Kansas Physician Confirms Howard Report

[Mayerling]

I noticed the article with the image of the room key also had a bit about a cross allegedly scratched on the thigh of the victim.

New York Sun, April 25, 1891, Page 2

On the left thigh was marked a cross made
by two long[?] bloody scratches. They had not
been cut, but just scratched with the point of
the knife apparently with sufficient force to
just break the skin. The London Jack the
Ripper left a cross chalked on the walls
beside his victims.

---end

Nathaniel Hawthorne's son, Julian, wrote a series of novels about Thomas Byrnes. Here's a link to one about an extortion case involving Jay Gould.
The book has its points of interest, but is padded out with fictional characters who are linked by a series of increasingly improbable coincidences to an extent that mortally wounded my credulity.

Section 558: or, The Fatal Letter: From the Diary of Inspector Byrnes (New York: Cassell, 1888), link
by Julian Hawthorne


A summary of the actual case.

Recollections of a New York Chief of Police (New York: Caxton Book Concern, 1887), Pages 368-372
by George Washington Walling

Although Jay Gould is perhaps the wealthiest man on this continent to-day, the criminal classes regard him as a person who has resources of such a peculiar character that it is well to let him alone. Once, however, his name appears as complainant on the records. In October. 1881, Colonel J. Howard Welles, a relation of Gideon Welles (once Secretary of the Navy), whose father was Richard J. Welles, a New York lawyer, conceived the plan of extorting money from the arch-financier. Colonel Welles believed that Mr. Gould could be frightened into paying a large sum of money to secure peace of mind. And so, on October 17, at the Windsor Hotel, he wrote the following letter and sent it to Mr. Gould:

"Dear Sir:—-It is my painful dutv to inform you that within six days of the date of this letter your body will have returned to the dust from whence it came. I, therefore, entreat you to make your peace with God, and prepare for the fate which awaits you. It is no wish of mine to take your life, but I am inspired and requested by the all-living God to do so as a public necessity, and for the benefit of the community at large. You must undoubtedly be aware that you have been a rogue of the first water all your life. Through your artful cunning you have ruined thousands of people of their birthright; you have had no mercy; you have robbed the rich and the poor, the father and the fatherless, the widow and the orphan, indiscriminately, of their last dollar; and through your villany have wrought ruin and destruction on thousands of families. All this you have done under a cloak, by circulating false reports, bribing newspapers, making false statements, committing perjury, and by artful cunning. In fact, you have robbed both great and small, and now the law says that you must pay for all with your death, as a public necessity, in order to save thousands of others from pain and destruction.

"Your death will be an easy one, for I propose shooting you through the heart, if possible, and if my first shot is not instant death, I will give you the coup de grace with the second shot, so that your death shall be quick and easy. Don't hold out the hope that this is a threatening letter, sent for stock-jobbing purposes, for I don't own a single share of stock of any kind, neither am I interested in any. This is simply the will of God, and he has chosen me to carry it out. He has appeared to me in a dream, and requested me to consult you as the party interested, and in doing so God has assured me that it is by Divine Providence I am chosen to do this act, and that by so doing I will become a public benefactor; and I have sworn and taken a solemn oath before the all-living God that I will put you to death. I intended to have shot you last Friday (yesterday), when I saw you with Harrow and Sage. I had my pistol, ready cocked, but a voice from the Lord sounded in my ear, saying: 'Hold on; give him time to repent, lest he be sent into everlasting punishment.'

"Now make your peace with God and prepare for the fate which awaits you, and may the Lord have mercy on your soul. I am only an agent of the Lord. The Lord appeared to me again last night and said: 'Jay Gould must surely die;' and when I reasoned with the Lord in my dream I told Him my life would also be required, and that I should be hung. The Lord answered me that no harm should come to me; the rope was not made, neither was the hemp grown to make the rope to hang me with, and that He would deliver me out of the hands of mine enemies. It is by the express will and command of God that I am chosen to put you to death, and I have sworn before the all-living God, the great Jehovah and the Redeemer of the world, and having taken a solemn oath I will carry it out within six days if the proper opportunity occurs. Therefore, be prepared to meet your fate at any moment, and may God have mercy on your soul.

"I remain, sir,

"An Old Victim."

This letter was read by a confidential employee who was not at first disposed to trouble Mr. Gould about it. But there was something in its tenor which indicated that the writer meant at least part of what he wrote, and that it would be just as well lo become acquainted with him. Mr. Gould was not in the imminent peril his correspondent indicated. For many years Mr. Gould rarely moved in this city when engaged on business without a confidential agent having him under surveillance. Mr. Washington E. Conner was immediately placed in charge of the case. He naturally went to police headquarters, and, as naturally, Inspector Byrnes was directed to do whatever might seem necessary in the premises. His first act was to put "shadows " on Mr. Gould, in order to watch any man who might be lying in wait for him, or dogging his footsteps.

Meantime, the "Old Victim " continued his correspondence and began to insert advertisements in newspapers. He also sent Mr. Gould, in order to carry on the advertising correspondence, a cypher key, in which familiar words were to represent certain stocks. Gradually, the plan of the "Old Victim" was developed. He said in one of his written communications that he had gambled in Wall Street and lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. He desired to recoup himself. In other words, he wanted "points" on the stock market direct from the bosom of Mr. Jay Gould. The matter ran on for three weeks, when " Old Victim," having received many "points" which did not appear to have been taken advantage of, addressed Mr. Gould the following letter:

"New York, Nov. 11, 1881. "Mv Dear Sir:—-I thank you for the two personals in to-day's Herald, though I expected none from you this morning, as I had no intention, when writing to you yesterday, of giving you the trouble of replying to my letter. I gave you the information asked for in your personal of yesterday, namely, the cost of the two stocks I had purchased through your advice; and if I asked too much in too short a time, as you say, it was owing to my anxiety on account of the decline of 'Salvation,' early yesterday afternoon. I had no intention, I can assure you, of advancing the price of 'Salvation' simply on my account, only I did hope, for the reason I gave, that you would not let it go below its cost to me. The 'Salvation ' my relative purchased for me on Wednesday was on the usual margin, but his brokers yesterday, as I mentioned, refused to carry any more for him under a 20 per cent, margin. This forced him to purchase for me five hundred shares of 'Salvation ' yesterday from another house, who bought it for him on the usual margin. I think commission houses are disinclined to purchase 'Salvation ' except for good parties with good bank accounts."

Now, it is necessary to explain that the cypher key previously mentioned makes "Salvation" the indicator for Manhattan Elevated Railroad stock, while the personals referred to were:

"Texas Correspondent.—-Up-town Salvation. Then let me know at once how you stand. Who is using the same heading? Are you trifling?"

"Up-town Salvation" meant "bull Manhattan Elevated," and the question about the two persons using the same heading arose from some one who was curious trying to solve the mystery by inserting misleading notices. The second personal was:

"Negotiate Salvation.—-Yes. Keep Windsor. Let go Concord. Give me the cost of Salvation."

This was in regard to a query by letter from the "Old Victim." It meant "Keep Western Union. Sell Pacific Mail." Then came the personal alluded to in the "Old Victim's" letter, which said he asked too much in too short a time. It added:

"Be more reasonable."

After that came:

"Negotiate.—-Can't understand how it costs so much. Give me particulars. Do not be alarmed."

This had reference to the complaint that exorbitant demands of the brokers forced "Old Victim" to take a twenty per cent, margin.

And so it went on—-letters and personals and the police playing at cross purposes, until it was discovered that 'the bulk of the letters addressed to Mr. Jay Gould by "Old Victim" came from Post-office Station E. Still, this afforded a small chance of reaching the writer, as some letters were posted in other districts. However, a watch was kept on the letter-boxes, and letters received at Station E for Mr. Gould were, by an arrangement with the postal officials, allowed to be scrutinized by Central Office detectives. This plan failed, because it was found necessary, in order to catch the correspondent, to have a watch kept on each letter-box, and arrest any man who put a letter in for Mr. Gould in the handwriting of "Old Victim" on the spot.

A plan was first devised to have employees of the Post-office work in concert with the detectives, but this did not appear feasible, as it would first have necessitated the giving away of the secret to men who might be "leaky," and they might not be sufficiently alert, or sufficiently expert in handwriting to be of service. Finally it was agreed that each box of the district should be watched by an employee of the Post-office and one or more detectives. If a letter was dropped into a box the Post-office employee would keep an eye on the depositor and also scan the letter. If it were addressed to Jay Gould he would be particularly careful to note whether there was any resemblance between the handwriting of the address and that of "Old Victim."

The day chosen was Sunday, November 13, 1881. The letterboxes were under surveillance from an early hour, and the plan worked well until about noon, when a patrolman of the Twenty-ninth Precinct, who was not in the secret and who had been watching the actions of two Central Office detectives who had charge of a box in company with a Post-office official, became suspicious. He was not satisfied with the explanation of one of the officers that they were detectives acting under orders from Inspector Byrnes, and was about to take one of them into custody when another detective passed who was acquainted with the patrolman, and the matter was explained. Fortunately the "Old Victim " did not choose that box as his depository. But at three o'clock a sprucely-dressed man with a military bearing went to the box at the corner of Thirty-fourth Street and Seventh Avenue, carelessly dropped in a letter, and walked off. John Healy, a postman, quickly opened the box and found a letter addressed to Jay Gould. Detectives Phil Riley and Wood were instantly informed of the fact, and a glance at the handwriting of the address satisfied them that the man who had dropped it in the box was worth detaining. He was halted, questioned, the letter was re-examined, and Detective Riley at once decided that he had Mr. Gould's tormentor in his grasp.

The prisoner was taken to police headquarters and proved to be Colonel Welles. When confronted with Mr. Washington E. Conner and other gentlemen in the interest of Mr. Gould he made some very lame excuses and shammed insanity. The same defence was made for him when he was arraigned at the Tombs police court. He was able to exercise the strangest kind of personal influence over Mr. Gould, and after passing a few weeks in prison was released and was never prosecuted.

It was not believed at any time that "Old Victim" had any accomplices. He coined the scheme without aid, and if he had been a sharper man he would have made money out of Mr. Gould, as it was in Mr. Gould's interest to humor him in the matter of giving "points." Many a stock gambler would have given Colonel Welles a check for $100,000 if he had known the plot, and that Colonel Welles had driven in an entering wedge by getting up a newspaper "personal" correspondence in which a cypher key was brought into requisition.

---end

One name I can help you with - Sage, the gentleman mentioned as being seen with Gould and a third man. He's Russell Sage, the Wall Street banker who usually partnered or financed some of Gould's stock corners and acquisitions (such as Union Pacific Railroad, Missouri Pacific Railroad, Westen Union). He is remembered due to the well known "Foundation" his wife set up in his memory, "The Russell Sage Foundation" which has financed some programing on PBS among other things. Sage was an eccentric fellow who once was the victim of an extortion threat that was real. In 1891 while in his Wall Street office a man came in and threatened to blow himself and Sage up unless Sage gave him $100,000.00. Sage, one of the most penny pinching of the Robber Barons (Gould was quite the opposite - look at his still existing mansion on the Hudson, Lyndhurst) said "NO!", but grabbed an office employee and pushed him between the extortionist and himself. The bomb proved real killing the extortionist, but also seriously injuring the employee. Sage was not injured. The employee sued Sage under tort law for assault, but lost as he was considered to owe a duty to protect his employer when he took his job.

