The Spiritualists and the Detectives Part 29

Some, who had given Lyon's counsel depositions comprehensive enough to have crushed her in court, were compelled by her to depose under oath that their previous depositions given Mr. Bangs were made under a misapprehension of facts. Others were induced to swear that they were mistaken in her ident.i.ty, which would naturally have the effect of breaking the chain of evidence connecting her with her numberless different aliases, and therefore with her numberless offences against the laws and society; so that unless our work had been, in this respect, anything but faultless, Mr. Lyon would have certainly suffered defeat.

As the date of trial at Batavia neared, however, although the woman had showed great skill in her management of her own case, and had got things into as good shape for herself as nearly any lawyer in the country could have done, she suddenly changed her decision regarding conducting the case personally, and engaged the services of a Rochester lawyer of good repute, who certainly would not have pleaded her cause had he at first been aware of her character in the slightest degree.

At last the case came to trial at Batavia, Judge Williams presiding, and was considered of sufficient importance to command the quite general attention of newspapers, and a large number of reporters were in attendance, while the little city had never before attracted such a crowd of curious people, brought there and kept there by the great interest which the trial had awakened.

Mr. Lyon seldom appeared in court, being detained in Rochester by the faithful and still voluble Harcout, where the latter busied himself in predicting Mrs. Winslow's downfall on account of the thorough manner in which he had conducted matters, and in constant trips to the newspaper and telegraph offices for the latest news concerning the progress of the case.

At Batavia Mrs. Winslow had in some unexplainable manner worked up quite a feeling in her behalf, and had busily engaged herself, laboring day and night, in all the little things that form public opinion as well as cause the application of law to individual preferences, whether justice enters into such decisions or not.

Especially was her business ability shown in securing a jury a portion of whom she brazenly boasted _dare_ not find for the defendant. She had evidently given up all expectation of a verdict in her favor; but, in perfect accord with her line of policy to annoy her victim into a settlement, had arranged matters in every respect so that there would be delay, that as much as possible nauseating scandal should reach the public to react upon Lyon, and that in every way the outcome of the case would be to belittle, bemean and disgrace him, for having had to do in any way with so bad a woman as she knew herself to be.

The latter was a point most people's pride would prevent them from making. She had lost that, but her active mind saw how revolting it all would be to him, and her cupidity, greed and vindictiveness made the prosecution a persecution that had a measure of fiendish pleasure in it for her.

Here her mental and her pecuniary resources were again demonstrated in a way that surprised everybody at all cognizant of her habits and history.

The cost of carrying on a case of this importance was very large. Money had unquestionably been largely used in bribery. Many of the affidavits she had so expeditiously secured had been purchased outright. The court costs were no inconsiderable sum. Her lawyer, feeling somewhat doubtful of her character, and wholly satisfied of her irresponsibility, demanded his fee--and it was a large one--in advance. But every demand, save those that would not injure her case by refusing, was promptly met, and the mysterious source of supply seemed as exhaustless at the end as at the beginning; though at all times she was a female combination of the Artful Dodger and Job Trotter, capable of compelling confidence and sympathy. During the progress of the trial she also had time for the practice of her spiritualistic mummeries, and so worked upon the ignorance, pa.s.sions, and pockets of a few wealthy farmers, who were in attendance at court, that she drove a thriving trade in revelations and prophecies that, whatever other effect they might have, certainly brought her large sums of money.

Although the larger amount of evidence on both sides was of a doc.u.mentary character, the case occupied nearly a week, and public interest was wrought up to the highest possible pitch of excitement as day after day some startling episode or dramatic incident was developed; and finally, when Judge Williams charged the jury and that body retired for consultation, both sides of the case had been so ably conducted, such a terrible flood of vileness had been launched upon the community, and so intense was the feeling against the woman on the part of the public--who condemn with a terrible intensity when once made aware of the danger in the heart and life of a social a.s.sa.s.sin, that the pretty city of Batavia was all awhirl from agitation and excitement.

All this had been greatly increased by the following dispatches from St.

Louis to the Rochester papers, which had, of course, been received and widely read in that section, and were all preceded by an item clipped from the Detroit _Tribune_, to the effect that the notorious female, Mrs. Winslow, had been indicted in St. Louis as a common scold, and several public speakers therein named had better take warning. The first dispatch read:

"The trial of Mrs. Winslow, charged with common barratry, has been proceeding in the Four Courts all day. Scores of lawyers are here from all parts of the West, as witnesses for the prosecution. The case excites great interest, a similar one never having occurred in St. Louis before."

