural
confinement and dieting, is bloated and diseased
enough to be a bit dainty for an epicure with a
strong stomach and a purse to match.
PIE EATERS PERILS.
The poor goose is avenged however by nature.
The pate de foie gras has proved fatal to more than
one epicure. It is so savory, what with its spicing
and construction, that there is a constant tempta
tion to over-eating contained in it, and more than
one high-liver has gained a surfeit from it that cost
him his life. Indeed, the game pie also has a mur
derous record for itself, thanks to its richness and
indigestibility. The worst that can be said about
the American pie is that too much of it promotes
dyspepsia. It has not yet won a record of assassin
ation.
The first pies, as we have said, were doubtless
made of meat. But fruit pies, too, are of very an
cient origin. The Greeks and Romans ate tarts
made of figs and apricots, and they were popular in
Egypt before Christ. At first pies of fruit were
made like those of meat and game, of great size
and richness. They only began to grow smaller
with the commencement of the century, when
habits began to be more refined. In the old days
an apple pie used to be baked in a pan such as we
roast a joint in nowadays and tarts were as big as
our factory pies. Among the curious objects made
up into pies of old were potatoes, which were cut
up like apples and sweetened. Nowadays ap excel
lent pie is made out of potatoes mashed up and
baked in a crust and seasoned. Down South a popu
lar pie is made out of mashed sweet potatoes, sea
soned and spiced. Another good pie is made of
meat with a crust of mashed potatoes instead of
dough. This is an old English recipe recently re -
viyed.
The pie epicure is as old as the pie itself. One of
the greatest worshippers of fruit pies known was
Lord Dudley, of whom it was said that he never
even made a days’ journey without a supply of pies
in his coach. He was so fond of apple pie that he
could not dine comfortably without it. On one
occasion at a state dinner he missed his favorite
dish. "God bless my soul I” he exclaimed, "no
apple pie,” and he got up and went off to buy a
dinner at a tavern where he knew he could got what
he wanted. Peter the Great was another pie wor
shipper. He was in the habit of purchasing his
pastry from a street hawker and that worthy’s
wares pleased him so well that he made him his pas
try cook and afterward his favorite counsellor, and
ha died Prince Menzikoff, Prime Minister, and the
richest subject in Europe.
BRITISH PIES AND PIE BITERS.
But the pie, taken altogether, is a much more
typical dish of England than any other country. In
the last century no meal there was complete with
out it, and it is a standard comestible to this day.
Then a hot pie was served for dinner, was cut into
cold for supper, warmed over for breakfast and
served for lunch cold again. The oyster and the
tripe pie are of English origin. So, too, is the steak
and kidney and the veal and ham pie. Mutton and
pork pies are of English invention. The Kit Kat
Club is said to have begun to meet for the purpose
of eating the super-excellent mutton pies made by
a well known London publican named Christopher
Kat. The mince pie, which is by ignorant scrib
blers flung in our faces so often as a typical Yankee
concoction, is as old and as English as Richard the
Third. The pumpkin pie is only a native dish
based on the fruit pies of Europe. The difference
between America and Europe chiefly is that where
the meat pie is most popular over there it is the
fruit pie which is so widely consumed here.
The pie biter is also said to be a purely American
character. This is not so. In the old country
fairs of Yorkshire three centuries ago, there were
contests as to which of the Yokels could eat the
most pie, and others to decide which could bite
through the most tarts at once, and on these latter
occasionsit was customary to slip bits of tin and
iron into the vic-s so as to break the contestants
teeth, just us ii is the practice in Texas aud other
PRICE FIVE CENTS
A FIRST LOVE-MAKING.
BY LUCY CLIFFORD.
A land there is beyond the sea
That I have never seen,
But Johnny says he’ll take me thert-
And I shall be a quoen.
He’ll build for me a palaeo there.
It’s roof will be of thatch,
And it will have a- little porch
And everything to match.
And he’ll give me a garden green,
And he’ll give me a crown
Of flowers that love the wood and field
And never grow in town.
And we shall be so happy there,
And never, never part,
And I shall bo the grandest queen—
The queen of Johnny’s heart.
Then, Johnny, man your little boat
To sail across tho sea;
There’s only room for king and queen—
For Johnny and for me.
And, Johnny, dear, I’m not afraid
Of any wind or tide,
For I am always safe, my dear.
If you are by my side.
(Ming Mtorg.
A BITTER HARVEST
BY MARY CROSS.
CHAPTER IX.
“THS MAN WHO DROPPED THAT GLOVE WAS
FRANCIS MAINWARING.
Sir Charles wont away from the Hights down
cast and sad; in all his life he had never re
ceived so great a shock. Instead of going
direct homo, he wont byway of the plantation
wherein that ghastly discovery had been madci,
and there ho found Detective Amory and the
constable.