I have to see (if I can) if Gideon Welles had a son like the Colonel. Actor/Director Orson Welles used to claim Welles was his great grandfather, but genealogists have failed to find any family link between them.

Jeff

[TradeName]

I noticed the article with the image of the room key also had a bit about a cross allegedly scratched on the thigh of the victim.

New York Sun, April 25, 1891, Page 2

On the left thigh was marked a cross made
by two long[?] bloody scratches. They had not
been cut, but just scratched with the point of
the knife apparently with sufficient force to
just break the skin. The London Jack the
Ripper left a cross chalked on the walls
beside his victims.

---end

Nathaniel Hawthorne's son, Julian, wrote a series of novels about Thomas Byrnes. Here's a link to one about an extortion case involving Jay Gould.
The book has its points of interest, but is padded out with fictional characters who are linked by a series of increasingly improbable coincidences to an extent that mortally wounded my credulity.

Section 558: or, The Fatal Letter: From the Diary of Inspector Byrnes (New York: Cassell, 1888), link
by Julian Hawthorne


A summary of the actual case.

Recollections of a New York Chief of Police (New York: Caxton Book Concern, 1887), Pages 368-372
by George Washington Walling

Although Jay Gould is perhaps the wealthiest man on this continent to-day, the criminal classes regard him as a person who has resources of such a peculiar character that it is well to let him alone. Once, however, his name appears as complainant on the records. In October. 1881, Colonel J. Howard Welles, a relation of Gideon Welles (once Secretary of the Navy), whose father was Richard J. Welles, a New York lawyer, conceived the plan of extorting money from the arch-financier. Colonel Welles believed that Mr. Gould could be frightened into paying a large sum of money to secure peace of mind. And so, on October 17, at the Windsor Hotel, he wrote the following letter and sent it to Mr. Gould:

"Dear Sir:—-It is my painful dutv to inform you that within six days of the date of this letter your body will have returned to the dust from whence it came. I, therefore, entreat you to make your peace with God, and prepare for the fate which awaits you. It is no wish of mine to take your life, but I am inspired and requested by the all-living God to do so as a public necessity, and for the benefit of the community at large. You must undoubtedly be aware that you have been a rogue of the first water all your life. Through your artful cunning you have ruined thousands of people of their birthright; you have had no mercy; you have robbed the rich and the poor, the father and the fatherless, the widow and the orphan, indiscriminately, of their last dollar; and through your villany have wrought ruin and destruction on thousands of families. All this you have done under a cloak, by circulating false reports, bribing newspapers, making false statements, committing perjury, and by artful cunning. In fact, you have robbed both great and small, and now the law says that you must pay for all with your death, as a public necessity, in order to save thousands of others from pain and destruction.

"Your death will be an easy one, for I propose shooting you through the heart, if possible, and if my first shot is not instant death, I will give you the coup de grace with the second shot, so that your death shall be quick and easy. Don't hold out the hope that this is a threatening letter, sent for stock-jobbing purposes, for I don't own a single share of stock of any kind, neither am I interested in any. This is simply the will of God, and he has chosen me to carry it out. He has appeared to me in a dream, and requested me to consult you as the party interested, and in doing so God has assured me that it is by Divine Providence I am chosen to do this act, and that by so doing I will become a public benefactor; and I have sworn and taken a solemn oath before the all-living God that I will put you to death. I intended to have shot you last Friday (yesterday), when I saw you with Harrow and Sage. I had my pistol, ready cocked, but a voice from the Lord sounded in my ear, saying: 'Hold on; give him time to repent, lest he be sent into everlasting punishment.'

"Now make your peace with God and prepare for the fate which awaits you, and may the Lord have mercy on your soul. I am only an agent of the Lord. The Lord appeared to me again last night and said: 'Jay Gould must surely die;' and when I reasoned with the Lord in my dream I told Him my life would also be required, and that I should be hung. The Lord answered me that no harm should come to me; the rope was not made, neither was the hemp grown to make the rope to hang me with, and that He would deliver me out of the hands of mine enemies. It is by the express will and command of God that I am chosen to put you to death, and I have sworn before the all-living God, the great Jehovah and the Redeemer of the world, and having taken a solemn oath I will carry it out within six days if the proper opportunity occurs. Therefore, be prepared to meet your fate at any moment, and may God have mercy on your soul.

"I remain, sir,

"An Old Victim."

This letter was read by a confidential employee who was not at first disposed to trouble Mr. Gould about it. But there was something in its tenor which indicated that the writer meant at least part of what he wrote, and that it would be just as well lo become acquainted with him. Mr. Gould was not in the imminent peril his correspondent indicated. For many years Mr. Gould rarely moved in this city when engaged on business without a confidential agent having him under surveillance. Mr. Washington E. Conner was immediately placed in charge of the case. He naturally went to police headquarters, and, as naturally, Inspector Byrnes was directed to do whatever might seem necessary in the premises. His first act was to put "shadows " on Mr. Gould, in order to watch any man who might be lying in wait for him, or dogging his footsteps.

Meantime, the "Old Victim " continued his correspondence and began to insert advertisements in newspapers. He also sent Mr. Gould, in order to carry on the advertising correspondence, a cypher key, in which familiar words were to represent certain stocks. Gradually, the plan of the "Old Victim" was developed. He said in one of his written communications that he had gambled in Wall Street and lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. He desired to recoup himself. In other words, he wanted "points" on the stock market direct from the bosom of Mr. Jay Gould. The matter ran on for three weeks, when " Old Victim," having received many "points" which did not appear to have been taken advantage of, addressed Mr. Gould the following letter:

"New York, Nov. 11, 1881. "Mv Dear Sir:—-I thank you for the two personals in to-day's Herald, though I expected none from you this morning, as I had no intention, when writing to you yesterday, of giving you the trouble of replying to my letter. I gave you the information asked for in your personal of yesterday, namely, the cost of the two stocks I had purchased through your advice; and if I asked too much in too short a time, as you say, it was owing to my anxiety on account of the decline of 'Salvation,' early yesterday afternoon. I had no intention, I can assure you, of advancing the price of 'Salvation' simply on my account, only I did hope, for the reason I gave, that you would not let it go below its cost to me. The 'Salvation ' my relative purchased for me on Wednesday was on the usual margin, but his brokers yesterday, as I mentioned, refused to carry any more for him under a 20 per cent, margin. This forced him to purchase for me five hundred shares of 'Salvation ' yesterday from another house, who bought it for him on the usual margin. I think commission houses are disinclined to purchase 'Salvation ' except for good parties with good bank accounts."

Now, it is necessary to explain that the cypher key previously mentioned makes "Salvation" the indicator for Manhattan Elevated Railroad stock, while the personals referred to were:

"Texas Correspondent.—-Up-town Salvation. Then let me know at once how you stand. Who is using the same heading? Are you trifling?"

"Up-town Salvation" meant "bull Manhattan Elevated," and the question about the two persons using the same heading arose from some one who was curious trying to solve the mystery by inserting misleading notices. The second personal was:

"Negotiate Salvation.—-Yes. Keep Windsor. Let go Concord. Give me the cost of Salvation."

This was in regard to a query by letter from the "Old Victim." It meant "Keep Western Union. Sell Pacific Mail." Then came the personal alluded to in the "Old Victim's" letter, which said he asked too much in too short a time. It added:

"Be more reasonable."

After that came:

"Negotiate.—-Can't understand how it costs so much. Give me particulars. Do not be alarmed."

This had reference to the complaint that exorbitant demands of the brokers forced "Old Victim" to take a twenty per cent, margin.

And so it went on—-letters and personals and the police playing at cross purposes, until it was discovered that 'the bulk of the letters addressed to Mr. Jay Gould by "Old Victim" came from Post-office Station E. Still, this afforded a small chance of reaching the writer, as some letters were posted in other districts. However, a watch was kept on the letter-boxes, and letters received at Station E for Mr. Gould were, by an arrangement with the postal officials, allowed to be scrutinized by Central Office detectives. This plan failed, because it was found necessary, in order to catch the correspondent, to have a watch kept on each letter-box, and arrest any man who put a letter in for Mr. Gould in the handwriting of "Old Victim" on the spot.

A plan was first devised to have employees of the Post-office work in concert with the detectives, but this did not appear feasible, as it would first have necessitated the giving away of the secret to men who might be "leaky," and they might not be sufficiently alert, or sufficiently expert in handwriting to be of service. Finally it was agreed that each box of the district should be watched by an employee of the Post-office and one or more detectives. If a letter was dropped into a box the Post-office employee would keep an eye on the depositor and also scan the letter. If it were addressed to Jay Gould he would be particularly careful to note whether there was any resemblance between the handwriting of the address and that of "Old Victim."

The day chosen was Sunday, November 13, 1881. The letterboxes were under surveillance from an early hour, and the plan worked well until about noon, when a patrolman of the Twenty-ninth Precinct, who was not in the secret and who had been watching the actions of two Central Office detectives who had charge of a box in company with a Post-office official, became suspicious. He was not satisfied with the explanation of one of the officers that they were detectives acting under orders from Inspector Byrnes, and was about to take one of them into custody when another detective passed who was acquainted with the patrolman, and the matter was explained. Fortunately the "Old Victim " did not choose that box as his depository. But at three o'clock a sprucely-dressed man with a military bearing went to the box at the corner of Thirty-fourth Street and Seventh Avenue, carelessly dropped in a letter, and walked off. John Healy, a postman, quickly opened the box and found a letter addressed to Jay Gould. Detectives Phil Riley and Wood were instantly informed of the fact, and a glance at the handwriting of the address satisfied them that the man who had dropped it in the box was worth detaining. He was halted, questioned, the letter was re-examined, and Detective Riley at once decided that he had Mr. Gould's tormentor in his grasp.

The prisoner was taken to police headquarters and proved to be Colonel Welles. When confronted with Mr. Washington E. Conner and other gentlemen in the interest of Mr. Gould he made some very lame excuses and shammed insanity. The same defence was made for him when he was arraigned at the Tombs police court. He was able to exercise the strangest kind of personal influence over Mr. Gould, and after passing a few weeks in prison was released and was never prosecuted.

It was not believed at any time that "Old Victim" had any accomplices. He coined the scheme without aid, and if he had been a sharper man he would have made money out of Mr. Gould, as it was in Mr. Gould's interest to humor him in the matter of giving "points." Many a stock gambler would have given Colonel Welles a check for $100,000 if he had known the plot, and that Colonel Welles had driven in an entering wedge by getting up a newspaper "personal" correspondence in which a cypher key was brought into requisition.

