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 NARRATIVES 
 
 OF 
 
 REMARKABLE CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF 
 
 ANSELM BITTER VON FEUERBACH, 
 
 BY 
 
 LADY DUFF GORDON. 
 
 LONDON: 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 1846.
 
 London : Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES and SONS, Stamford Street.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE following trials are selected and abridged from a 
 work consisting of 1300 closely-printed pages, by 
 Anselm Ritter von Feuerbach, a man celebrated as a 
 judge, a legislator, and a writer. He was for many 
 years President of the highest criminal court of 
 Bavaria, and the penal code of that country was 
 chiefly framed by him ; his exposition of the criminal 
 law is a text-book for the whole of Germany, where 
 the present work, which was the last he wrote, excited 
 great attention. 
 
 For ten years Feuerbach was President of the Cen- 
 tral Criminal Court of a province of Bavaria, contain- 
 ing several towns, and inhabited by half a million of 
 souls differing in faith. In the exercise of his judicial 
 functions many remarkable cases were brought before 
 him, and ample opportunity was afforded him, by the 
 form of criminal procedure in Bavaria, for the exer- 
 cise of his extraordinary power of penetrating the re- 
 cesses of the human heart, and of divining the secret 
 motives of human action. In Bavaria, on the disco- 
 very of any crime, the Untersuchungs Richter (exa- 
 mining judge) and Feuerbach himself once filled that
 
 iv PREFACE. 
 
 office, which, in fact, combines the duties of public 
 prosecutor with that of judge instantly sets about 
 collecting evidence. Those against whom he finds any 
 reasonable grounds of suspicion are at once appre- 
 hended, and kept in prison until their guilt or inno- 
 cence be proved. The judge meanwhile endeavours 
 to trace back the prisoner's life to his very cradle, 
 to make himself thoroughly acquainted with his cha- 
 racter and disposition, in order thence to infer whether 
 he be or be not a man likely to have committed the 
 crime imputed to him. To this end witnesses are 
 examined. 
 
 Children under eight years of age, persons di- 
 rectly interested in the result of the trial, or who 
 have been convicted or even strongly suspected of 
 perjury, falsehood, or suppression of evidence, are 
 incompetent witnesses. Suspicious witnesses are per- 
 sons under the age of eighteen, accomplices, the 
 injured party, informers, except such as are officially 
 bound to inform, persons of doubtful character, and 
 persons in any way connected with or hostile to the 
 party affected by their testimony. 
 
 The evidence of two sufficient witnesses (those 
 against whom none of the above-mentioned objections 
 can be raised), as to facts which they have seen with 
 their own eyes, is taken as proof; that of one sufficient 
 witness as half proof. 
 
 The testimony of two suspicious witnesses, if agree- 
 ing, is equal to that of one sufficient witness.
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 Circumstantial evidence amounts to proof when all 
 the circumstances are fully proved by witnesses, and 
 cannot be reasonably accounted for except on the 
 supposition of the prisoner's guilt ; but while any 
 other explanation is possible the evidence is deemed 
 imperfect ; and even when circumstantial evidence is 
 complete, the conviction of the prisoner, in cases of 
 capital offence, is not followed by sentence of death, 
 unless Jie confess his crime. 
 
 By far the most important evidence is that given 
 by the prisoner himself; he is questioned by the 
 examining judge, in the presence only of a notary 
 employed to take down his replies. The judge begins 
 by exhorting him to tell the truth, hinting that a full 
 confession may soften his punishment. He then asks 
 him whether he knows why he has been arrested ; 
 and if the prisoner affects ignorance or gives a false 
 reason, he is again admonished. Should he persist in 
 his assertions the judge closes the examination for that 
 day. At the next examination he reminds the pri- 
 soner of the duty of truth and of the danger of per- 
 sisting in falsehood, and then begins a series of ques- 
 tions calculated to entrap him into admissions incon- 
 sistent with innocence. If on the other hand the pri- 
 soner states the true cause of his arrest, he is called 
 upon to tell all he knows of the matter. His state- 
 ment is written down, and the judge afterwards ques- 
 tions him upon every circumstance of his story, im- 
 portant or trifling, taking care that he shall not, if it
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 can be avoided, perceive which questions are impor- 
 tant, and that no time be allowed him to consider his 
 replies. During the inquiry the prisoner is kept in 
 ignorance of the charge against him, and any en- 
 deavour on his part to gain information on the subject 
 is an offence in law. He is not allowed to see a copy 
 of his own evidence or of that of the witnesses. But 
 when the judge has failed to obtain a confession the 
 prisoner is unexpectedly confronted with one or more 
 of the witnesses against him, or with an accomplice, 
 if there be one, in the hopes of surprising him into a 
 confession. Should the prisoner refuse to answer, he 
 is put on a diet of bread and water. In cases of mur- 
 der, the accused is led to the spot where the crime 
 was committed, and the bleeding corpse, or, it may be, 
 the mouldering remains are suddenly shown to him. 
 Feuerbach remarks that in cases of infanticide this 
 expedient has never been known to fail ; but it is ma- 
 nifest that such terrors can have little or no effect on 
 hardened and resolute criminals. A confession must 
 be formally made before the examining judge, and 
 that not during the first examination ; a confession 
 made then cannot be followed by conviction ; and a 
 confession made before two sufficient witnesses in the 
 absence of the judge is only half proof, and requires 
 to be confirmed by other evidence. 
 
