University of Virginia Library

A MURDER CASE IN MISSISSIPPI.

While sojourning for a few days, about the period
of the solstice last summer, in one of the marine villages
of the state of Mississippi, that skirt the Mexican
Gulf, an event transpired which, for a time—a brief
time only—started the hamlet from its propriety. We
shall proceed to give a hurried sketch of the occurrence,
with the view of giving it typical notoriety.

The sun, on the morning of the day to which we are
about to refer, rose from the Gulf with a rosy glow, and
ere long flung forth its rays, polishing its surface, as
though it were a "monster" mirror. Bilious-looking,
liver-affected gentlemen, in broad-brimmed Panama and
Leghorn hats, and morning gowns; young ladies in
sun bonnets and "Nora creena" dresses; and older
ladies in no particular style of dress, might be seen
wending their way up to the hotel, having taken their
matin ablution. The birds in the neighbouring pine-trees
had given their first concert for the morning; the
sun was fast beginning to absorb the little, crystallized,

globular dew drops, which, a short time before, surmounted
the grass blades, making the lawn in front of
the hotel look like an enamelled carpet, ornamented
with spangles. Dissipated-looking gentlemen might
also be observed, hurriedly preparing their toilet for
breakfast, and little else was to be heard than a call for
"boots" from No. 5—a call for soap from No. 9, or
a call for a napkin from No. 13, except the hissing
of the fish, as, half covered in butter, they fried in the
kitchen.

While things were in a state such as we have represented
them, a tall, thin man, with the nether ends of
his trousers thrust into the legs of his horse-skin boots,
without any coat, unshaven, and wearing an old cone-crowned,
gray, woollen hat, walked hurriedly and agitatedly
up to where a group of boarders was standing
at the hotel door, and inquired for the attorney of the
district, who happened to be standing at the hotel at
the time. The latter functionary having heard his
name mentioned, walked out from his room and
asked "Jones"—the man in the horse-skin boots—
"What the d—l are you after so early?—Court don't
sit till ten."

Now Jones, knowing that to answer this very familiar,
though not very polite interrogatory, he would
have to open his mouth, and knowing that in opening
his mouth he could not retain the quantity of tobacco
juice with which it was filled, took the preliminary precaution
to expectorate it, before replying to the learned
district attorney; which done, he told him in a half-mysterious,
half-astonished tone, that "it was done at
last."

"Jones," says the district attorney, "you're a living
note of admiration!"—and Jones, by the way, did not
look unlike a standing one. "You're like the dwarf
with the two heads, who is so old that nobody can tell
his age—you're a perpetual wonder—what is it that's
done now, that seems to excite your alarm so?"

"Why, Granger has killed his wife at last," said
Jones—who turned out himself to be a limb of the
law—being constable, crier of the court, and subpœnaserver
on delinquent tax-payers.

"O, he has, has he?" said the district attorney—
"let me have your tobacco, Jones."

Jones handed the legal representative of the state,
or of that certain district of it, his honey-dew, and the
D. A. having cut a chunk off it and deposited it in his
jaw, coolly remarked—"You have summoned an inquest,
and secured Granger, of course."

Jones.—"I have secured Granger, and an almighty
tough job I had of it; but I reckon the body must be
found first, 'fore there's an inquest. I don't know no
law, if the Magistrate's Manual don't say, in an article
on dead bodies, page 106, that there can't be no inquest
where there aint no body found."

District Attorney—Contemptuously.—"O, Jones, I
admit you're a most profound lawyer; but notice the
judge; tell him I will be in court at ten o'clock—let
him be there to hear this case; and I will be there to
investigate it, in the name and on behalf of the sovereign
state of Mississippi; but," descending from his
dignity, "Jones, let us liquor before you go."

"Squire," said Jones, "you ought to be chancellor,

you ought. It's the first time I shook the dew off my
boots this morning."

They liquored, and Jones went to obey the orders of
him who had succeeded in ascending a few rounds
above him on the legal ladder. Granger's murder of
the wife of his bosom was the sole talk at the breakfast-table,
and, indeed, of the whole village. No one exactly
knew how the bloody and inhuman deed was perpetrated—nor
where the body was: but all agreed that
it was a most diabolical murder. They knew it would
come to that, they said; they were always quarrelling,
was Granger and his wife, and often drunk; it could
not be otherwise. Blood was found on the floor, and
on a knife that was found under the cupboard. But
what could have been done with the body? One saw
Granger sink a large box in the lake before day; another
saw two young Saw-bones, from New Orleans, put
off in a skiff a little after day, in which there was something
in a sack; and a third noticed the earth freshly
dug in the woods, at the rear of Granger's house.