---end

[Mayerling]

Well the statement by Governor Odell certainly adheres to details given in the newspaper article about Mr. Damon - in particular about his suspicious candidate for the crime, the 'man in Cranford, N.J." and the fact that Jacob Riis has also made a statement regarding his observations at the time of the murder regarding blood (or it's non-appearance) in the room where Ali's bed was found. There is a solid consistency here, and (truthfully) had these facts been brought out Ali might not have been convicted. Fortunately he was not executed.

Jeff

[TradeName]

An image of the room key as published in the Sun's 1891 coverage.

New York Sun, April 25, 1891, Page 2





A summary of the case for the commutation of Frenchy's sentence from the Governor's papers.

Public papers of Benjamin B. Odell, jr., Governor for 1901-1904, Volume 2 (Albany: J. B. Lyon Company, 1907), Pages 272-277
By New York (State). Governor (1901-1904)

April 16, i902. George Frank. Sentenced July i0, i89i; county, New York; crime, murder, second degree; term, life; Sing Sing Prison.

Commuted to ten years, nine months and ten days, actual time.

This application is based solely upon the ground that the prisoner is innocent. It is insisted that the evidence upon which he was convicted was exceedingly weak and unconvincing so as scarcely to be legally sufficient, and that the doubt arising upon that evidence alone is such as to render the case a proper one for Executive intervention; and further that evidence recently discovered and now adduced is of such a character as practically to demonstrate his innocence.

The murder of which he was convicted was peculiarly atrocious and revolting. The victim was a dissolute woman about sixty years of age. About midnight, April 23, 1891, she and a companion, not the prisoner, retired together to a room to which they had been assigned on the upper floor of the East River Hotel, a low lodging house on Catharine Slip, New York City. As they failed to appear on the following morning the clerk opened the door with his pass key and discovered the woman lying dead on the bed. She had first been strangled and her body had then been horribly mutilated. Her companion was gone. Just when he left the evidence did not disclose; it was entirely silent on that subject. The key of the room was also missing. The prisoner had occupied a room directly across the hall and had left the house about five o'clock in the morning. The evidence to connect him with the crime was necessarily circumstantial. It was testified by experts that a chemical analysis of the scrapings of his finger nails showed substances similar to those found in the stomach of the murdered woman. Witnesses testified that, during the day following the murder, they found traces of blood leading from the room occupied by the deceased to that of the prisoner. As reported by the district attorney the proof on this subject was that three drops of blood were found in the hallway, a spot of blood on the lower panel of the door of the prisoner's room just under the lock, on the inside of the same door some spots, and some on the paper in the hallway which the police officers cut out.

Affidavits are now produced, made by persons of credit, some of whom had had experience in the investigation of crime, that they visited the scene of the murder shortly after its discovery and made a careful examination of the premises, and that they discovered no blood stains; at all events, none having a tendency to connect the prisoner with the homicide. One of these is by Mr. Jacob A. Riis. He says he arrived at the hotel about noon and examined the place carefully, viewing the room where the murder was committed and the other rooms on the same floor, and that he noticed no blood spots on the floor between the prisoner's room and that of the deceased, none on the door of the prisoner's room, inside or outside, and none in the prisoner's room, and that, to the best of his knowledge and belief, there were no blood spots on the floor of the hall or in or around the room occupied by the prisoner. It is insisted by the prisoner's counsel that these affidavits are strongly corroborated by the fact that no blood stains were found by any person on the knob or panels of the door of the murdered woman's room. Upon this point he says: "It was inferred against the prisoner that in the brief transit across the hall to his own room blood dripped on the floor, and that he daubed the walls in his groping, and soiled the panels of his door on both sides in opening it and again in closing it, while in unlocking and locking the door of the room in which the butchery had just been perpetrated, no sign of blood was left behind".

Near the scene a knife was found, probably the one used by the murderer; and evidence was given tending to show that, three or four months before, the prisoner was in possession of a knife of the same kind except that its blade was not broken or filed down to a point as was that of the knife found.

There was also some proof that, when arrested, blood stains were found on different parts of the prisoner's clothing. Some further facts were proved, but they had little if any bearing upon the question of his guilt.

It must be conceded that the evidence, even when wholly undisputed, was weak and inconclusive, and it is contended that the jury must have so regarded it; that there is no other way of accounting for the verdict; that there was no ground whatever for designating the crime as murder in the second degree, and that it could have been so found only on account of serious doubt existing in the minds of the jurors as to the prisoner's guilt.

But it is insisted that his innocence is now fully established by the new evidence. This consists of affidavits going to show that, on the morning after the murder, the key of the room in which the crime was committed was in the possession of a man who had been for some weeks in the employ of a resident of Cranford, New Jersey. He had been absent during the night and returned to Cranford in the morning. A few days afterwards he left without notice to his employer, and, upon cleaning up his room, the key was found, together with a shirt covered with blood stains. A brass tag was attached to the key bearing the number of the room which had been occupied by the deceased and her companion. It was afterwards compared with other keys at the hotel and found to be like them in every respect, and evidently part of the same set. The man referred to was a stranger at Cranford, having been brought there by his employer, and has never been heard of since he disappeared. These affidavits are all of them by persons of repute, the principal one being made by a gentleman who has been engaged in business in the city of New York for upwards of thirty years, and who is vouched for by Governor Voorhies as a man of excellent character. No motive to misrepresent is apparent; and unless the affidavits are a pure fabrication, there can be no doubt that the prisoner was wrongfully convicted. Whoever committed the murder must have had the key, and, if the key was found as alleged, the prisoner could not possibly have had it. Attention has been called to some further facts tending to establish the prisoner's innocence, but it is not necessary to refer to them particularly.

I appreciate fully the serious objections that exist to the retrying of cases upon applications for Executive clemency. As a general rule, and one to which there can be but few exceptions, the judgment of the trial court ought to be regarded as conclusive. But the present application is altogether exceptional. The evidence upon which the prisoner was convicted was extremely meager; some of it was, to say the least, of an exceedingly untrustworthy character, he was tried under very disadvantageous circumstances, and it is impossible to resist the conclusion that had the new evidence been produced upon the trial an acquittal must have resulted This evidence was not then accessible and its non-production cannot be justly attributed to lack of diligence.

To refuse relief under such circumstances would be plainly a denial of justice, and after a very careful consideration of all the facts I have reached the conclusion that it is clearly my duty to order the prisoner's release.

---end

[Mayerling]

Here's a more detailed article about the affidavits submitted in support of the plea for Frenchy's pardon. One of the witnesses was Jacob Riis, the Sun's police reporter and a friend of Teddy Roosevelt.

New York Sun, June 02, 1901, Page 1, Column 1

Shakespeare Murder Key

Found in a Housewife's Jewel Box at Cranford, N.J.

Another attempt to secure the liberation
of "Frenchy," otherwise the Algerian
Ameer Ben Ali, who was sent to prison
for life as the murderer of "Old Shakespeare"
in the East River Hotel, is now
being carried forward by persons actuated
only by the desire for what they belleve
to be justice. This is the third attempt
to secure the pardon of the Algerian.

Eight affidavits were sent to the Governor
at Albany yesterday by Lawyer
Ovide Robillard. An effort was made to
induce Gov. Black to pardon "Frenchy,"
but the Governor did not feel called upon
to act. When Gov. Roosevelt was asked
to grant a pardon to the Algerian he declined
on the ground that there was no
evidence to show that "Frenchy" was not
guilty. This objection of Gov. Roosevelt's
is met in the papers sent to Albany
by Mr. RoblDard, as the prisoner's friends
--who are altogether unknown to the prlsoner
himself--have been fortunate enough to
secure evidence that "Frenchy" did not
commit the murder and evidence that
another man, a Dane, did kill "Old Shakespeare."
As tangible evidence they have
the key to the room where the murder was
committed, which the murderer carried
away with him on the night of the murder
and which has been missing, so far as the
authorities are concerned, for ten years,
but the whereabouts of which during that
time is not known.

The key comes to light through George
Damon, a dealer in printers' materials at
44 Beckman street, who lives at Cranford,
N. J., with the history of its finding and
retention at his home on account of an
unwillingness to face the publicity of coming
forward with it at that time, a belief
that "Frenchy" was of a character such
that he should be In jail anyway, and a
fear of the big, ugly Dane who, Mr. Damon
believes, committed the murder.

Mr. Damon says that about a month
before the murder of "Old Shakespeare"
on April 23, 1891, having some grading to
do at his place in New Jersey, he went to
Castle Garden and hired a big foreigner
whom he knew only as Frank and whom he
took to be a Dane. After the grading was
finished the Dane was retained as an assistant
about the stable and grounds. Mr.
Damon's regular man being partly incapacitated
by reason of an accident, On
the morning of April 24, about 8 o'clock,
Damon went out to his stable and, not seeing
the Dane about, asked his other man where
Frank was. His man told him that the
Dane was upstairs asleep, that be had been
out all night and had come home very
ugly, and that Mr. Damon would be likely
to have trouble if he disturbed him. Mr.
Damon therefore didn't disturb him, but
came to the city as usual about 8 o'clock.

Between five and ten days later, Mr.
Damon say [sic], Frank left his employ abruptly.
He disappeared in the night and Mr.
Damon has never heard of him since. When he
came to Mr. Damon's he brought with him
only a small bundle of clothes. When he
went away he took this with him. When
Mrs. Damon sent one of her maid servants
to the barn to clean out the room Frank
had occupied the girl found there a bloody
shirt and a brass key, the only articles
the Dane had left in the room. The key was
attached to a brass tag on which was
stamped the number 31. This was the
number of the room in which "Shakespeare"
was murdered, and the key to which
had been taken away by the man who occupied
the room with her. The newspapers
had told all about the missing key. THE
SUN had published a picture of another
key belonging to the same hotel just like
the missing one.

The maid told Mrs. Damon of the finding
of the bloody shirt and the key in the barn
room and remarked that the number on the
tag attached to the key was the same as the
number of the room in which "Old Shakespeare"
had been murdered. When Mr.
Damon came home he was informed of
what had been found and the next day
when he came to the city he took one
of his employees and went around to the
saloon-hotel where the murder was done
and sitting down at a table ordered some
cigars. From the table they studied the
keys to tha other rooms of the hotel hanging
on the keyboard and saw they
were like the one found at Cranford.