“Make any use of mo you please,” said Sir
Charles. “That unfortunate gentleman was a
personal friend of mine, and the son of an old
friend. I feel it my duty to aid in bringing his
murderer to justice, and I beg you to do all in
your power.”
“Who knows most about Mr. Doring, Sir
Charles ? Mr. Mainwaring, I think you said 1”
“ Yes; he was entirely in tho Squire’s confi
dence, I believe. But ho is scarcely in a fit state
to be questioned now.”
“ That was he who camo up, was it ?” queried
Amory, in a musing tone. “So ! But the
sooner he is questioned tho better, Sir Charles.
He may tell me if the Squire had any enemy,
or if any person benefited by his death. Be
cause I do not believe that it has been done
for tho sake of robbery. The emptying of his
pockets and the taking away of his watch may
be only a blind. I have known that done be
fore.”
“ Well, it is in your hands,” returned Sir
Charles ; “ I suppose you have made no further
discoveries here ?”
“ None. But the place is not yet thoroughly
searched.”
Mr. Amory put up his note-hook, and went to
Dering Heights, where the housekeeper re
ceived him tearfully and in terror—such horri
ble things were happening ! She could tell him
very little, and he asked for Mr. Mainwaring.
Mainwaring was in the room whore Randal
had been laid, and Mrs. Hornby could “ hardly
find it in her heart ” to disturb him, she said ;
but, Amory insisting, she delivered tho mes
sage, and Mainwaring answered briefly, and
after a pause, that he would come down-stairs
directly.
Amory had not to wait very long ere tho young
man appeared, pale of face, heavy of eye, and
very much depressed.
“ I am sorry to disturb you, sir,” Amory be
gan ; “ but moments are precious, and the soon
er I get back on the track the better. I wish to
ask you one or two questions. Can you throw
any light on this affair ?”
“ None whatever. 1 had only returned this
morning, I had no thought of—murder. I can
scarcely realize it yet,” he replied abstractedly.
“ Had Mr. Dering any enemies ?”
“Not to my knowledge. 1 remember him
saying once that I was his only friend, and him
self his only enemy.”
“So 1 But some person would benefit by bis
death perhaps ? There must be a motive for the
crime.”
“ The person benefitting most by bis death
stands before you,” said Mr. Mainwaring
quietly.
“ I beg your pardon, sir, I am sure. You can
not give me any clue ?”
“No. I have not had time to think yet, I jam
confused about it all,” replied Mainwaring, put
ting his hand to his head ; “ it has been a great
shock to me. You can understand that ?”
“I will come back again, sir. Perhaps you
may then be able, to recollect something that
would throw a light upon the mystery.”
“If I do, you shall hear from me. At present
I seem capable of nothing. We were friends a
long time,” he added simply and gravely, ‘\and
I—l—feel it very much.”
Meanwhile, Sir Charles had returned ito Top
plingtowers, where his wife, having passed from
one fainting-fit into another, had been carried
to her room; the others were all talking of the
unfortunate Dering.
“It is a dreadful affair,” said Sir Charles—
“horrible to think of one’s friend killed almost
at one’s door I”
“What.does Amory say?” asked Cswestre.
“Very little as yet.”
“Detectives are not much good,” Lord
Ploughshares observed; “they nevah find ont
anything in these fimes. They are only pre’.cr
naturaly clevah in Wilkie Collins’s novels.”
“Amory would be more than preternaturally
clever,” said Wilmot, “if in so short a space of
time he had got on the track.”
“It may bo the work of poachers,’ suggested
Ploughshares languidly.
“Idon’t think so,” returned Sir Charles rath
er warmly. “ Amory has one small clew, which
indicates that the murderer was not a common
rough. At least that is my opinion.”
“ That is the glove ?” queried Oswestre.
“ What glove?” asked Lord Plough shares.
“ A glove has been found, dropped by the vil
lain in his flight, wo suppose. A lady’s glove it
is, and, I am sure, did not belong to Randal
Dering.”
“ A lady’s glove !” repeated Theo, looking up.
“Alady’s glove,”echoed Sir Charles. “They
will not have much difficulty in fin din ", the own
er, I think, or, at least, in tracing out something
about it.”
“ That is a small enough clew,” put ■ Plough
shares contemptuously; “there are a number
of ladies’ gloves m the world.”
“But they are not all gray, fas' .ed with
pearl and gold links,” said Lord Osw ;»e.
“Why, Maud, what is the matter?” c led Wil
mot, for bis sister had suddenly risen, and stood
grasping the tabled her face perfectly colorless.
“My deah Miss Warrington 1” exclaimed