 But even when a confession has been extorted it 
 affords no proof of the That bestand, the corpus de- 
 licti, or fact that the crime has been committed : it
 
 PREFACE. vii 
 
 is evidence that the prisoner committed the actions 
 which he describes, but it does not prove what were 
 the results of those actions. The That bestand must 
 be proved beyond all reasonable doubt, and in cases 
 of murder it must be shown that the injuries inflicted 
 were undoubtedly mortal. 
 
 It is the duty of the examining judge to collect evi- 
 dence for the prisoner as carefully as against him ; 
 but when he has got together all that he can find, the 
 prisoner is furnished with a legal defender, who is 
 allowed to confer with him in private, having first 
 sworn to undertake no unrighteous defence. This ad- 
 vocate makes a minute of his objections to the course 
 of procedure, and composes a written defence, which is 
 sent by the examining judge, together with a full report 
 of all the proceedings, to the central criminal court of 
 the district. This court decides by majority upon the 
 guilt of the accused, the nature of his crime, and the 
 punishment to be inflicted ; when the punishment is 
 death, or imprisonment exceeding twenty years, the 
 sentence is sent for revision to the high court of ap- 
 peal, and in other cases the prisoner may appeal, if he 
 desires it. When the appellate court has given its 
 decision, the prisoner, if the sentence be reversed, is 
 instantly set free ; if confirmed, it is executed within 
 twenty-four hours. 
 
 If, in cases of capital crime, proof fails from mere 
 technical insufficiency, the prisoner escapes the punish- 
 ment of death ; but imprisonment of greater or less 
 duration and severity is inflicted.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The Bavarian system of inquiry and of appeals occa- 
 sionally prolongs a trial over a space of several years. 
 In one case described in this work, that of Riembauer, 
 the reports filled forty-two folio volumes, and the trial 
 lasted five years, whereas in England it would have 
 been concluded in as many days. The reader, who 
 may be inclined altogether to condemn this German 
 prolixity and deliberation, should remember that in 
 the year 1827 no fewer than six persons, who had 
 been convicted of capital crimes at the Old Bailey, and 
 left for execution, were proved to be innocent, and 
 saved by the zeal and activity of the sheriff.* In the 
 last century the Bavarian criminal procedure was any- 
 thing but slow. Torture was not abolished until 1806, 
 a reform chiefly owing to the humane exertions of 
 Feuerbach, and extremely distasteful to the judges of 
 the old school, who could not forgive him for having 
 put an end to so simple, expeditious, and easy a mode 
 of obtaining evidence. " What," said they, " could 
 be the use of making so many difficulties about hang- 
 ing a pack of criminals?" The time lost by the abo- 
 lition of torture was at first regained by a total dis- 
 regard of the very slight means of defence afforded to 
 the accused by the Codex Juris Bavarici Criminalis de 
 anno 1751 . The doctrine that the sooner criminal cases 
 were disposed of, the better, was acted upon until the 
 16th of May, 1813, when the criminal code, composed 
 by Feuerbach for the kingdom of Bavaria, received 
 the royal assent. This code was adopted by the 
 * ' Criminal Law Report,' vol. viii.
 
 PREFACE. IX 
 
 duchy of Oldenburg, and forms the basis of new 
 criminal codes for Weimar, Wurtemburg, and other 
 German states. 
 
 The defects of the mode of procedure used in the 
 following trials are of a kind which cannot fail to 
 strike every English reader its advantages are far 
 more likely to escape his notice. The minute and 
 searching investigation into the secret motives and 
 inmost feelings, as well as the external actions of the 
 criminal, must give to a Bavarian trial an interest 
 which would be sought in vain in our own courts of law. 
 