While they were smoking a man came
downstairs from the hotel and laying a
key down on the bar went out. Damon
and his employee walked to the bar
and ordered some beer and while there
compared the key just laid down with
the one they had brought with them, and
found that the two were exactly alike.
Mr. Damon says that his familiarity
with type enables him to say the number
31 on his key was stamped on the brass
tag with the same die which had made
the numbers on the tag attached to the
other key and the numbers also on the
rest of the keys hanging up. The two
men left the hotel and for reasons already
mentioned Mr. Damon refrained
from coming forward and informing the authorities
of what he had found out. He did
tell his discoveries, however, to a friend,
John Lee, the well-known contractor, and it
was partly on Mr. Lee's advice, he says,
that he kept his information to himself
after that. An affidavit by Mr. Lee saying
that Mr. Damon told him of this ten
years ago has been sent with Mr. Damon's
to Gov. Odell, and there is among the papers
also an affidavit by Mr. Damon's employee,
Charles Brennan, corroborating Mr. Damon.
Brennan works for Mr. Damon as a truckman.

After making his affidavit Mr. Damon
went home and asked his wife if she could
swear to the number which the key her
maId found had borne, and she replied
that she could and that the key was up
in her jewel box, where it had been ever
since it was found. So the key was produced
and that too was sent on to Albany,
yesterday. The "1" of the "31" didn't
make a good mark when it was first stamped
on the brass tag, and a second impression
had to be made. The first blur and the
correction are both clear now.

Ever since the trial and conviction of
"Frenchy" there has been a widespread
conviction in this town that the Algerian
was "railroaded" to prison as a means to
stop the public clamor that some one should
be punished for the murder. "Frenchy"
has become insane in his imprisonment
and is now in the hospital for the criminal
insane at Matteawan, where Gov. Odell
saw him not long ago.

One of the points made by the police at
the time thay captured "Frenchy" and
identified him as the man who had done
the crime was the alleged discovery of "a
trail of blood" which led from the walls of
the room in which the body wes found
directly to the depraved Algerian. One
of the affidavits just sent to Gov.
Odell is that of Jacob A. Riis, who declares
that he was the first person from Police
Headquarters to enter the room after the
report of the finding of the body was made,
and that there were no spots of blood about
the room. F.C. Barber, who is now city
editor of one of the city papers was at
time a reporter for an evening paper and
was left at the scene of the murder, after
the other reporters had gone for the express
purpose of looking around the room
more carefully than they had the opportunity
to do in their hurry. He has
made an affidavit, which has been sent to
the Governor, saying also that there
no blood spots as the police declared
later they had found. H. Biebinich,
a clerk In one of the city departments, makes
affidavit that in an Eighth avenue place of
refreshment he had heard two men some time
after the murder declare that the alleged
blood spots spoken of by the police were
smears made on the walls by certain reporters
for the sake of doing duty as "clues."

Robert G. Butler of the editorial force
of one of the New York papers has made
an affidavit in which he nays Mr. Riis
and another reporter, W.J. Chamberlin,
told him at the time of the excitement over
the murder, that there were no blood spots
in the room, and he says that he told this
to Frederick House, who defended "Frenchy"
on his trial, but that Mr House did not
utilize the information in his trial of the
case. Another newspaper man, F.F.
Coleman, in his affidavit says that Dr W.
T. Jenkins told him that he had found in
"Shakespeare's" stomach evidence in the
condition of the food there that the woman
had eaten about an hour and a half before
she died, as it is known that "Shakespeare"
did eat, whereas "Frenchy" did not come
to the hotel until several hours after she
was known to have eaten this food. Mr.
Coleman says that Dr. Jenkins expressed
his willingness to go on the stand to testify
to this, that he, Coleman, wrote to Mr.
House informing him of this fact. Dr.
Jenkins was not questioned as to this reported
finding of his, however. Mr. Coleman
says that Mr. House sunsequently
acknowledged to him that he had received
the letter.

----end

There are a lot of holes in this story. The behavior of Mr. Damon for example makes little sense. He tested out the key, and found it might have been from the rat-trap hotel "Old Shakespeare" died in. But how we accept this? He never the key to the management of the hotel - nor ask if there was a missing hotel key to room 31. He claims he was afraid of "Frank the Dane", but if the key had proven to be the hotel's he could have returned to Cranford with something in writing for the local police chief, and they could have ARRESTED "Frank the Dane". Byrnes might have been a little put out that it wasn't Ali, but he would have taken "Frank" if offered. And had "Frank" been offered, given his disposition and manner, he would have gotten the death penalty. So no problem from "Frank" for Mr. Damon.

Instead he waits a decade (by which time Frank is no longer physically around) to come forward? And, in his interest in justice, gets Jacob Riis (who was a Danish immigrant, by the way - he might have known "Frank the Dane" - who happened to be an old friend of Governor Roosevelt who had turned down the pardon request). This may be partly true, but I don't believe it at all.

Jeff

[TradeName]

Here's a more detailed article about the affidavits submitted in support of the plea for Frenchy's pardon. One of the witnesses was Jacob Riis, the Sun's police reporter and a friend of Teddy Roosevelt.

New York Sun, June 02, 1901, Page 1, Column 1

Shakespeare Murder Key

Found in a Housewife's Jewel Box at Cranford, N.J.

Another attempt to secure the liberation
of "Frenchy," otherwise the Algerian
Ameer Ben Ali, who was sent to prison
for life as the murderer of "Old Shakespeare"
in the East River Hotel, is now
being carried forward by persons actuated
only by the desire for what they belleve
to be justice. This is the third attempt
to secure the pardon of the Algerian.

Eight affidavits were sent to the Governor
at Albany yesterday by Lawyer
Ovide Robillard. An effort was made to
induce Gov. Black to pardon "Frenchy,"
but the Governor did not feel called upon
to act. When Gov. Roosevelt was asked
to grant a pardon to the Algerian he declined
on the ground that there was no
evidence to show that "Frenchy" was not
guilty. This objection of Gov. Roosevelt's
is met in the papers sent to Albany
by Mr. RoblDard, as the prisoner's friends
--who are altogether unknown to the prlsoner
himself--have been fortunate enough to
secure evidence that "Frenchy" did not
commit the murder and evidence that
another man, a Dane, did kill "Old Shakespeare."
As tangible evidence they have
the key to the room where the murder was
committed, which the murderer carried
away with him on the night of the murder
and which has been missing, so far as the
authorities are concerned, for ten years,
but the whereabouts of which during that
time is not known.

The key comes to light through George
Damon, a dealer in printers' materials at
44 Beckman street, who lives at Cranford,
N. J., with the history of its finding and
retention at his home on account of an
unwillingness to face the publicity of coming
forward with it at that time, a belief
that "Frenchy" was of a character such
that he should be In jail anyway, and a
fear of the big, ugly Dane who, Mr. Damon
believes, committed the murder.

Mr. Damon says that about a month
before the murder of "Old Shakespeare"
on April 23, 1891, having some grading to
do at his place in New Jersey, he went to
Castle Garden and hired a big foreigner
whom he knew only as Frank and whom he
took to be a Dane. After the grading was
finished the Dane was retained as an assistant
about the stable and grounds. Mr.
Damon's regular man being partly incapacitated
by reason of an accident, On
the morning of April 24, about 8 o'clock,
Damon went out to his stable and, not seeing
the Dane about, asked his other man where
Frank was. His man told him that the
Dane was upstairs asleep, that be had been
out all night and had come home very
ugly, and that Mr. Damon would be likely
to have trouble if he disturbed him. Mr.
Damon therefore didn't disturb him, but
came to the city as usual about 8 o'clock.

Between five and ten days later, Mr.
Damon say [sic], Frank left his employ abruptly.
He disappeared in the night and Mr.
Damon has never heard of him since. When he
came to Mr. Damon's he brought with him
only a small bundle of clothes. When he
went away he took this with him. When
Mrs. Damon sent one of her maid servants
to the barn to clean out the room Frank
had occupied the girl found there a bloody
shirt and a brass key, the only articles
the Dane had left in the room. The key was
attached to a brass tag on which was
stamped the number 31. This was the
number of the room in which "Shakespeare"
was murdered, and the key to which
had been taken away by the man who occupied
the room with her. The newspapers
had told all about the missing key. THE
SUN had published a picture of another
key belonging to the same hotel just like
the missing one.

The maid told Mrs. Damon of the finding
of the bloody shirt and the key in the barn
room and remarked that the number on the
tag attached to the key was the same as the
number of the room in which "Old Shakespeare"
had been murdered. When Mr.
Damon came home he was informed of
what had been found and the next day
when he came to the city he took one
of his employees and went around to the
saloon-hotel where the murder was done
and sitting down at a table ordered some
cigars. From the table they studied the
keys to tha other rooms of the hotel hanging
on the keyboard and saw they
were like the one found at Cranford.

While they were smoking a man came
downstairs from the hotel and laying a
key down on the bar went out. Damon
and his employee walked to the bar
and ordered some beer and while there
compared the key just laid down with
the one they had brought with them, and
found that the two were exactly alike.
Mr. Damon says that his familiarity
with type enables him to say the number
31 on his key was stamped on the brass
tag with the same die which had made
the numbers on the tag attached to the
other key and the numbers also on the
rest of the keys hanging up. The two
men left the hotel and for reasons already
mentioned Mr. Damon refrained
from coming forward and informing the authorities
of what he had found out. He did
tell his discoveries, however, to a friend,
John Lee, the well-known contractor, and it
was partly on Mr. Lee's advice, he says,
that he kept his information to himself
after that. An affidavit by Mr. Lee saying
that Mr. Damon told him of this ten
years ago has been sent with Mr. Damon's
to Gov. Odell, and there is among the papers
also an affidavit by Mr. Damon's employee,
Charles Brennan, corroborating Mr. Damon.
Brennan works for Mr. Damon as a truckman.

After making his affidavit Mr. Damon
went home and asked his wife if she could
swear to the number which the key her
maId found had borne, and she replied
that she could and that the key was up
in her jewel box, where it had been ever
since it was found. So the key was produced
and that too was sent on to Albany,
yesterday. The "1" of the "31" didn't
make a good mark when it was first stamped
on the brass tag, and a second impression
had to be made. The first blur and the
correction are both clear now.

Ever since the trial and conviction of
"Frenchy" there has been a widespread
conviction in this town that the Algerian
was "railroaded" to prison as a means to
stop the public clamor that some one should
be punished for the murder. "Frenchy"
has become insane in his imprisonment
and is now in the hospital for the criminal
insane at Matteawan, where Gov. Odell
saw him not long ago.

One of the points made by the police at
the time thay captured "Frenchy" and
identified him as the man who had done
the crime was the alleged discovery of "a
trail of blood" which led from the walls of
the room in which the body wes found
directly to the depraved Algerian. One
of the affidavits just sent to Gov.
Odell is that of Jacob A. Riis, who declares
that he was the first person from Police
Headquarters to enter the room after the
report of the finding of the body was made,
and that there were no spots of blood about
the room. F.C. Barber, who is now city
editor of one of the city papers was at
time a reporter for an evening paper and
was left at the scene of the murder, after
the other reporters had gone for the express
purpose of looking around the room
more carefully than they had the opportunity
to do in their hurry. He has
made an affidavit, which has been sent to
the Governor, saying also that there
no blood spots as the police declared
later they had found. H. Biebinich,
a clerk In one of the city departments, makes
affidavit that in an Eighth avenue place of
refreshment he had heard two men some time
after the murder declare that the alleged
blood spots spoken of by the police were
smears made on the walls by certain reporters
for the sake of doing duty as "clues."

