rence took place as follows: As soon as the murderer had requested the landlord to send Rupprecht down to him, he went into the dark corner on the left, mounted the stone bench near the doorway, and stood there in readiness to strike. Rupprecht went downstairs, expecting

160. JOHN PAUL FORSTER'S Remarkable German Criminal Trials. Christopher Baumler, a worthy citizen of Nürnberg, lived in the Königsstrasse, a wide and muchfrequented street, where he carried. on the trade of a corn chandler, which there includes the right of selling brandy. He had lately lost his wife, and lived quite alone, with only one maidservant, Anna Catherina Schultz. He had the reputation of being rich.

Baumler was in the habit of opening his shop at five o'clock in the morning at latest. But on the 21st of September, 1820, to the surprise of his neighbors, it remained closed until past six. Curiosity and alarm drew together a number of people before the house. They rang repeatedly, but no one came to the door. At last some neighbors, with the sanction of the police, entered the first-floor windows by a ladder. Here they found drawers, chests, and closets burst open, and presenting every appearance of a robbery having been committed. They hastened downstairs into the shop, where they discovered in a corner close to the street door the bloody corpse of the maid; and in the parlor they found Baumler lying dead beside the stove.

The house stands on the left hand in going along the Königsstrasse from the Frauen Thor, not far from the church of Saint Laurence. Several houses, chiefly inns and shops, flank it on either side; on the right, an inn called the Golden Lion stands out several feet beyond it. Close to this projecting wall is the door of Baumler's house, which is

to find some one who wanted to speak to him on business, and seeing no one in the passage, went outside the door and turned to look down the street after the man who had sent for him, when he was struck a well-aimed heavy blow from the stone bench behind him.

CASE. (ANSELM VON Feuerbach.

transl. Gordon. 1846. p. 1.) entered by one low step; the hall serves as a shop, and the walls are lined with shelves, etc. The length of this hall from the street door to the opposite end, where a door opens into a court, is about sixteen feet; on the left, a staircase leads to the floor above. The breadth is unequal, for on the right hand near the door there is a corner about four feet wide and three feet deep, which forms part of the shop. On one side is the wall of Baumler's parlor ; on the other, the main wall of the house towards the street, where a large bow window, always closed with shutters at night, admits the light into the shop, and thence into the parlor through a window opening into this corner. About seven feet from the entrance to the shop is the door of the small parlor, which is cut off from the street on all sides and furnished with tables and benches for the convenience of the customers for brandy. The house door, as is usually the case in shops of this kind in Nürnberg, is formed of two wings joined together, one of which folds back upon the other, and is fastened by a simple contrivance to the wall. During the day a glass door is fixed in the half of the doorway thus left open, which in the daytime serves to light the shop, and in the evening to show passers-by that the host is ready to receive customers. The door of Baumler's shop, behind the wing of which a man could perfectly conceal himself from any one entering, opens towards. towards the left, exactly opposite to the corner we

have already described, so that any one coming in would turn his face towards the corner; and in the event of being attacked by a person hidden behind the door, would naturally run towards it. A bell hangs over the entrance which rings whenever either the glass or the wooden door is opened.

As soon as the police were informed of the murder, a commission was appointed to visit Baumler's house. Immediately on entering the shop, to the right of the door in the corner, between two bins of meal and salt, the maidservant Schultz lay on her back, with her head shattered, and her feet, from which both her shoes had fallen, turned towards the door. Her face and clothes, and the floor, were covered with blood; and the two bins between which her head lay, as well as the wall, were sprinkled with it. As no other part of the shop showed any marks of blood, it was evident that she had been murdered in this corner. Not far from the body they picked up a small comb, and at a little distance from that a larger one, with several fragments of a second small one. In the very farthest corner of the parlor, between the stove and a small table, upon which stood a jug, they found the body of Baumler stretched on his back, with his head, which was resting on a small overturned stool, covered with wounds. and blood. A pipe and several small coins lay under the body, where they had probably fallen when the murderer ransacked the pocket (which was turned inside out and stained with blood) for money or for keys. The floor, the stove, and the wall were covered with blood, the stool was saturated, and even the vaulted ceiling, which was nine or ten feet high, was sprinkled with it. These circumstances, especially the stool on which Baumler's head still rested, and the pipe which lay under his body, showed that the murderer must have sud

denly attacked him unawares and felled him to the earth, as he sat drinking his beer and smoking his pipe on that very spot.

One drawer of the commode in the upper chamber was pulled out, the doors of two cupboards in the adjoining room were open, and everything lay scattered about the floor. Several other presses, however, had not been opened, and many things of value, such as clothes, silver ornaments, a gold repeater, etc., were left in them, and even in those which had been opened. The rooms on the second story were found in their usual state. On the table, in the parlor, stood a wineglass with some red brandy at the bottom, and a closed clasp knife stained with blood on the back and sides.