 Perhaps nothing in the following trials will appear 
 more surprising to English readers than that the cri- 
 minals should almost always confess their crimes in 
 the most circumstantial manner. Feuerbach was 
 himself so much struck by this circumstance, that he 
 has devoted a chapter of the book from which the 
 following trials have been selected, to an examination 
 of the subject. A few, he says, very few, confess from 
 remorse, some from inability to evade the searching 
 interrogatories of the judge, some from indifference to 
 their fate, others from a desire to put an end to a 
 state of anxiety and suspense ; but by far the greater 
 number from dislike to the strict discipline and com- 
 pulsory silence of a Bavarian prison. One criminal, 
 after three days' imprisonment, confessed, saying, "That 
 he could no longer hold his tongue ; that he had been 
 accustomed to social pleasures, and would rather tell 
 all than be condemned to perpetual silence."
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 Those among my readers who are interested in the 
 comparison of the criminal procedure of Bavaria with 
 that of England, will find the information which I 
 want both space and ability to offer, in the ' Law 
 Magazine,' vol. ix., p. 277 ; the * Foreign Quarterly 
 Review,' vol. viii. p. 267 ; and the * Edinburgh Re- 
 view,' vol. Ixxxii., p. 318. 
 
 I have selected those trials which appear to me to 
 possess the greatest general interest, and, in obedience 
 to the suggestions contained in a most interesting 
 article in the last-named journal, I have abridged 
 them to little more than half their original length. 
 I hope that I have nevertheless succeeded in preserv- 
 ing the main outline of every trial, filled up with 
 just so much of detail as will serve to give a tole- 
 rably faithful picture of crimes common to all nations, 
 treated in a manner very widely differing from our 
 own. 
 
 L. D. G. 
 
 December, 1845.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PA OK 
 
 JOHN PAUL FORSTEE ; or, the Twofold Murder ... 1 
 
 THE ANTONINI FAMILY; or, the Murder on a Journey . . 49 
 
 FRANCIS RIEMBAUER, the Tartuffe of Real Life ... 69 
 
 THE UNKNOWN MURDERER; or, the Police at Fault . . 112 
 
 ANNA MARIA ZWANZIGER, the German Brinvilliers . . 142 
 
 JAMES THALREUTER; or, the False Prince .... 180 
 
 THE KLEINSCHROT FAMILY; or, the Parricides of the Black 
 
 Mill 203 
 
 JOHN GEORGE SORGEL, the Idiot Murderer .... 233 
 
 GEORGE WACHS ; or, the Sudden Temptation .... 251 
 
 GEORGE RAUSCHMAIER ; or, the Telltale Ring ... 282 
 
 ANDREW BICHEL, the Woman-Murderer 296 
 
 JOHN HOLZINGER ; or, Manslaughter, Murder, and Suicide, from 
 
 Love and Jealousy ........ 313 
 
 CASPAR FRISCH, the Murderer from Vanity .... 335 
 
 LUDWIG STEINER, the Murderer from Revenge ... 346
 
 REMARKABLE 
 GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 JOHN PAUL FOKSTEK, 
 
 THE TWOFOLD MURDER. 
 
 CHRISTOPHER BAUMLER, a worthy citizen of Niirnberg, 
 lived in the Konigsstrasse, a wide and much-frequented 
 street, where he carried on the trade of a corn-chandler, 
 which there includes the right of selling brandy. He 
 had lately lost his wife, and lived quite alone with 
 only one maid-servant, Anna Catherina Schiitz. He 
 had the reputation of being rich. 
 
 B'aumler was in the habit of opening his shop at 
 five o'clock in the morning at latest. But on the 21st 
 of September, 1820, to the surprise of his neighbours 
 it remained closed till past six. Curiosity and alarm 
 drew together a number of people before the house. 
 They rang repeatedly, but no one came to the door. 
 At last some neighbours, with the sanction of the 
 police, entered the first-floor windows by a ladder. 
 Here they found drawers, chests, and closets burst 
 open, and presenting every appearance of a robbery 
 having been committed. They hastened down stairs
 
 2 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 into the shop, where they discovered in a corner close 
 to the street-door the bloody corpse of the maid ; and 
 in the parlour they found Baumler lying dead beside 
 the stove. 
 
 The house stands on the left hand in going along 
 the Konigsstrasse from the Frauen Thor, not far from 
 the church of Saint Laurence. Several houses, chiefly 
 inns and shops, flank it on either side ; on the right 
 an inn called the Golden Lion stands out several feet 
 beyond it. 
 