Robert G. Butler of the editorial force
of one of the New York papers has made
an affidavit in which he nays Mr. Riis
and another reporter, W.J. Chamberlin,
told him at the time of the excitement over
the murder, that there were no blood spots
in the room, and he says that he told this
to Frederick House, who defended "Frenchy"
on his trial, but that Mr House did not
utilize the information in his trial of the
case. Another newspaper man, F.F.
Coleman, in his affidavit says that Dr W.
T. Jenkins told him that he had found in
"Shakespeare's" stomach evidence in the
condition of the food there that the woman
had eaten about an hour and a half before
she died, as it is known that "Shakespeare"
did eat, whereas "Frenchy" did not come
to the hotel until several hours after she
was known to have eaten this food. Mr.
Coleman says that Dr. Jenkins expressed
his willingness to go on the stand to testify
to this, that he, Coleman, wrote to Mr.
House informing him of this fact. Dr.
Jenkins was not questioned as to this reported
finding of his, however. Mr. Coleman
says that Mr. House sunsequently
acknowledged to him that he had received
the letter.

----end

[Pcdunn]

I consider the story of the letter, and the speculation that it was written by Jack, and not by a third party observer, to be creative writing.

But isn't there some idea that Jack might have escaped to Latin America, related to another suspect theory? I know I read something here about it...

[Mayerling]

"Yet the police commander under whom this case occurred was the best that New York has had in this generation, and had a record in which investigation could find no flaw."

This is very interesting, indeed. Last year I did some research into the children abused and murdered in NYC in 1915. Byrnes was also the police commander then. And there was also some controversy over the man he turned over to the courts, who was imprisoned, and eventually released.

The author of the second article strikes me as an excellent example of a journalist worried about the influence of modern industry, with his speculation that being a stoker drove the man to becoming a serial killer!

Well, Russell being a Socialist, he would have a view of industrialization that would not be favorable. I again refer you to the Wikipedia article on him.

I still can't understand his failure to name the ship lost in the typhoon - what would have been the harm? Whenever I see that kind of a vague, supposedly specific detail given (many times like Russell used it here - to reassure us that "Providence" via the typhoon drowned the real killer, though forget "Providence" also killed the rest of the crew), I find it suspicious and begin to wonder what actually are the facts in the whole story.

Jeff

[Pcdunn]

"Yet the police commander under whom this case occurred was the best that New York has had in this generation, and had a record in which investigation could find no flaw."

This is very interesting, indeed. Last year I did some research into the children abused and murdered in NYC in 1915. Byrnes was also the police commander then. And there was also some controversy over the man he turned over to the courts, who was imprisoned, and eventually released.

The author of the second article strikes me as an excellent example of a journalist worried about the influence of modern industry, with his speculation that being a stoker drove the man to becoming a serial killer!

[Mayerling]

I haven't seen anything else about a cross scratched on the wall at the East River Hotel.

Here's an article about Frenchy's pardon which mentions that affidavits from reporters who had seen the crime scene were a factor.

New York Sun, April 17, 1902, Page 2, Column 1

Governor Pardons Frenchy

Arab Convicted of Murdering Old Shakespeare in 1891

Amer Ben Ali, alias George Frank alias
"Frenchy," convicted on July 10, 1891 of
murder in the second degree and sentenced
to State prison for life for killing Caroline
Brown, better known as "Old Shakespeare"
in a room of the East River Hotel, at Water
and Catherine streets, on the night of April
24, 1891, was pardoned by Gov. Odell yesterday.
"Frenchy" is now confined in the
State Hospital for criminal insane at Dannemora.
The first news that he had been
pardoned was carried to the hospital last
evening by a correspondent of THE SUN.
The Arab had been locked in his cell for
the night, and the Superintendent concluded
it would be better not to tell him of
the good news until this morning.

The crime, for which this illiterate Arab
from Algiera has spent nearly eleven years
in prison and more than a decade among
criminal lunatics, was one of the most
famous in the history of crime in New York.
It occurred at the time that "Jack the
Ripper" was abroad in London killing and
then mutilating the bodies of the outcasts
of Whltechapel. He came and murdered,
went his way, and murdered again, and
Scotland Yard discovered not so much as a
trace of his footprints. One morning the
cable despatches to the New York papers
told the story of one of the Ripper's most
revolting murders. Byrnes was in Mulberry
street then and he was asked that
morning what would happen if "Jack the
Ripper" were to ply his trade In New York.

"He would be caught within twenty-four
hours," was Byrnes's reply.

His words were hardly in type before he
was called upon to make them good. An
old piece of the flotsam and jetsam of the
waterfront who had drifted along the East
River shore for years went into the East
River Hotel with a man about 10 o'clock
on the night of April 23, 1891.
The couple were assigned to room 31, and
the clerk remarked that "Old Shakespeare"
had finally landed a fish. The body of the
woman was found next day horribly mutilated
in the room to which she and her
companion had been assigned. The man
had disappeared and no one had seen him
leave the hotel.

Brynes left Mulberry street to take
personal charge of his sleuths.
Finally, several days after the murder, he
arrested "Frenchy," a seller of fruit, with
a stand not far from the scene of the crime,
charged him with the murder and secured
a conviction in the second degree. It was
established that the man had occupied a
room directly across the hall from Room 31
on the night of the murder, and the police
said that on the walls of that room and on
the door bloodstains were found. Expert
chemists testified that the scrapings from
beneath "Frenchy's" finger nails showed
on analysis that they contained the same
substance found in the stomach of the
murdered woman.

And so the Algerian who couldn't speak
a word of English was sentenced to life
imprisonment. After a few months in
Sing sing, his mind gave way and he was
sent to tne State Hospital for Criminal
Insane at Matteawan. From there he was
transferred to Dannemora about eighteen
months ago.

"Frenchy" owes his pardon to the efforts
put forth by Ovide Robillard, the French
lawyer of 35 Pine street. In 1897, the French
Consul-General of New York asked Mr.
Robillard to take up Ben Ali's case. In
October of that year a petition for the
man's pardon containing 5,000 names
was presented to Gov. Black, who refused
to interfere. Another appeal was made to
Gov. Roosevelt with the same result.

Then Mr. Robillard secured the affidavits
of several newspaper men, who
reported the case and who reached the
East River Hotel before the police, in
which it was stated that there were no
blood stains in "Frenchy's" room or on
the room door when the reporters examined
them. That was in the nature of
new evidence and more followed when
Mr. Robillard found George Damon of
the firm of Damon & Peet, manufacturers,
in Beckman street. Mr. Damon told of
having had in his employ at his place in
Cranford, N. J., a man whose first name
was Frank, whose appearance tallied
much better than Frenchy's did with that
of the man who went to the hotel with
"old Shakespeare."

Damon said that Frank was not at home
on the night of the murder and disappeared
the day the case was reported in the papers.
After he disappeared there was found in
his room over Damon's stable a blood-stained
pair of troupers and shirt and a
key with a tag attached bearing the number
31. The key was like those to the rooms
of the Eas River Hotel. After reviewing
all this new evidence, Gov. Odell concluded
that the man ought to be pardoned. Mr.
Roblllard said last night that "Frenchy,"
who has always asserted his innocence,
will probably be sent back to Algiers, where
he left a wife and children, at the expense
of the French Government.

----end

Interesting that there was a petition with 5,000 signatures on it for Ali's release from 1897 onward, and Governor Theodore Roosevelt was one of those who refused to release Ali. TR was a firm believer in using the death penalty when (in his opinion) merited. In 1899 a Mrs. Martha Place killed her step daughter with an axe and seriously injured her husband, and TR refused to commute her death sentence to life imprisonment, as a petition requested. She was the first woman in New York State executed in the electric chair.

Oddly enough, crime historian Edmund Pearson once said that TR's favorite piece of doggerel poetry was the "Lizzie Borden" quadrain: "Lizzie Borden took an axe, and gave her mother forty wacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty one!"

In his own career TR had been New York City Police Commissioner, and had (as a rancher in the Dakotas) once been on a ten day tracking down of horse thieves. Ironically the closest he came to a murder case in his own life (besides the assassination of President McKinley, which elevated him to the White House in 1901, and the attempt on his life by John Schrank in the 1912 Presidential campaign, and a murder of one of his exploration party by another man on the "River of Doubt" trip in 1914*) was the Roosevelt-Crane-Becker incident in 1895. TR was upset when the novelist Stephen Crane came to the defense of a prostitute who Crane was walking with one night, who was beaten and arrested by P.O. Becker. Becker, a decorated cop, was defended in his actions by Roosevelt (who was a notorious prude), and Crane (who had the guts to defend the woman in court) was attacked by Teddy for his low companions and friends. The court did not find against Becker, and Crane left New York City for his safety.

[*The murder was the result of a quarrel about pilfered stores by the perpetrator. The perpetrator ran off into the rain forest. The others in the group had a make-shift court on the incident, and decided that they could not waste time seeking the man. Moreover the area had very dangerous tribes in the forests, and the best bet was to press on leaving the perpetrator to fend for himself (which under the circumstances was as hideous a punishment as might be thought up). As they were headed downstream in their canoes, the man reappeared and begged them to take him with them rather than leave him behind. But they had realized they'd have to tie him up and watch him like a hawk, and that would be an added burden to their exploration party dangers. They left him crying on the bank of the river. Presumably he met his end in the hands of the natives.]

During the Spanish American War Crane was one of the leading newspaper reporters in Cuba covering the war - and he purposely wrote of how the enlisted men in the various units (including the "Rough Riders") were faring - ignoring the publicity hog Roosevelt. TR did not have to worry - Crane's fellow correspondent Richard Harding Davis covered TR in his prose. In 1912 when TR was the Progressive/Bull Moose candidate an embarrassment arose that he ignored: Now Lieutenant Charles Becker, head of the anti-gambling squad, was arrested for taking bribes and for arranging the murder of gambler Herman Rosenthal (who had just given a sworn written statement about Becker's criminal activities to D.A. Charles Whitman - in the presence of Herbert Bayard Swope of the New York Tribune).

Becker, after two trials, and two appeals, was executed in 1915 for the Rosenthal murder. Although there is still doubt about his guilt (see Andy Logan's book, "Against the Evidence") he remains the highest ranking police official ever executed for murder in the U.S. Roosevelt barely mentioned the fact he once championed the man. Unfortunately, Stephen Crane died in Europe in 1900, so he never knew his view of Becker would be vindicated.

Jeff

[TradeName]

I haven't seen anything else about a cross scratched on the wall at the East River Hotel.

Here's an article about Frenchy's pardon which mentions that affidavits from reporters who had seen the crime scene were a factor.