The second and final dispatch from St. Louis on the subject was:

"The case of the notorious Mrs. Winslow, indicted for common barratry, terminated to-day. The jury a.s.sessed her punishment to be six months'

imprisonment in the county jail."

These dispatches, with the editorial comments they evoked, had been received during the progress of the case, and though it was too late to offer the facts in evidence as to the woman's character, they had intensified the feeling against her until Mrs. Winslow was given an opportunity of realizing something of the depth of human scorn.

A day pa.s.sed, but no agreement. What could it mean? the public asked.

The second day, being Sunday, pa.s.sed slowly over the town, for no news of the jury could be obtained; and though it was a raw winter's day, the streets were full of people anxious to learn the result. Monday came and went, and still the jury were out. Whispers of bribery now began to fly about the city, and when the fourth day had pa.s.sed with no agreement and with repeated requests from the jury that they might be discharged, the whole city was filled with indignation, while public resentment ran so high that it was with some personal risk that this exponent of Spiritualism pa.s.sed to and fro between the court-room and her hotel.

Finally, it being ascertained that the jury disagreed irreconcilably, they were called into court for their discharge, and filed solemnly into their box. After a silence that could be felt had settled upon the vast audience, Judge Williams wheeled around, and, facing the jury--many of whom shrank from his severe and penetrating glance--in a voice of quiet power, his whole bearing being one of dignified scorn, he delivered with great solemnity the following well-deserved rebuke and protest against the corruption of the power of the jury, and its contempt of justice and the sacred dignity of the Court:

"GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY--I had hoped you would agree upon a verdict. The cause is a plain one, and there is no need of a disagreement. Another trial would be expensive to the county, and would occupy much time. A second trial would again crowd this court-room with a throng of auditors, who would listen day after day to the disgusting depositions which are on file in this cause. One trial such as this is too much for the decency and morality of any community, and another jury should never be called to pa.s.s upon this case. It is the policy of all courts to secure agreements from juries, and in such a case as this, more than in almost any other, a disagreement should not be allowed.

"You are, after being out four days, irreconcilably divided. Some of you, I know, are determined to be only guided by the evidence and the law, as given to you by this Court. For your long and persistent resistance of all attempts on the part of some of your number to prevent justice, you are ent.i.tled to my sincere thanks and those of all right-minded men in this community. Others there are upon this jury who, I am bound to believe, have consulted only their pa.s.sions and prejudices; have deliberately ignored the evidence and the instruction of the Court, and are anxious to perpetrate what they know or might have known, was gross injustice. If there are such men upon this jury, their conduct merits severest condemnation. I have great respect for the honest convictions of jurors, even when I think they are wrong. I could not censure jurors for honest prejudices; but I can have no respect for men who, from base and unworthy motives, seek to secure unworthy ends.

"If any one was to look leniently upon the plaintiff, it would, of course, be her counsel. But to make twelve honest men ever see that she was ent.i.tled to a verdict of even one cent, is a work that transcends human ability.

"One of the plainest principles of law applicable to all civil cases, is that the plaintiff can only recover where there is a fair preponderance of evidence in his favor. Upon the princ.i.p.al question in this case--that is, whether or not there was an agreement of marriage between plaintiff and defendant--they were the only witnesses. Supposing both to be equally credible, how can the plaintiff recover when every act affirmed by her is denied by the defendant? But are they equally credible? The defendant is proved by the evidence to be a man of character, reputation, and social position. Who is the plaintiff? By her own evidence she is one who years ago deserted her husband and three children in Wisconsin, and commenced the life of an itinerant fortune-teller. Since then, as a clairvoyant, a mesmerist, a medium, she has perambulated the country, professing in her handbills to predict future events and to cure all manner of diseases by her occult arts.

"She has a.s.sumed in her travels those invariable proofs of guilt, _aliases_. She has been proven, by her own writing, daily conversation, and every-day conduct, to be grossly profane and indecent. By the testimony of several unimpeached witnesses, produced by defendant, she is shown to have been an inmate of a house, or houses, of ill-fame, and to have committed acts of the most shocking indecency and lewdness. And yet this is the woman whose testimony some of you have received with absolute verity, while rejecting the testimony of the defendant as of no value in comparison with it. The question before you was, whether between this woman and the defendant there had been a binding contract of marriage. There is no one of you so low that you would have entered into such an obligation with this woman. You would have started back in horror at such a proposition; and yet you have been so lost to decency that you have seemed determined, by your verdict, to thrust such a disgrace and outrage upon the defendant!