 Close to this projecting wall is the door of Baum- 
 ler's house, which is entered by one low step ; the 
 hall serves as a shop, and the walls are lined with 
 shelves, chests, &c. The length of this hall from the 
 street-door to the opposite end, where a door opens 
 into a court, is about sixteen feet ; on the left a stair- 
 case leads to the floor above. The breadth is unequal, 
 for on the right hand near the door there is a corner 
 about four feet wide and three feet deep, which forms 
 part of the shop. On one side is the wall of Baum- 
 ler's parlour ; on the other, the main wall of the 
 house towards the street, where a large bow-window, 
 always closed with heavy shutters at night, admits 
 the light into the shop, and thence into the parlour 
 through a window opening into this corner. About 
 seven feet from the entrance to the shop is the door 
 of the small parlour, which is cut off from the street 
 on all sides, and furnished with tables and benches for 
 the convenience of the customers for brandy. 
 
 The house-door, as is usually the case in shops of 
 this kind in Nurnberg, is formed of two wings joined 
 together, one of which folds back upon the other, and is 
 fastened by a simple contrivance to the wall. During
 
 JOHN PAUL FORSTER. 3 
 
 the day a glass door is fixed in the half of the door- 
 way thus left open, which in the daytime serves to 
 light the shop, and in the evening to show passers 
 by that the host is ready to receive customers. The 
 door of Baumler's shop, behind the wing of which 
 a man could perfectly conceal himself from any one 
 entering, opens towards the left, exactly opposite to 
 the corner we have already described, so that any one 
 coming in would turn his face towards the corner ; 
 and in the event of being attacked by a person hidden 
 behind the door, would naturally run towards it. A 
 bell hangs over the entrance, which rings whenever 
 either the glass or the wooden door* is opened. 
 
 As soon as the police were informed of the murder, 
 a commission was appointed to visit Baumler's house. 
 Immediately on entering the shop, to the right of the 
 door in the corner, between two bins of meal and 
 salt, the maid-servant Schiitz lay on her back, with 
 her head shattered, and her feet, from which both 
 her shoes had fallen, turned towards the door. Her 
 face and clothes, and the floor, were covered with 
 blood ; and the two bins, between which her head lay, 
 as well as the wall, were sprinkled with it. As no 
 other part of the shop showed any marks of blood, 
 it was evident that she had been murdered in this 
 corner. Not far from the body they picked up a 
 small comb, and at a little distance from that a larger 
 one, with several fragments of a second small one. 
 In the very farthest corner of the parlour, between the 
 stove and a small table, upon which stood a jug, 
 
 1 Without this dry description it would be almost impossible to 
 understand the manner in which this complicated murder was 
 perpetrated. 
 
 B2
 
 4 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 they found the body of Bitumler stretched on his back, 
 with his head, which was resting on a small over- 
 turned stool, covered with wounds and blood. A 
 pipe and several small coins lay under the body, 
 where they had probably fallen when the murderer 
 ransacked the pocket, which was turned inside out 
 and stained with blood, for money or for keys. The 
 floor, the stove, and the wall were covered with blood, 
 the stool was saturated, and even the vaulted ceiling, 
 which was nine or ten feet high, was sprinkled with 
 it. These circumstances, especially the stool on which 
 Baumler's head still rested, and the pipe which lay 
 under his body, showed that the murderer must have 
 suddenly attacked him unawares and felled him to 
 the earth, as he sat drinking his beer and smoking his 
 pipe on that very spot. 
 
 One drawer of the commode in the upper chamber 
 was pulled out, the doors of two cupboards in the 
 adjoining room were open, and every thing lay 
 scattered about the floor. Several other presses, 
 however, had not been opened, and many things of 
 value, such as clothes, silver ornaments, a gold re- 
 peater, &c., were left in them, and even in those 
 which had been opened. The rooms on the second 
 story were found in their usual state. 
 
 On the table, in the parlour, stood a wine-glass 
 with some red brandy at the bottom, and a closed clasp- 
 knife stained with blood on the back and sides. Two 
 newly-baked rolls were found near the entrance-door. 
 