New York Sun, April 17, 1902, Page 2, Column 1

Governor Pardons Frenchy

Arab Convicted of Murdering Old Shakespeare in 1891

Amer Ben Ali, alias George Frank alias
"Frenchy," convicted on July 10, 1891 of
murder in the second degree and sentenced
to State prison for life for killing Caroline
Brown, better known as "Old Shakespeare"
in a room of the East River Hotel, at Water
and Catherine streets, on the night of April
24, 1891, was pardoned by Gov. Odell yesterday.
"Frenchy" is now confined in the
State Hospital for criminal insane at Dannemora.
The first news that he had been
pardoned was carried to the hospital last
evening by a correspondent of THE SUN.
The Arab had been locked in his cell for
the night, and the Superintendent concluded
it would be better not to tell him of
the good news until this morning.

The crime, for which this illiterate Arab
from Algiera has spent nearly eleven years
in prison and more than a decade among
criminal lunatics, was one of the most
famous in the history of crime in New York.
It occurred at the time that "Jack the
Ripper" was abroad in London killing and
then mutilating the bodies of the outcasts
of Whltechapel. He came and murdered,
went his way, and murdered again, and
Scotland Yard discovered not so much as a
trace of his footprints. One morning the
cable despatches to the New York papers
told the story of one of the Ripper's most
revolting murders. Byrnes was in Mulberry
street then and he was asked that
morning what would happen if "Jack the
Ripper" were to ply his trade In New York.

"He would be caught within twenty-four
hours," was Byrnes's reply.

His words were hardly in type before he
was called upon to make them good. An
old piece of the flotsam and jetsam of the
waterfront who had drifted along the East
River shore for years went into the East
River Hotel with a man about 10 o'clock
on the night of April 23, 1891.
The couple were assigned to room 31, and
the clerk remarked that "Old Shakespeare"
had finally landed a fish. The body of the
woman was found next day horribly mutilated
in the room to which she and her
companion had been assigned. The man
had disappeared and no one had seen him
leave the hotel.

Brynes left Mulberry street to take
personal charge of his sleuths.
Finally, several days after the murder, he
arrested "Frenchy," a seller of fruit, with
a stand not far from the scene of the crime,
charged him with the murder and secured
a conviction in the second degree. It was
established that the man had occupied a
room directly across the hall from Room 31
on the night of the murder, and the police
said that on the walls of that room and on
the door bloodstains were found. Expert
chemists testified that the scrapings from
beneath "Frenchy's" finger nails showed
on analysis that they contained the same
substance found in the stomach of the
murdered woman.

And so the Algerian who couldn't speak
a word of English was sentenced to life
imprisonment. After a few months in
Sing sing, his mind gave way and he was
sent to tne State Hospital for Criminal
Insane at Matteawan. From there he was
transferred to Dannemora about eighteen
months ago.

"Frenchy" owes his pardon to the efforts
put forth by Ovide Robillard, the French
lawyer of 35 Pine street. In 1897, the French
Consul-General of New York asked Mr.
Robillard to take up Ben Ali's case. In
October of that year a petition for the
man's pardon containing 5,000 names
was presented to Gov. Black, who refused
to interfere. Another appeal was made to
Gov. Roosevelt with the same result.

Then Mr. Robillard secured the affidavits
of several newspaper men, who
reported the case and who reached the
East River Hotel before the police, in
which it was stated that there were no
blood stains in "Frenchy's" room or on
the room door when the reporters examined
them. That was in the nature of
new evidence and more followed when
Mr. Robillard found George Damon of
the firm of Damon & Peet, manufacturers,
in Beckman street. Mr. Damon told of
having had in his employ at his place in
Cranford, N. J., a man whose first name
was Frank, whose appearance tallied
much better than Frenchy's did with that
of the man who went to the hotel with
"old Shakespeare."

Damon said that Frank was not at home
on the night of the murder and disappeared
the day the case was reported in the papers.
After he disappeared there was found in
his room over Damon's stable a blood-stained
pair of troupers and shirt and a
key with a tag attached bearing the number
31. The key was like those to the rooms
of the Eas River Hotel. After reviewing
all this new evidence, Gov. Odell concluded
that the man ought to be pardoned. Mr.
Roblllard said last night that "Frenchy,"
who has always asserted his innocence,
will probably be sent back to Algiers, where
he left a wife and children, at the expense
of the French Government.

----end

[Mayerling]

I did not comment yesterday, but I found Charles Edward Russell in Wikipedia. An impeccable character himself - reporter, writer, biographer (and a Pulitzer Prize Winner in 1927 for a biography), and a spokesperson (and political candidate) for Socialism. He was quite a figure in his day (he died in 1942). So his comments are worth considering, though I wish he said which newspaper got the letter, or what the name of the ship that was lost in that typhoon was. I imagine he found the Ali case a classic example of railroading.

Jeff

[Pcdunn]

Tradename,

Thank you for the long article about "railroading" innocent men for crimes, and the discussion of the Ripper crimes and Carrie Brown's murder.
I need to re-read it more carefully when I have more time, but I was struck by the mention of "a cross marked above the head of each victim" in both the Ripper crimes and in Brown's case.

This is probably made up, as the writer states they were "on the walls" (and we know most of the C5 didn't have walls near their heads), but I wonder if this wasn't found in Carrie's murder.

What do you all think?

[TradeName]

An article by a reporter who claims that there were discrepancies between the evidence presented at Frenchy's trial and what he observed at the scene of the crime,

The Coming Nation (Chicago), March 8, 1913, Pages 7-8, 11

Can a Man be "Railroaded"?

by Charles Edward Russell


The Chicago Federation of Labor, at its regular session on January 5 of this year, adopted resolutions against the conviction at Indianapolis of the thirty-eight labor leaders lately on trial there.

In these resolutions the opinion was expressed that the condemned men had been unfairly tried and “railroaded” to prison.

At this, a great many newspapers in the United States exclaimed in protest, declaring the idea that in this country a man could by any possibility be “railroaded" was ridiculous and preposterous. According to these newspapers, justice in this country is so secure, immaculate and well-administered, and the rights of accused persons are so abundantly guarded, that even the humblest, the most obscure, or the most obnoxious, could be practically assured of a fair and even handed trial, without fear or favor.

Therefore, the men at Indianapolis had not been "railroaded"; they could not have been; the charge that they had been was reckless, absurd, and reflected dishonor upon the cause of organized labor.

It is chiefly for the benefit of editors that have made these assertions that I produce the record that follows.

Also, for the benefit of other gentlemen that sneer incredulously at the statement that a great newspaper can be controlled by outside forces to the suppression of actual and pertinent facts or to the creation of a totally false impression concerning a matter of importance.

I have heard men now in the newspaper business declare that newspapers are not edited by their balance sheets and that any respectable newspaper will always put the truth above any question of profits.

It is to these that I dedicate this previously unprinted chapter of history, and when I have finished with it I shall be pleased to have their opinions about it.

I have not written this story before, because for s long time I had no chance, and when I had a chance there was nothing to hang it on. But when a host of newspapers gravely assert that to “railroad” a man-is impossible, I have not merely justifination for the record, but to my mind the record is demanded.

We will begin by going back to the years 1888, I889 and 1890 and to the famous series of puzzling crimes that were known as the “Jack the Ripper” murders.

All London, all England, and finally all the world were startled by these amazing exhibitions of depravity, the boldness with which they were perpetrated, the apparent ease with which the murderer defied detection. The most experienced detectives in England, the ablest men of Scotland Yard, were long employed in vain upon the mystery, and while they were at work the murderer repeated his crime almost before the eyes of some of them, and still he escaped.

The circumstances in each case were nearly identical. The victim was always a poor outcast woman of the streets. In a dark angle of some East End thoroughfare, or under a railroad arch, her body would he found stabbed to death and in every case mutilated in a certain way; mutilated with a very sharp instrument; mutilated apparently by some person with an accurate knowledge of anatomy.

In each ease on the wall above the body would ne found a cross, scratched there with the point of a knifé.

In each case the murder occurred after midnight and before dawn.

The streets of London are the best policed streets in the world. The East End, a region of great poverty, is thickly inhabited, and its thoroughfares are seldom empty. And yet although each of these murders was committed in a street, although in four of the seven instances the body was still Warm when it was discovered, although in one case the very footsteps of the murderer were heard departing, no one ever saw the fiend at his work.

More than once, however, some vague description of him was obtainable. The woman associates of the victim, skulkers and outcasts like herself, would see her walking away with a man that apparently she had captured in her way of gaining her livelihood. The next they knew of her she would be lying dead and mutilated. They had taken no particular notice of the man; it was the usual thing with this terrible sisterhood; but such accounts as they could give of him usually agreed in this, that they thought he was a sea-faring man, and from their impressions the police seemed to think that he was either a stoker or a man from a cattle ship. Several arrests were made of such men; one, an unfortunate American employed on a cattleship, was arrested every time he came to Liverpool—-arrested on general principles and because nature had given to him a singularly harsh and forbidding countenance. Nothing came of these arrests except some derision for the helpless police.

Meantime the murders continued.

The head of the detective branch of the New York police department was then Chief Inspector Thomas Byrnes, a very able man in his line, the greatest policeman and the greatest detective genius I have ever known. He was credited with the unraveling of a great number of dark mysteries and he had a service record almost singularly clean. The famous Lexow Committee, which uncovered so much monstrous graft in the department, harrowed his career from end to end, and could find nothing wrong therein. Even when he was a police captain and unknown he refused to have anything to do with graft or any place in the police camorra. I know myself of cases where he might have had a very considerable reward under circumstances that would have been absolutely safe and he rejected it on principle. About this Abe Hummel and others will readily corroborate me.

Byrnes stood very well with the great financial powers and with good reason. He had been to them of inestimable service. He kept every low crook and small thief out of Wall Street; he established at Fulton street a dead-line below which no recorded criminal could go on any pretense. He caught men that were wanted by influential business men; he made such obnoxious persons confess; he recovered money that had been stolen by defaulters; he attended to blackmailers and suppressed them without publicity; he knew family secrets and never divulged them. More than one millionaire in New York had reason to feel grateful to Thomas Byrnes. He said that their friendship enabled him to make money in ways that would be called legitimate. I have reason to believe that this statement was absolutely true. He knew that graft was going on in the department; he knew all the ramifications of the system as it existed in his day; but he had no part in it. I believe that also to be absolutely true, and in view of what happened afterward I think it is important.

The one thing that Byrnes cared for more than anything else was his reputation as a detective. He had been called “the world’s greatest thief-catcher,” and he enjoyed the title. The newspapers made much of him, partly for a reason I will disclose later, and he enjoyed their attentions. He had been offered a decoration from the king of Italy and had declined it, and he enjoyed the space the newspapers gave to that episode also.

