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whether death had been caused before the burning or by the burning it was impossible for the scientific men to say. A dentist was able to give more valuable opinions. Five back teeth in the upper jaw had certainly been lost some time before death; the upper tooth next to the front tooth had evidently been lost a considerable time before death; nine teeth were lost from the upper jaw before death, and only two remained in position; five remained at the time of death. In the lower jaw, seven teeth, of which one was a front tooth, had been lost before death, one remained in a state of partial destruction, and eight were in the jaw at the time of death. The opinion was expressed that the front teeth were not good. No tokens of the wearing of any false teeth were discovered. But there were marks of an abscess, from which it was apparent that the man must in life have suffered a great degree of pain. It was declared that there could be no question among experienced dentists as to whether the loss of a tooth had occurred before or after death.

Many persons said that they looked at the remains, but found them unrecognizable. One man said he doubted whether they were those of a white or a black man.

It was shown that Mr. Udderzook conveyed the news of the burning and probable death of Goss to the police in time to get it inserted in the morning papers of the following day, and that he made the communication for this purpose.

The plaintiff, in rebuttal, showed that W. S. Goss had had at the National Mechanics' Bank deposits which together amounted to $2,100, and that he had been in sufficiently easy circumstances to lend to a friend at different times divers sums ranging from $100 to $300.

A. C. Goss denied the hiring of the buggy. Having met the stable-keeper subsequently to the date of the alleged hiring, he had denied the whole transaction, including the giving of the gloves; and then concluding that a conspiracy was hatching against him he had made memoranda of his conversation. He said that in that conversation the stable-keeper told him that the man who hired the buggy gave the name of Raugh. He also was almost positive that he was at tea at his boarding house on February 2, 1872, and thought the landlady's daughter was mistaken in placing the engagement and note of excuse upon that day. He was administrator of his father's estate; it was estimated to be

worth $65,000; and W. S. Goss had received $800 from it in one

payment.

The defence again put in the stable-keeper, who in turn directly contradicted A. C. Goss, and denied having ever heard the name of Raugh.

The counsel for the defendants prayed the court to instruct the jury, substantially: that the burden was upon the plaintiff to satisfy the jury that the body burned was the body of W. S. Goss; that if the jury should find that in his applications for insurance Goss had, by wilful falsehood, stated himself to be a temperate man, then the applications were fraudulent, and the jury were at liberty to consider such frauds together with all the facts of the case bearing upon the question of fraud at issue in this cause in relation to the actual or fictitious death of said Goss; a like prayer was offered on the supposition of the jury finding that Goss wilfully and falsely declared his prior applications for insurance to have been accepted; and, finally, it was asked that the jury should be instructed that, in determining the question of fraud in this case, they might consider all the circumstances of the several applications for insurance, and any fraudulent conduct or false statements of Goss in connection therewith, and the obtaining the policies thereunder. The court gave the instructions according to the prayers of the counsel. But the defendants' case was past praying for. Be it that they had really failed in establishing what they had undertaken to prove, or that they were the victims of popular prejudice and unjust hostility, the jury found against them. It took four hours and a half for the jurors to agree, and then they gave the widowed plaintiff the full amount which she asked for, viz., the sum written in the policy, with interest, $5,227.98. It was reported that only one juror regarded the defendants' case with favor; and the result of the trial was understood to meet the views of the public, which had watched the proceedings with more than usual interest.

But it was the end only of the first act.

Immediately after the verdict was announced the defendants' counsel gave notice that he would file a motion for a new trial. Almost directly after this, the motion still pending, news came that the body of a murdered man had been discovered in Chester County, Penn. The story went that the remains resembled those of a stranger who had been staying in that neighbor

hood, who had gone out in a buggy with William E. Udderzook one evening in the direction of the woods where the corpse had been found, and who had not since been seen. The connection of the name of Udderzook, chief witness and next friend of Mrs. Goss, with this matter, was enough to attract the attention of the insurance companies, all alert to lay hold of any possible clew to the mystery. The description of the remains found in Baer's woods tallied very accurately with the description of Goss, and in a few days the agents of the several companies, each having started independently upon the same line of discovery, accidentally came together on the road to Penningtonville, a town in the neighborhood of the place where the body had been found.

The investigation already made by the companies had satisfied them that on the night of the fire Goss safely left his burning house, and took the night train to Wilmington, Del. There he had his whiskers shaved off, and started for the West. After wandering there for several months, he again turned his face eastward, and his movements begin to become of special interest upon his arrival in Pennsylvania.