 The baker Stierhof stated that Baumler's maid 
 had fetched these rolls from his shop the evening 
 before, at about a quarter to ten. His wife, who was 
 examined the next day on this point, recognised the
 
 JOHN PAUL FORSTER. 5 
 
 rolls as those bought by the unfortunate maid-servant 
 on the evening of the 20th of September, adding, 
 " The evening before last, at nearly a quarter to ten, 
 the maid came to my house and asked for two half- 
 penny rolls, which I gave her. I did not recognise 
 her till she was going away, when I said, 'It is you, 
 is it ?' She answered sulkily, ' Yes.' I asked if they 
 still had guests with them ; and she said ' Yes, there 
 are a few fellows there still.' I then looked out of 
 the window for a while : there was a death-like silence 
 in the street, so much so that I remarked it to my 
 people. At a quarter to ten exactly I closed the shop." 
 This evidence afforded a strong presumption that 
 some person or persons who were still in Baumler' s 
 shop at a quarter to ten had committed this murder. 
 Furthermore it was certain that the murder of the 
 maid-servant could not have taken place earlier 
 than a quarter to ten ; the two rolls which she had 
 fetched about that time from the baker Stierhof, and 
 which were found on the floor near the entrance, 
 showed that the murderer had attacked her as she 
 entered the shop on her return from the baker's, 
 that she dropped the rolls in her fright, was driven 
 into the corner of the shop, and there murdered. 
 There could be no doubt that Baumler was murdered 
 before the maid-servant, for he was found beside the 
 stool on which he usually sat smoking his pipe by the 
 stove. Had he been alive when the murderer at- 
 tacked his maid, he would have been alarmed by the 
 noise, and have gone out into the shop; at any rate 
 he would not have remained quietly seated for the 
 murderer to despatch him at his leisure. It was 
 also evident that Baumler must have been murdered
 
 6 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 during the maid's absence. Now the distance from 
 Baumler's house to the baker's shop is at most a 
 hundred steps ; thus, even supposing that Schiitz, 
 angry at being sent out so late, went very slowly, the 
 walk there and back, including the short conversation 
 with the baker's wife, could not have occupied above 
 five minutes, and during this interval the murder of 
 Baumler must have been completed, and that of 
 Schiitz prepared. This was proved by the following 
 circumstance : as long as the glass door was there 
 the murderer could neither attack Schiitz on her 
 entrance nor murder her within the threshold, as he 
 could not possibly hide himself behind the glass door, 
 which would moreover have exposed him to the risk 
 of observation from every passer by, and even to the 
 chance of some stray guest of Baumler's entering the 
 shop and surprising him in the act. It was therefore 
 necessary to take the glass door off its hinges, and to 
 shut the street-door, before attacking Schiitz on her 
 return to the house, and this he accordingly did. 
 Baumler's house was not usually closed till eleven, 
 but on the night of the murder a chandler of the 
 name of Rossel, who lived opposite, happened to 
 look out at about a quarter to ten, and saw, to his 
 surprise, that Baumler's house was then closed no 
 doubt by the murderer. It was a quarter to ten 
 when Schiitz was at the baker's shop ; at the same 
 hour Rossel saw Baumler's house shut : we may 
 therefore infer that the murderer killed Baumler soon 
 after his maid's departure, quickly unhinged the 
 glass door, lay in wait for the maid behind the street- 
 door, opened it for her, and attacked her as she came 
 in : the concurring evidence of two witnesses thus
 
 JOHN PAUL FORSTER. 7 
 
 distinctly proves that the murder of Baurnler and his 
 maid must have taken place during the few minutes 
 before and after a quarter to ten. 
 
 We must further remark that the bell over the 
 entrance-door did not ring when the police entered, 
 and was found to be stuffed with paper. Neither 
 Baumler nor his maid could have had any motive 
 for doing this ; but the murderer had every reason : 
 the ringing of the bell might have drawn the atten- 
 tion of a neighbour or a passer by to Baumler's house 
 at the very moment when the horrible crime was 
 being committed just within the door. 
 
 It further appeared that the murderer stayed till 
 at least half-past ten, occupied in ransacking the 
 house, and probably in washing himself and changing 
 his clothes ; for a shoemaker of the name of Piihler, 
 who passed by Baumler's house at that hour, saw a 
 light in the first floor, while the window over the 
 shop-door was quite dark. 
 
 Although the two houses adjoining Baumler's were 
 both inhabited, and two watchmen were guarding 
 some loaded waggons in the street close by, and 
 although the murders were committed at a time when 
 very few people are in bed and asleep, and, as the 
 baker's wife stated, when death-like silence prevailed 
 in the street, not a single person could be found 
 who had heard any outcry or other noise in Baumler's 
 house. 
 
 On examining the body of the maid-servant, a 
 handsome well-shaped girl of twenty-three, the head 
 was found completely shattered ; there were also 
 several wounds upon the neck, breast, and hands, and 
 the breast-bone and three of the ribs were frac-
 
 8 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 tured. Baumler's skull was broken into eleven pieces ; 
 and although there were no external injuries upon the 
 chest, the sternum and ribs were fractured, as in the 
 maid-servant. There could not be the slightest doubt 
 that the wounds were mortal. The surgeons gave it 
 as their opinion that the wounds on the heads of both 
 victims had been inflicted with a heavy instrument 
 having a flat surface with sharp edges, probably the 
 back of a hatchet. The ribs did not appear to have 
 been broken with the hatchet, but rather by stamping 
 on the bodies. 
 