Two newly baked rolls were found near the entrance door. The baker Stierhof stated that Baumler's maid had fetched these rolls from his shop the evening before, at about a quarter to ten. His wife, who was examined the next day on this point, recognized the rolls as those bought by the unfortunate maidservant on the evening of the 20th of September, adding, "The evening before last, at nearly a quarter to ten, the maid came to my house and asked for two half-penny rolls, which I gave her. I did not recognize her till she was going away, when I said, 'It is you, is it?' She answered sulkily, 'Yes.' I asked if they still had guests with them; and she said, 'Yes, there are a few fellows there still.' I then looked out of the window for a while: there was a deathlike silence in the street, so much so that I remarked it to my people. At a quarter to ten exactly I closed the shop." This evidence afforded a strong presumption that some person or persons who were still in Baumler's shop at a quarter to ten had committed this murder. Furthermore it was certain that the murder of the maidservant could not have taken place earlier than a quarter to ten;

the two rolls which she had fetched about that time from the Baker Stierhof, and which were found on the floor near the entrance, showed that the murderer had attacked her as she entered the shop on her return from the baker's, that she dropped the rolls in her fright, was driven into the corner of the shop, and there murdered. There could be no doubt that Baumler was murdered before the maidservant, for he was found beside the stool on which he usually sat smoking his pipe by the stove. Had he been alive when the murderer attacked his maid, he would have been alarmed by the noise, and have gone out into the shop; at any rate he would not have remained quietly seated for the murderer to dispatch him at his leisure. It was also evident that Baumler must have been murdered during the maid's absence. Now the distance from Baumler's house to the baker's shop is at most a hundred steps; thus, even supposing that Schultz, angry at being sent out so late, went very slowly, the walk there and back, including the short conversation with the baker's wife, could not have occupied above five minutes, and during this interval the murder of Baumler must have been completed, and that of Schultz prepared. This was proved by the following circumstance: As long as the glass door was there, the murderer could

neither attack Schultz on her entrance nor murder her within the threshold, as he could not possibly hide himself behind the glass door, which would moreover have exposed him to the risk of observation from every passer-by, and even to the chance of a stray guest of Baumler's entering the shop and surprising him in the act. It was therefore necessary to take the glass door off its hinges, and to shut the streetdoor, before attacking Schultz on her return to the house, - and this he accordingly did. Baumler's house was not usually closed until eleven, but on the night of the murder a chandler of the name of Rossel, who lived opposite, happened to look out at a quarter to ten, and saw, to his surprize, that Baumler's house was then closed, no doubt

by the murderer. It was a quarter to ten when Schultz was at the baker's shop, at the same hour Rossel saw Baumler's house shut: we may therefore infer that the murderer killed Baumler soon after his maid's departure, quickly unhinged the glass door, lay in wait for the maid behind the street door, opened it for her, and attacked her as she came in; the concurring evidence of two witnesses thus distinctly proves that the murder of Baumler and his maid must have taken place during the few minutes before and after a quarter to ten.

A woman, Newton, who was tried for the murder of her mother, had lived for nine or ten years as housekeeper to an elderly gentleman, who was paralyzed and helpless; the only other inmate being another female servant, who slept on a sofa in his bedroom to attend upon him. The deceased occasionally visited her daughter at her master's house, and sometimes stopped all night, sleeping on a sofa in the kitchen.

She came to see her daughter about eight o'clock one night in December, 1848; the other servant retired to bed about half past nine, leaving the prisoner and her mother in the kitchen, and she afterwards heard the prisoner close the door at the foot of the stairs, which was usually left open that they might hear their master, if he wanted assistance. The prisoner usually slept upstairs. About two o'clock in the morning

the other servant was aroused by the smell of fire, and a sense of suffocation, and found the bedroom full of smoke; upon which she ran downstairs, finding the door at the bottom of the stairs still closed. As she went downstairs she saw a light in the yard, and she found the kitchen full of smoke, and very wet, particularly near the fireplace, as also was the sofa, but there was very little fire in the grate. She then unfastened the front door, and ran out to fetch her master's nephew, who lived near, and who hastened to the house. He found the front door fastened, but was admitted by the prisoner at the back door. He at once hastened upstairs, and ascertained that his uncle was safe, and then came down into the kitchen, where he found the sofa was on fire, and threw some water upon it. He then went to let the servant girl, who had fetched him, in at the front door, which he found bolted, and not merely latched. He then again went upstairs with the servant to his uncle's room, and they raised him. up in bed, and saw that he was all right. On returning to the kitchen, they found the place was very wet; a little fire was still smoldering on the sofa, which they at once extinguished. The pillows and entire back part of the sofa cover were burnt to the breadth of a person's shoulders.