Ten o'clock came, and the dingy log-cabin which
formed the court-house was crowded. The judge sat
on the bench, behind a huge pair of iron-cased spectacles;
the district attorney was poring over a "dogeared"
edition of "Starkie on Evidence." Jones
was sitting with his horseskin boots stuck upon the
table before him and before the judge, his feet, of
course, being in them; and Granger, the most unconcerned-looking
man in court, was whittling a stick
where he sat, to the right but in the rear of the bench.

"Are you prepared to proceed with this case, Mr.
District Attorney?" said the judge.

"I am prepared, your honour," said the district attorney.

"Are you ready to proceed to preliminary trial, William
Granger?" said the judge, with all the assumed
solemn dignity of a marshal; "or, if you are not now,
when will you?" he added.

"Just whenever you please," said Granger, in
a maudlin tone of indifference; "but if Sal had
taken my advice, this would never have happened.
She —"

"Silence, sir," said the judge; "in the first place
you must learn to respect the court, and in the next
place, you are not bound to tell any thing that will criminate
yourself. Mr. District Attorney, proceed."

Granger muttered, "Criminate the d—l."

Jones called silence. The district attorney then took
from between his teeth some masticated tobacco, and
proceeded: "May it please this court, I am about to
lay before you the skeleton—I say the skeleton—for the
great body of facts are not yet fully developed. I am
about to lay before you, I say, the skeleton of as foul a
murder—as inhuman a murder—as unnatural a murder as
was ever recorded in the annals of crime. [Aside—Jones,
give me your tobaccer.] Yes, sir, a murder, which,
considering the relations that existed between the murderer
and his victim, would, as Shakspeare says, curl
up a nigger's blood, and, what is harder still, make his
hair stand on end, like the tail of a frightened gobbler!
But, sir, although the manner in which this foul deed
was perpetrated is at present shrouded in mystery—of
the fact of the murder there is no doubt; the prisoner
and his wife were heard quarrelling last evening; she

has not been since seen. The traces of blood are visible
on the floor, and a knife with clotted gore on it was
discovered under the cupboard!"

Granger attempted to say something about the blood
on the floor and on the knife being that of a chicken
Sall killed the previous evening, but Jones called
silence! and would permit him to make no explanation.
The district attorney proceeded:—"I was saying, your
honour, that up to this time, the body of the murdered
wife has not been discovered. But, as `murder speaks
with most miraculous organ,' it will, no doubt, soon be
seen."

And so, in truth, it was, for the district attorney had
not well finished his quotation, when Mrs. Granger, all
alive, protruding her head into the court, called out—
"Consarn you, Bill Granger, is it there you be, instead
of hoein' the taters! but when I was goin' to that ere
quiltin' frolic of Mrs. Sharp's last evenin', I said you
wouldn't do nothin' till I came back, and I knew you
wouldn't—consarn your picter!"

It is unnecessary to say, that the appearance of Mrs.
Granger, in proper person—in substance, not in shade—
in court created no little consternation. The fear,
which what was believed her apparition first occasioned,
was succeeded on the part of the crowd by a unanimous
burst of humour, but, on the part of the judge
and the district attorney, by a consciousness that they
had made themselves rather ridiculous. "I think we
have proceeded far enough in this case," said the
judge.

"I call for a conviction," said Jones. "I ain't a goin

to be chizzelled out of my fees for making the arrest,
that way."

"Why the woman that you charged Granger with
killing—his wife—stands before you!" said the judge,
surprised at the absurdity of Jones's request.

"O, you can't come it, judge," said Jones. "I suppose
you don't think I never read law; just hold on a
while"—and he snatched up "Phillips on Evidence,"
turning to page 64, triumphantly read:—

"As a party on record is not a competent witness—
neither is the husband or wife of the party competent to
give evidence either for or against the party;" and throwing
down the book, he exclaimed—"there, I believe that
settles the pint; I believe, 'cording to law, Mrs. Granger
ain't a competent witness to prove in favour of her
husband in this case. I reckon not."

The court was dismissed. Granger and his wife
went home, arguing, as usual, by the way; the spectators
were convulsed with laughter at the termination
of the awful murder case; the judge and the district
attorney attributed the mistakes of the morning to that
"fool, Jones," and Jones swore he would never make
another arrest as long as he'd live.