 The evidence of the baker's wife had led to the 
 conclusion that some man who had stayed until 
 late in the evening at Baumler's house must have 
 been the murderer. Accordingly, all those who had 
 been at Baumler's house on that evening were exam- 
 ined, and concurred in saying that a stranger had 
 entered the shop very early, had sat at the farther end 
 of the table, alternately smoking and drinking red 
 brandy out of a wine-glass ; and that he had remained 
 there alone at nine o'clock, when the others went 
 away. All agreed in their description of his person ; 
 that he was about thirty, of dark complexion, and 
 black hair and beard ; that he wore a dark-coloured 
 coat (most of the witnesses said a blue one, which 
 afterwards proved to be a mistake), and that he had 
 on a high beaver hat. With the exception of one wit- 
 ness who had conversed with the stranger about the 
 hop trade and other like matters, and had found him 
 a well-informed, agreeable man, they all stated that he 
 had kept his hat pressed over his face, and his eyes 
 constantly fixed on the ground, and that he had said 
 little or nothing. He stated himself to be a hop-mer-
 
 JOHN PAUL FORSTER. 9 
 
 chant, and said that he was waiting at Bauinler's for 
 his companion, another hop-merchant, who had gone 
 to the play. The witnesses recognised the glass pro- 
 duced in court, as exactly similar to that out of which 
 the stranger had been drinking red clove-brandy. 
 
 Meanwhile suspicion had fallen upon a certain Paul 
 Forster, who had lately been discharged from the 
 bridewell at Schwabach, and who had been observed 
 for several days before the murder walking about in a 
 suspicious manner before Baumler's house. His 
 father, a miserably poor day-labourer, lived with two 
 daughters of infamous characters in a cottage belong- 
 ing to a gardener named Thaler, in the suburb of St. 
 John. Forster did not live with his father ; but on 
 the morning after the murder he had left the suburb 
 of St. John quite early, and had gone to Diesbeck, 
 where he lived with a woman called Margaret Preiss, 
 who had been his mistress for manv years. At her 
 
 v / 
 
 house he was arrested by the police on the 23rd of 
 September, the third day after the murder. In her 
 room were found, among other things, two bags of 
 money, the one containing 209 florins 21 kreuzers, 
 the other 152 florins 17 kreuzers. Besides these 
 Preiss's illegitimate daughter, a girl of about fourteen, 
 gave up a small purse containing some medals and a 
 ducat which Forster had given to her when he re- 
 turned to Diesbeck. 
 
 On the following day, when the gens d'armes were 
 escorting Forster and his mistress through Fiirth, the 
 waiter of the inn recognised the prisoner as the man 
 who had come to the inn at about eight or nine in 
 the morning of the 21st of September, dressed in a 
 dark grey cloth greatcoat, went away again in about
 
 10 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 an hour, and then returned dressed in a dark blue 
 coat, and gave him a brown one which he carried 
 under his arm to take care of, requesting him to keep 
 it safe, and to be sure not to show it to any one ; 
 adding that in a week he would return and claim it. 
 The waiter now informed the magistrate at Fiirth of 
 this circumstance, and produced the greatcoat, which 
 was much stained and in some places soaked with 
 blood. 
 
 The description given of the suspicious-looking 
 stranger, who had sat out all the others on the even- 
 
 O ' 
 
 ing of the 20th of September, exactly resembled 
 Forster. 
 
 As soon as the prisoners reached Niirnberg, at 
 about 4 P.M. of the 24th, they were conducted, ac- 
 cording to legal practice, to view the bodies lying in 
 Baumler's house. The corpses were laid in their 
 coffins, with the faces exposed and the bodies covered 
 with their own bloody garments ; B'aumler on the 
 right, and the maid-servant on the left hand, thus 
 leaving a passage open between the coffins. 
 