When the “Jack the Ripper” crimes had become an international topic and the failure of Scotland Yard and the English detectives to solve the mystery was apparent, Byrnes was interviewed often about it. He was interviewed by American journals and by English, and to all he made the same declaration, that the detection of the murderer ought not to be diflicult, and that if “Jack the Ripper" should appear in New York he would be caught within 48 hours. He said this with emphasis and repeatedly; the remark was cabled to the London papers; they bitterly resented the implied reflection upon the detective ability of the London police; their acrid comments were cabled back to this country and the controversy assumed international importance.

Six or seven months had passed since the latest of the “Jack the Ripper” murders in London, and the crimes had slipped out of the horizon of public attention, when the whole ghastly business was suddenly and sharply revived by the murder of “Old Shakespeare” in the East River Hotel, New York City, in April, 1891.

“Old Shakespeare” was one of a horde of dissolute women that in those days infested the region between Chatham Square and the East River, where she had been for years a familiar figure in the lowest strata of the underworld. She might have been deemed to be about sixty, though how much of her aged appearance was due to years and how much to dissipation no one could guess; but her hair, at least, was quite gone gray. She was rather undersized, thin, badly dressed, marred and scarred with drink, and with the relentless hardships of a life which traveled one round between the work house and the streets. Her real name We were never able to learn; “Old Shakespeare” she was dubbed because whenever she reached a certain stage in her intoxication she would stand at a street corner or in the back room of a boozing den and by the hour recite passages from Shakespeare’s works; a fact that led imaginative reporters to create for her a story that she had been well educated and of a wealthy family. But the truth was that she had long been a wardrobe woman in a theatrical company and had picked up most of her Shakespearean lore while standing in the wings.

The East River Hotel was a dismal old resort of the kind that has since been known in New York as “Raines Law.” It stood on a corner almost nnder the Brooklyn bridge, and being a place Of some size as well as great age, was probably at one time in its career a respectable caravansary. At this time it was sunk to the level of the lowest assignatlon house and was frequented by the unfortunate Women of the district. I have known many tough places in New York, but I have not seen one ddirtier or gloomier or more repulsive.

Into this place a little after 12 o’clock one night came “Old Shakespeare,” who was well known there, and a man she had apparently picked up in the streets, who was a stranger. They went to a corner room on the top floor. Nothing more was heard of either of them until about 5 o'clock, when the man came down stairs and left the hotel. He did not return.

About noon an employee of the hotel knocked at the door of the room that the couple had occup1ed. She found the door unlocked and opened 1t. “Old Shakespeare” was lying on the bed, partly dressed. She had been stabbed to death and mutilated. She had been mutilated in exactly the same way that the victims of “Jack the Ripper” in London had been mutilated. The mutilation had been done with a very sharp instrument. And on the wall directly over the body as it lay on the bed was scratched with the point of a knife a cross.

So here was “Jack the Ripper.” or something very like him, come to New York.

I arrived at the scene half an hour after the alarm had been given, and before anything in the room had been disturbed. With others I made a careful examination of the premises, about which I am to tell more hereafter. The outlines of the story having been ascertained, the next thing was to examine the people of the hotel as to the man that had gene Wlth the old woman to the room where she had been killed. It appeared that only two had seen him, the night clerk that had assigned him the room and a watchman that had a glimpse of him as he went down the stairs in the morning. Neither had noted him with any attention, but they agreed that he was to all appearances a sea-faring man. He wore a cap, such as stokers on steamships often wear, and a dark blue flannel shirt under a seaman’s jacket. He was about 28 or 30 years of age, well set up, ruddy of face or sunburned, and he had a short, light mustache. He had walked calmly and quietly out of the place and disappeared.

A general alarm was sent out for the arrest of this man, and for the next ten days we diligently pursued one clue after another in the search for him. Inspector Byrnes indicated his extraordinary interest by a step that was with him unprecedented. He left his ofiice at Police Headquarters and came to the Oak street station (in the precinct of which the East River Hotel was situated) to direct in person the search for the assassin. The newspapers were calling upon him to make good his promise and to capture this “Jack the Ripper” within forty-eight hours; and he had on the case the best men of a force of which he was exceedingly proud.

The murder was done early on a Friday morning; the woman had been dead more than six hours when her body was discovered. At 6 o’clock on Saturday night, which was well within the limit of the time set by the inspector, an arrest was made. At 8 o'clock on Sunday night we were recalled from the pursuit of the sea-faring man to the Oak street station to hear an official statement that this arrest was of the murderer and that the mystery was solved.

Among the poverty-stricken and wretched creatures that dwelt about that district was a tall, swarthy, grizzled French Arab, by name Ben Ali, but known to most of the inhabitants only as “Frenchy.” He had been a year or two in the district, where he had picked up the scraps of a living by peddling fruit, working as a porter and cleaning cellars. To the habitues of the neighborhood he was something of a butt for coarse wit, being well known to be a goodnatured, harmless, spiritless vagabond, mildly addicted to drink when he could get it, to cigarettes and to the society of the courtesaus, many of whom had rooms in that forlorn region.

At 6 o'clock on Saturday night this man was in the street, leaning against the wall of the East River Hotel, hands in his pockets, idly smoking a cigarette. The police were making many arrests; what is known as the drag-net was being freely operated; and it gathered in Ben Ali with the others. Twenty-four hours later he was announced to us as the murderer of “Old Shakespeare,” and the fiend that had mutilated her body.

I confess the thing looked strange from the beginning. How did this man come into the case? Certainly he was not the man that “Old Shakespeare” had brought to the hotel. He was not the man that at 5 o’clock the next morning had stolen out of the place. True, he had slept in that hotel that night; he often slept there; but he had slept in another part of the house, around the corner far away; and there was nothing to connect him in any way with the murdered woman. Yet it soon appeared that the theories of the police had definitely fastened upon him as the murderer, and all search for the seafaring man was abandoned. The assassin had been caught; our “Jack the Ripper” was in the toils, After the sea-faring man had left the old woman "Frenchy” had stolen out of his room, crept through the halls around three sides of the house, murdered his victim, and returned to his bed and sleep, from which he was aroused by the chambermaid about 10 o’clock. So went the proclaimed theory of the police.

The coroner’s inquest came on soon after, and it then appeared, to the astonishment of every reporter that had worked on the case, that the police had been able to gather some testimony tending to support this extraordinary theory. It was all testimony from the people of the underworld; it came, all of it, from those that daily drew their breaths by police permission, that lived under the shadow of the prison, from which they were kept only by police connivance. We knew, therefore, how much credence was to be given to such testimony, but how could the average citizen, that made up the coroner ’s jury, and would make up the trial jury when this man should come to his account, how could he understand the peculiar and intricate system under which vice flourished by police consent and the stool pigeon was the Chief Inspector’s right bower?

So one after another they went on the stand, these witnesses, and told how “Frenchy” was a man of quarrelsome disposition and dangerous character; and how he had known “Old Shakespeare” and had some grudge against her; and on that showing he was held to the grand jury.

He knew scarcely six words of English; he had in the whole country, so far as we could discover, but one friend and compatriot, a man as destitute and unprotected as himself; his native tongue was a patois, partly French, partly Arabic, and partly some thing one speaking ordinary French had about as little chance to converse with him as one speaking only English. To get from him anything like a coherent story, to get answers to the simplest questions, was one of the most difficult tasks that can he imagined. Some of the most expert polyglots in New "York were balked by the difficulties of his dialect.

When he was arraigned the court, as he was absolutely destitute, must needs appoint counsel for him, and we had some curiosity to see who would be selected for this oflice. Howe & Hummel had been understood to be in line for it, but when the choice was made it fell upon a firm of young lawyers not before known to fame. Afterward I was told that Howe & Hummel had declined to accept the defense. Previously they had been the chiefest police attorneys in New York. Thereafter they received very little police work.

Ben Ali was indicted for murder in the first degree.

The trial came on in July. Some time before the date of it Inspector Byrnes came in person to the office of one of the most influential and respected of the newspapers of New York. I saw him there. I saw him in long and earnest consultation with the powers that controlled that journal. It was the only time in my experience that I knew or heard of a personal visit from him to any newspaper office.

Immediately after he had departed an order was issued to sub-commanders and reporters not to publish anything detrimental to the police case or favorable to “Frenchy.”

I do not know- what other newspaper otfices Inspector Byrnes visited, but there was no reason why he should single out one for his attentions, and I do know that from that time on he had no occasion to complain about the attitude of the New York press about the case.

Inspector Byrnes stood very well with the powers that controlled the New York newspapers; the reason why I may as well explain here with an incident.

About a yeur or so before the murder in the East River Hotel the New York World, which was at times (in Mr. Pulitzer’s absence) very loosely managed, printed a gross and coarse libel on the most respectable and respected Chinese merchant in the city. It was a thing without basis and utterly indefensible, and the circumstances were so wanton and apparently malicious that the management felt greatly alarmed when the merchant brought suit and demanded heavy damages.

The World sent for help to Inspector Byrnes. Many another newspaper in the like circumstances was wont to cry for help in the same quarter. The merchant was doing business in Pell street, the heart of the Chinese region, over which the police exercised a dominion utterly inexplicable to you law and order folks; I can only intimate to you what it was like by saying that not a potentate on earth was endowed with such power over his subjects.

Inspector Byrnes, on behalf of the New York Wggrld. pulled some of the strings that lay in his hands and led to Chinatown, and within three hours thereafter the merchant, pale and trembling, was in the otfice of his attorney commanding him to discontinue the suit.

The attorney had a contingent fee in the case, knew quite well how impregnable were the facts, and declined to discontinue. The terror-stricken merchant pleaded in vain until he had produced $500, and for that sum the attorney consented to give up what he knew was a good thing.

This was one reason why Inspector Byrnes stood well with the press. He stopped libel suits for them, and libel suits were the bane and horror of every New York publisher.

They ate up the profits.

As to the true nature of the situation concerning Ben Ali I may tell here another illustrating incident. T had been in charge of the story for my newspaper and there was assigned to assist me a clever reporter whom I shall call Carl Slater, which was not his name. With me he had carefully examined the East River Hotel and knew pretty well what had happened there. We had at that time in New York some of the most loathsome dives on the face of the earth, I suppose, and operated (under corrupt league with the police) in a manner of boldness that would appear to you as impossible. The worst of all was a dreadful place in Bleecker street that was known as The Slide, and was the headquarters of a gang of the most depraved and abominable creatures that can be imagined. The proprietor was one Frank Stephenson, and although the character of his resort was perfectly well known and used to be shown to visitors as the worst place in New York, he continued for years to operate it without the least interference from the police.

A few weeks before the murder the newspaper on which Slater and I were employed had grown weary of the moral stench of The Slide and had sent Slater to investigate it and describe it. He wrote a description that compelled the police to raid the place, and Stephenson the proprietor, was now under indictment and about to be tried.

One dav Slater got a subpoena from the District Attorney’s oflicc, requiring him to appear at the Stephenson trial and testify as to what he had seen there.