The prisoner then came in from the back premises in her nightdress; she was described as not drunk, but not quite sober. She took a bottle of rum from the cupboard, and drank from it, and after that she soon became thoroughly intoxicated, and lay down on the sofa. The girl then went out of the kitchen towards the brewhouse, and found the deceased lying on her face on the steps of the brewhouse, apparently burnt to death. Her arms were crossed in front over her breast, or, according to one witness, across her face; on the

back of the head lay a piece of the sofa cover, and near the body was a cotton bag which had been used in the house indiscriminately as a bag or a pillow; it was besmeared with oil. Near the feet of the body were the remains of four pairs of sheets which had been in the kitchen the night before. They were almost entirely consumed by fire; what was left of them was wet. The The prisoner's clothes were on a chair in the kitchen -the explanation being given that she was in the habit of undressing there. Holes had been burnt through them, and it was found that the prisoner's hands were scorched and blistered, and that she had burns on her arms and body corresponding with the burns in her clothes. It appeared from the state of the bedclothes in her room upstairs that she had not been in bed, but there was a mark as if some one had been lying upon the bed. A butter boat, which had been full of dripping, and a pint bottle, which had been nearly full of lamp oil, and left near the fire overnight, were both empty, and there were spots of grease and oil on the pillow case, sheets, and sofa. A stocking had been hung up to cover a crevice in the window shutter, through which any person outside might have seen into the kitchen. The door post of the kitchen leading into the yard was much burnt about three feet high from the ground; and there was a mark of burning on the doorpost of the brewhouse. The surface of the deceased woman's body was completely charred, the tongue was livid and swollen, and one of the toes was much bruised, as if it had been trodden on. There was a small blister on the inner side of the right leg, far below where the great burning commenced, which contained straw-colored serum, but there was no other blister on any part of the body, nor any marks of redness around the blister, or at the parts where the injured and unin

jured tissues joined. The nose, which had been a very prominent organ during life, was flattened down so as not to rise to more than the eighth of an inch above the level of the face, and as it never recovered its original appearance, it was stated that it must have been so flattened for some time before death. The lungs and brain were much congested, and a quantity of black blood was found in the right auricle of the heart.

From these facts the medical witnesses examined in support of the prosecution concluded, that the deceased had been first suffocated by pressing something over her mouth and nostrils so forcibly as to break and flatten the nose in the way described; but they had made no examination of the larynx and trachea, and other parts of the body. A physician who had heard the evidence but not seen the deceased, gave his opinion that the appearances described by the other witnesses were signs of death by suffocation; that the absence of vesication, and of the line of redness were certain signs that the body had been burnt after death; but he added that, as there were no marks of external injury, an examination should have been made of the parts of the body above mentioned, in order to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. Another medical witness thought it possible that suffocation might have been produced by the flames preventing the access of air to the lungs, while others again thought it impossible that such could have been the case, as no screams had been heard in the night, and they were also of opinion that if alive, the deceased must have been in such intense agony that she could not, even if she had been strong enough to walk from the kitchen to the brewhouse, have refrained from screaming. One of these witnesses stated that he did not think it possible that the deceased, if alive, could have fallen in the posi

tion in which she was found, as her first impulse would have been to stretch out her arms to prevent a fall; but, on the other hand, it was urged that it was not possible to judge of the acts of a person in the last agonies of death by the conduct of one in full life. Under

the will of her grandfather the prisoner was entitled on the death of her mother to the sum of £200, and to the interest of the sum of £300 for her life. She had frequently cruelly beaten the old woman, threatened to shorten her days, bitterly reproaching her for keeping her out of her property by living so long, and declared that she should never be happy so long as she was above ground, and she had once attempted to choke her by forcing a handkerchief down her throat, but was prevented from doing so by the other servant. The magistrates had been frequently appealed to, but they could only remonstrate, as the old woman would not appear against her daughter.

The case set up on behalf of the prisoner was, that she was in bed and, perceiving a smell of fire, came downstairs, and finding the sofa on fire, fetched water and extinguished it, and that she knew nothing of her mother's death until she heard it from others. It appeared that the old woman was generally very chilly, and in the habit of getting near the fire; that on two former occasions she had burned portions. of her dress; that on another she had burned the corner of the sofa cushion; that she used to smoke in bed, and light her pipe with lucifer matches, which she carried in a basket; and that on the night in question she had brought her pipe, which was found on the following morning in her basket. It was urged as the probable explanation of the position in which the body was found, that, finding herself on fire, she must have proceeded to the brewhouse, where she knew there was water, and leaned in her way