 Paul Forster was brought in first : he stepped into 
 the room, and between the two corpses, without the 
 slightest change of countenance. When desired to 
 look at them, he gazed steadfastly and coldly upon 
 them, and replied to the question whether he knew 
 the body on the right, " No, I know it not ; it is 
 quite disfigured : I know it not." And to the second 
 question, "Do you know this one to the left?" he 
 answered in the same manner, " No, she has lain 
 in the grave ; I know her not." When asked how 
 he knew that the body had lain in the grave, he 
 replied, pointing to the face, " Because she is so dis-
 
 JOHN PAUL FORSTER. 11 
 
 figured ; the face is quite decayed here !" On being 
 desired by the judge to point out the exact spot which 
 he thought so decayed, with a constrained air, but 
 with the coarsest indifference, he grasped the head of 
 the murdered woman, pressed the brow, the broken 
 nose, and the cheeks with his fingers, and said quite 
 coolly, "Here: you may see it clearly !" He attempted 
 to evade every question addressed to him by the judge, 
 by affecting that the idea of murder was so utterly 
 foreign to him, that in all innocence and simplicity 
 he mistook the deadly wounds for the result of decay. 
 
 All the endeavours of the judge to wring some 
 sign of embarrassment or feeling from this man, 
 as he stood between his two victims, were vain : his 
 iron soul was unmoved. Only once, when asked, 
 " Where, then, is the corn-chandler to whom the house 
 belongs ?" he appeared staggered, but only for a mo- 
 ment. The judge went so far in his zeal, as to desire 
 him to hold the hands of both corpses, and then to 
 say what he felt. Without a moment's hesitation, 
 Forster grasped the cold hand of Baumler in his 
 right, and that of Schiitz in his left hand ; and 
 answered, "He feels cold ah, she is cold too;" 
 an answer which clearly contained a sort of con- 
 temptuous sneer at the judge's question. During the 
 whole scene, the tone of his voice was as soft and 
 sanctimonious, and his manner as calm, as his feelings 
 were cold and unmoved. 
 
 His mistress's behaviour was very different: she was 
 much shaken on entering the room. When desired to 
 look at the dead bodies, she did so, but instantly 
 turned away shuddering, and asked for water. She 
 declared that she knew nothing of these persons, or of
 
 12 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 the manner of their death. She said that she had 
 learned that she was supposed to be implicated in the 
 horrible deed from the populace, who crowded in thou- 
 sands round the carriage which brought them from 
 Fiirth to Niirnberg, calling her a murderess, striking 
 her with their fists and sticks, and ill-using her in 
 every way. But that God would manifest her inno- 
 cence, and that she could bring witnesses to prove that 
 she had not left her home at Diesbeck for some weeks. 
 Her evident compassion for the victims, and horror of 
 the crime, spoke more in favour of her innocence than 
 her tears and protestations. An alibi was subse- 
 quently most clearly proved. 
 
 On Forster's examination, he professed himself 
 totally ignorant of the cause of his arrest, adding that 
 he conjectured from the shouts of the mob that he was 
 suspected of a murder. He said that he had been at 
 Diesbeck from the 21st to the 23rd September; and that 
 if the murder was committed before that day, he should 
 be as little able to prove his innocence as others would 
 be to prove his guilt. He had never known the mur- 
 dered persons. He had passed the 18th, 19th, and 
 20th September in Niirnberg in search of employ- 
 ment, and had gone on the last-named day through 
 the Frauen Thor to the suburb of St. John. He had 
 not been able to sleep in his father's house on account 
 of the fleas, and had lain in the hay in Thaler's open 
 shed, which he left at one o'clock in the morning 
 when the people got up to begin threshing, and went 
 to Diesbeck, which he reached at about 4 P.M. on 
 the 21st; he gave his mistress two bags of money to 
 keep for him. This money came into his possession 
 in the following manner : While he was in the bride-
 
 JOHN PAUL FORSTER. 13 
 
 well at Schwabach he had formed a most intimate 
 friendship with a certain Xavier Beck, a jeweller, 
 who was confined there for bigamy, and who subse- 
 quently died in prison. This man confided to him 
 that in a particular spot between Fiirth and Farnbach 
 he had buried a large sum of money, half of which 
 he promised to give to him. After his release, he, 
 Forster, searched for and discovered the treasure, 
 which, however, instead of amounting to eight or nine 
 thousand florins, as Beck had represented, was at most 
 two hundred and fifty. This money he had concealed 
 in a stack of wood close by the Frauen Thor at Niirn- 
 berg, but on the evening of the 20th September he 
 had taken it out again, and had carried it on the 
 following day to his mistress. The court was forced 
 to rest satisfied with this tale for the present ; but in 
 the mean time one suspicious circumstance after an- 
 other rose up in black array against Paul Forster. 
 