Before many days had elapsed, facts enough had been elicited from various quarters to authorize the arrest of William E. Udderzook, which was made upon July 15. It caused quite a flutter among his friends and acquaintances, of whom he had an unusually large number. For he had led an active life, and reputable, though divided among a great variety of occupations. He had been a teacher of oil painting, a manufacturer of edge tools, an inventor, or, more correctly perhaps, an experimenter; a soldier serving with credit upon the federal side in the war; thereafter a policeman in Baltimore, of marked efficiency; and recently a candidate for the State Legislature from the sixteenth ward of that city, indorsed alike by republicans and temperance men. He had also been a grand officer in the Independent Order of Mechanics. His character stood high; he was very fond of his family, with whom he spent most of his leisure hours; he was abstinent in the use of liquor and tobacco. Altogether he was not a person upon whom popular suspicion would easily fasten, especially in so queer a matter. The improbability was increased by his connection both by marriage and friendship with Goss. One only fitness for the crime he seemed to have, and that lay in his remarkable muscular strength. But it was cruel to

found suspicion upon the mere fact of a physical ability to be guilty.

On October 29 following, the case came on for trial at West Chester, Penn., Chief Judge William Butler and associates Passmore and Hawley on the bench. The jury was made up with commendable despatch. The first person called, a Mr. Morton, said that he had formed, from reading newspaper reports, just such an opinion as he would form in any other case, but not such as to prevent him from rendering a true verdict on the facts. He explained that in reading newspaper reports he formed an opinion merely contingently upon the statement being correct. The court said it would much prefer to have jurors who had never heard of the case, but that was impossible in a country where newspapers were so generally circulated. But the same difficulties arise in every prominent criminal trial. Mr. Morton was ordered to stand aside for the present; but when the whole list had been called, and only seven jurors obtained, he was again called. The court being apparently on the point of accepting him, the defence withdrew all objection, and he was sworn as the eighth juror. Similar objections occurred in respect of other jurors, but they were overcome in a very sensible and satisfactory manner. The court remarked that the prisoner had a right to start with the favorable prepossessions of the jurors, and that he should not be placed under the necessity of removing their impressions against him. Proceeding upon this sound theory, the judges seem to have had little difficulty in selecting a jury acceptable to any fair-minded and intelligent man.

On July 9, a man passing over the road which leads from Jennersville to Penningtonville, and in part of its course skirts Baer's woods, noticed many buzzards collected at a certain point among the trees, and also perceived a disagreeable odor. Two days after, Ganier P. Moore had his attention attracted by the congregation of buzzards at the same spot, and by the stench. His curiosity was so far excited that he went in among the trees, and found "something mysterious" concealed beneath earth, leaves, and limbs of trees. From a tuft of dark hair mixed with gray, and a small portion of the abdomen, which this witness had been able to see, he "became conscious" that the hidden body, w..atever it might be, was "something that ought not to be there." Without further investigation, he went on with the prudent design of get

ting a companion to share the task of disinterment, and a few hours later returned with Mr. Rhoades. Armed with a shovel, they proceeded to explore the grave, and came first upon a bloody shirt, which very important article of evidence, it may be remarked by the way, was afterward rescued by the insurance companies' agents actually out the very wash-tub, where feminine neatness was on the point of soaking and scrubbing away nearly all its value. Next followed the body itself. One side whisker was upon the face, and a beard apparently of two or three days' growth. The hair was dark, slightly intermixed with gray, an inch or more long, and inclined to curl. The face, when first exposed, was white and quite natural, so that witness could easily have recognized it, had he known the person in life; but after it had been exposed to the air for about an hour and a half, it turned so dark that some one remarked that it looked like the face of a colored man. The legs and arms had been severed from the trunk, and were discovered, lightly covered with earth, near b. On the feet were white cotton hose and congress boots, which had been half-soled and were marked "8" upon the inside of the strap. In the neighborhood of this duplex grave some ashes and charred fragments indicated there had been a fire kindled in the woods; some pieces of charred cloth with a few buttons were found. The witness identified a shirt shown him as that discovered in the exhumation, and at the sight of the blood-stained garment the prisoner was noticed to flush a little, and betrayed, or was imagined to betray, a slight nervousness not in keeping with his wonted rigid self-control. Witness further stated that the boots and stockings shown him resembled those on the feet of the corpse. A box was shown as a model of the grave, with roots of the tree which had protruded into the grave placed in it as they had appeared.

It was proposed to show to this witness a photograph, and to ask him if he recognized it, and to follow this testimony with further evidence. The defence objected: first, on the ground that no proper basis had yet been laid for the introduction of the photograph; secondly, because the accuracy of the photograph, which alone could give it value in the eye of the law, had not been proved. But the court overruled the objection, at the same time, however, saying that it would have been preferable if the counsel for the prosecution had shown several different photographs to