For strong personal reasons he was loath to undergo this publicity, which, considering the chsracter of the place, would have been disagreeable enough anyway, but a subpoena from the District Attorney's oflice was not to be trified with. He determined, nevertheless, to make a desperate play, and went to see the prosecuting officer in charge with an earnest plea that for family reasons and others he be excused from appearing in the Stephenson case.

"Can’t let you off," said the prosecutor, brusquely. “This is a matter in which the good citizen must sink his personal preferences for the good of the community. It is a matter of the plainest duty on your part, and you will have to appear and testify."

“I think not,” said Slater, coolly.

“Why not, sir?” asked the prosecutor, somewhai incensed.

“Because,” said Slater, “I was employed on the murder in the East River Hotel. I examined the premises shortly after the murder was discovered. l know that much of the testimony given at the coroner’s inquest is, let us say, erroneous. If I am compelled to testify in the Stephenson case I shall also demand to be called in the trial of :Frenchy," and my testimony will be very diiferent from some that has been outlined so far.”

The prosecutor thought for a moment in silence. On the desk in front of him was a row of electric buttons, with which he summoned his assistants. Without a word he projected his forefinger and pressed the button that bore the name of the attorney having the Stephenson case in charge. This gentleman appeared at the door a moment later.

“Mr, L—---,” said the prosecutor, “we shall not need Mr. Slater in that Stephenson case. Wish you good day, Mr. Slater."

When Ben Ali’s trial came on testimony was introduced to show that on the floor under the bed on which “Old Shakespeare” lay dead was a pool of blood. This was true.

That this pool of blood had been stepped in by some one and bore around its edges the marks of human feet. This was absolutely untrue when I saw it. The edge of the pool all the way around was perfectly smooth and unbroken.

That the person that had stepped in the blood had been in his stockings and without shoes and that from the edge of the blood to the door of the room and in the hall outside of the door were the marks of his blood-stained tracks. This was absolutely untrue when I saw the place; there were no such tracks.

That on the handle of the door of the room and on the lintel near the door were marks of a bloody hand[?] but We had made close and diligent examination of the door handle and of the woodwork in the room and we found no such marks.

That there were signs of blood-stained footsteps in the hall near the room occupied by “Frenchy,” on the floor of that room and the marks of bloody hands on the bedstead that he occupied. We had examined that room thoroughly and made no such discoveries.

That on the knife taken from “Frenehy” at police headquarters and on the half-hose that he wore were blood spots. This I do not know. I never saw the knife nor the half-hose. But I know that the incisions on the body were made with a sharp instrument and it appeared that the knife taken from “renchy" was an ordinary pocket-knife, and dull.

One of the witnesses for the prosecution was a chemist from Philadelphia, of whom we had not heard before, and have not, I think, heard since. He swore that there had been delivered to him blood stained splinters purporting to come from the floor of the hall, from the lintel of the door, from the floor of “Frenchy’s” room; blood-stained threads from “Frenchy’s” half-hose; specks of blood taken from “Frenchy’s" knife, and scrapings from “Frenchy’s" finger-nails, and he had identified the blood corpuscles from all these exhibits with the blood of the victim. He had a screen in court, and threw upon it lantern slides of the blood corpuscles, even going so far as to point out in all the exhibits what he declared were indications of the last meal of which “Old Shakespeare” had partaken, naming the viands. All this was well enough, so far as it went; but there was nothing to show conclusively that the blood-stains were on the half-hose, the knife, the floor or the bed stead when “Frenchy” was arrested.

Anything might have happened in that hotel after the reporters had finished their examination and gone away.

At the time of the trial I was at work in a Southern state on a very different kind of a story, and got from the newspaper dispatches only fragmentary and unsatisfactory accounts of the testimony. 1 looked daily for the appearance of evidence that would show how different was the appearance of the floors and the rooms, when the reporters examined these things, from the account of them given by witnesses for the prosecution. I could not flnd it. When I returned to the city and the trial was over I learned that there had been no such testimony presented.

The case went to the jury, and after a short deliberation a verdict was returned of guilty of murder in the second degree.

Now here was a most extraordinary circumstance to start with. Murder in the second degree means murder committed without premeditation, under a sudden impulse of great passion. Yet according to the theory of the prosecution, this man had waited until “Old Shakespeare ’s” companion had left her and then had crept around three sides of the house in his stocking feet, stolen into her room and coldly stabbed her to death as she slept, afterward fiendishly mutilating the body. If that did not indicate premeditation, what would?

A verdict of murder in the first degree would have carried with it a sentence of death. A verdict of murder in the second degree meant a sentence of imprisonment for life.

Here was a crime obviously committed either by the "Jack the Ripper” that had terrified London or by one that had read of “Jack the Ripper’s” crimes and was carefully and to the last detail imitating them. How could such a crime be supposed to be committed by one under the impulse of a blind and sudden passion?

Moreover, “Frenchy” could not read a word of English; he had no newspapers in his native patois; only his one compatriot would have been able to explain to him the details of the “Ripper’s’ ’ crimes, and this compatriot had never heard of them.

Murder in the second degree for a “Jack the Ripper.” How does that strike one?

Friendless, old Ben Ali was taken to Sing Sing and locked up. The rest of his story is no less remarkable. After two or three years he was transferred to the state asylum for the Criminal Insane at Matteawan, where he would have very much better treatment than at Sing Sing. This was done on the assertion that he had developed insanity. A prisoner at Sing Sing might develop anything. After a few years at Matteawan he was quietly shipped back to his native Arabia, where, at last accounts, he was still living.

About the time of his transfer to Matteawan I took to Arthur Brisbane the facts that I have related here. Brisbane was then in charge of the New York World one day in the week-—the issue of Monday. He was at that time independent radical and not subject to control. He prepared a vehement protest and printed it with a signed statement from some of the reporters that had worked on the case. One such publication does no good; it must be followed and repeated and insisted upon if it is to accomplish anything. The World for the rest of the week failed to mention Brisbane ’s protest, and Ben Ali went the way appointed for him.

l now desire to point out some salient facts.

We are told that the high character of ministers of justice and the purity of our courts are sumcient safeguards against the “railroading” of anybody, and it is idle to suppose that even if a man were the victim of a conspiracy against his life or liberty, such a conspiracy could be carried out through the courts.

Yet the police commander under whom this case occurred was the best that New York has had in this generation, and had a record in which investigation could find no flaw.

The judge before whom the case was tried was that grim Recorder Smythe, whose name is still a synonym for stern, upright, immaculate, incorruptible justice, whose memory is honored in tablets recounting his long and spotless career on the bench.

The district attorney that tried the case was a man of high character and unimpeachable honor, a brilliant product of a great university, who would be deemed incapable of misusing his office.

The newspapers that were silenced about the case were the most famous and best reputed in the United States, and any one of them would have indignantly denied that it could be swayed to do injustice to anybody.

More than one of these newspapers was at the very time engaged in vociferously asserting its devotion to truth, justice, righteousness, the righting of wrongs, the protection of the weak, the purging of the public service.

And among them all a man was condemned and sentenced and sent to prison for a crime with which he had no more to do than you had.

How say you by that!

This man was poor and obscure, but without personal enemies, vindictively determined to send him away. Suppose another man to be poor, obscure and obnoxious to powerful interests that had the strongest reasons to desire his punishment. What should you say then?

There is still another chapter to this story.

A few weeks after “Frenchy” had been convicted and sent to Sing Sing there came to the editor of the newspaper with which I was then connected a letter about which I have not ceased since to speculate. It bore the postmark of Calcutta, India, was written in the English style of penmanship, and in firm, even, smooth strokes, as if by a person of education. It was unsigned and without an address. It said that the writer had been a stoker on a tea steamer that at the time of the murder in the East River Hotel had lain at the tea ship wharf, which was just above Roosevelt Slip, and only a stone’s throw from the hotel; that early on the morning of the murder another. of the stokers had come on board and the writer of the letter had observed him to be earnestly engaged in washing his hands, which seemed to have on them spots of red; that he had watched this stoker subsequently, and found he acted strangely, and was of an unsociable and moody nature; that the steamer had put to sea on the morning of the murder and had proceeded to Chins by way of the Suez canal; that at Colombo the stoker that had come aboard so suspiciously that morning in New York had left the ship without warning and disappeared; and that the writer was convinced that this man was the murderer of “Old Shakespeare.”

I was only a reporter, and the sole function of a New York reporter is to cover the assignments that are given to him and ask no questions concerning the policy or practice of the commanders on the quarter deck. I have therefore imperfect knowledge of what was done with this letter. In justice to those at that time my superiors I ought to say that I believe they tried to do what they could to ascertain if the writer were telling the truth. It was the blindest of leads at best. I know that in our department, which was limited to the city, we verified the fact that the vessel named had lain, as the letter said, at the tea ship wharf above Roosevelt Slip; that she was there on the night of the murder in the East River Hotel; that she sailed that morning; that she was due to call at Colombo. Beyond that I never had accurate knowledge. The steamer never returned to New York, and, I believe, was wrecked in a typhoon in the China Sea.

But observe the probabilities and then the speculations that pertain to that letter. The man that entered the East River Hotel with “Old Shakespeare” that night was a sea-faring man; the hotel people that saw him thought he might be a stoker. The few women that in London caught a fleeting glimpse of “Jack the Ripper” believed that he was a sea-faring man; the police surmised from what they said that he was a stoker. In that letter from Calcutta, then, did we hold in our hands a veritable message from the nameless fiend that had committed so many horrible crimes? Had he read in England the boast of Inspector Byrnes? Had he determined to accept the challenge and fool the best detective in America, as he had fooled the best detectives in England? Had he chosen the surest way to come here without observation, which was in the role, perhaps easy to him, of a stoker? And had he then committed his frightful crime, left his indubitable trade mark upon it, and disappeared? Had he learned months afterward that an innocent man was in peril for this crime and had he tried in this way to save poor old “Frenchy”?

Was he indeed a stoker? And was the stoker’s way of life, working in almost unendurable heat and misery, working under conditions that very often result in suicide or insanity, had all this produced in his brain cells the strange and portentious disorder that was responsible for a monster so cunning and cruel? Was “Jack the Ripper” so clearly and memorably a direct product of our industrial conditions? And did we stand there right on the verge of the full explanation of all the mystery?

To most of these questions there will never be any answer. But at least it is true, and may be significant as well, that if, as every circumstance showed, “Old Shakespeare” was a victim of the same “Jack the Ripper” that had terrified London, she was his last. From that time the world heard no more of him, and his secret, whatever it was, went its way into the historic mysteries of crime.


----end

Link to an article by one of the prosecution's expert witnesses.

Collected Essays and Articles on Physiology and Medicine [1855-1902], Volume 2 (New York: D. Appleton, 1903), Pages 175-181
by Austin Flint

Some Medico-Legal Points in the "Frenchy" Murder Trial

Published in the "New York Medical Journal" for July 11, 1891

[GUT]

I was always told that third degree, came from third degree burns, I'm going to grill him, or burn him that bad.