"You were told by the Court that if the plaintiff was married at the time when she said the defendant agreed to marry her, such a promise was absolutely void. The plaintiff had herself sworn that the promise was made in 186--, and that she was then, and had remained for nearly two years thereafter, a married woman. Did not the Court tell you that such a promise was void? The Court told you that no subsequent ratification of such a promise could make it binding. The Court further instructed you that if the plaintiff was unchaste at the time of the promise of marriage, and her unchast.i.ty was not known to defendant, that the marriage contract, if entered into, was not binding. The entire record in this case teems with the history of her licentiousness. No witness has been so reckless as to swear that within the last ten years she has had either virtuous habits or virtuous a.s.sociations. That she was virtuous in 1860, or rather, that if then vicious, her character in this regard was then unknown to her neighbors in Indiana and Wisconsin, is rendered highly probable from the evidence. But there was a period preceding this by many years, when the maiden merged into the woman, that the almost exhaustless evidence produced by the defendant shows to have been a time without shame, and when her keen shrewdness and wicked nature had already been developed to a degree of depravity beyond human belief; and there has since been a period when the vilest inmate of the lowest den of prost.i.tution was happy in her virgin purity in comparison with this woman!

"Previous to the first-mentioned time the plaintiff had followed the army of the Southwest in its weary marches--not, however, as the evidence discloses, for any honest purpose. She had wandered infinitely further from purity than from her Northern home. And yet you have at tempted to render a verdict that after all these wanderings, and after this incomparably vile career, she is fit to become the wife of a respectable citizen of Rochester, the mistress of his mansion, and the sharer of his large fortune.

"You were further instructed that if a promise of marriage had been made, and if the plaintiff had at that time been virtuous, and had subsequently become unchaste the defendant was released from the obligation of such a promise; what regard, in view of the evidence in this case, have you paid to that instruction?

"Am I too severe, then, when I say that when, through four long days and nights in your jury room, some of this jury have attempted to force a verdict in favor of the plaintiff, notwithstanding she was not ent.i.tled to it, and the defendant's witnesses had proven that she was utterly unworthy of it, you have been actuated by pa.s.sion and prejudice, and have attempted to pervert justice? Had you been able to infect all your comrades with your pestilential breath, and had a verdict in her favor been rendered, I should certainly have set it aside immediately.

"I cannot but express my severest censure at the result of this cause at your hands, knowing, as I cannot but know, that the same vile machinations which have left a hideous trail of this female monster over every portion of the land, have brought about this disagreement which is a shame and a disgrace to yourselves, to Genesee County, and this Court!"

The suit necessarily went over to the next term of court, over which Judge Williams also presided, when no developments worthy of note occurred, the same evidence being introduced, the same tactics on the part of Mrs. Winslow--who, however, had been obliged to secure new counsel--being attempted, and the same crowd of morbid curiosity-seekers being in attendance.

But the woman had by this time become too well known for the slightest hope of success, or even to enable her to receive the ordinary consideration and protection of the Court.

Without leaving their seats the jury found for the defendant, and the woman, defeated yet insolent and daring, pa.s.sed out into the summer-decked streets of the little city of Batavia a scorned, dreaded being, driven from everything but infamous memory.

I was never sufficiently interested in Le Compte to trace his future, but it is safe to say that he never visited "La belle France" and "Paris, the beautiful, the sublime, the magnificent," in company with the once fascinating Mrs. Winslow.

Harcout is still the pompous henchman of the hara.s.sed millionaire, Mr.

Lyon, and quite covered himself with glory from having claimed the entire work of securing the evidence that caused the overthrow of the adventuress.

Were I a novelist, rather than a detective and obliged to relate facts, I could have made an effective climax by a tragic meeting between Harcout and Mrs. Winslow, where Lilly Nettleton would have recognized the Rev. Mr. Bland and wreaked summary vengeance upon him; but, so far as I am aware, they never met, and the much-named social scourge is now wearing out an inconceivably vile and wretched old age--the irrevocable result of her course of life--an outcast and a wanderer among the lowest cla.s.ses that people portions of the Pacific Slope cities, with remorse and wretchedness behind, and utter hopelessness beyond; while Mr. Lyon, now a feeble old man, who has atoned, through regrets and humiliations, for his part of the wrong launched through his as well as her sin upon society, has at least become thoroughly satisfied of the thousands of evils following in the trail of this so-called spirit-power, his fulness of knowledge of its workings having been gained through this particular experience with THE SPIRITUALISTS AND THE DETECTIVES.

THE END.