 Two of the men who had been drinking at Baum- 
 ler's house on the 20th September, identified Forster 
 as the suspicious-looking stranger already described ; 
 the rest would not affirm this on oath, which was 
 perhaps owing to his having since that day shaved 
 off his thick beard, and had his hair cut close. Yet 
 even these declared that " they thought he was the 
 unknown guest ;" or " that he appeared to be one 
 and the same person ;" or that " he was exceedingly 
 like him." 
 
 Margaret Preiss declared that on Thursday the 
 21st Forster returned home at about 4 P.M. ; that 
 instead of his usual brown coat, in which he had left 
 her a few days before, he had on a new blue one ; 
 that he wore a pair of large nankeen trowsers which
 
 14 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 she had never seen before, over his own old ones, and 
 new-fashioned Suwarrow boots. He brought some 
 money in his handkerchief, and gave it to her to keep 
 for him, observing that it was not his, but only in- 
 trusted to his care ; he then took from the pocket of 
 his trowsers a Niirnberg thaler and a ducat, which he 
 gave to her daughter. He was very tired and his 
 feet were blistered, and, contrary to his usual habit, 
 seemed thoughtful and out of spirits ; when she asked 
 him the reason, he answered her drily, that nobody 
 could always be cheerful. On the next day he ate 
 nothing, and continued silent and gloomy. On the 
 following Saturday, when they heard a noise and 
 several men came into the room to apprehend him, 
 he turned red as scarlet ; and when she said " You 
 have been about some mischief," he merely answered, 
 " Nay, I have done nothing." 
 
 Dorr, a poor lead-pencil maker, who lived in the 
 same cottage with old Forster and his daughters, gave 
 evidence as follows: "On Thursday the 21st Sep- 
 tember, at two o'clock in the morning, Paul Forster 
 came to the window and called for his father to 
 come out to him. Old Forster was in the barn 
 threshing ; but Forster's sister Walburga, on hearing 
 his voice, exclaimed * That is my brother John/ 
 jumped out of bed and fetched her father. They then 
 all three stood at the back of the house for about half 
 an hour, talking together in a low voice. Next 
 morning Walburga told his (Dorr's) wife that her 
 brother was gone hop-picking, and had given her his 
 old boots, as he had bought some new ones. Old 
 Forster also told witness that his son had paid him an 
 old debt of two or three florins." It further appeared
 
 JOHN PAUL FOKSTER. 15 
 
 that Paul Forster could not have slept in the shed till 
 one in the morning, as he stated, as Thaler and his 
 son swore that it was invariably locked at night His 
 mysterious nocturnal visit at his father's house tallied 
 with the time when the murder had been committed ; 
 and his long conversation with his father and sister 
 appears the more suspicious as the reason which Wal- 
 burga assigned for calling her father out of the barn 
 was totally untrue. 
 
 In a very short time the instrument was discovered 
 with which there was every reason to suppose the 
 crime had been committed, and which furnished a 
 fresh link in the chain of evidence against Forster. 
 On the 20th September a certain Margaret Wolflin 
 saw Catherine, Forster's youngest sister, go into the 
 churchyard in the suburb of St. John's, come out 
 again and fetch her elder sister Walburga, who then 
 went into the churchyard, where Paul Forster was 
 standing. After talking with him for a short time in 
 an under-tone, she went home, and soon returned 
 carrying an axe under her arm as if to hide it. 
 Margaret Wolflin asked her what she had under her 
 arm, and she then carried the axe more openly, and 
 gave it to her brother with the words " Be so good as 
 to take this axe into town to be ground for me." 
 Forster took it and went towards Niirnberg, after ex- 
 changing a few words and casting an angry glance at 
 Margaret. 
 
 On the following morning Walburga met Margaret 
 Wolflin and told her that the chandler Baumler had 
 been stabbed the night before. She had her brother's 
 boots in her basket, but they had been so washed and 
 rubbed that she could not find a purchaser for them at
 
 16 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 any price. On the same day Walburga met a certain 
 Roth and told him that her brother had given her the 
 boots, which she was forced to wear herself, adding, 
 " If things go well, it will not be long before I have a 
 new petticoat too." 
 
 As soon as the police had received information of 
 these facts, they searched Forster's house, arid found 
 behind the stack of wood an axe, which one of the 
 police identified as one which he had seen the night 
 before (26th September) lying behind the stove 
 wrapped in a wet rag : there was some red moisture 
 on the hatchet just where the handle joined the blade. 
 Margaret Wolflin recognised this as the same which 
 Walburga had given to her brother by a flaw in the 
 steel, and the physician declared the reddish stains on 
 the handle just below the blade to be half-effaced 
 marks of blood. 
 
 Forster's two sisters, Walburga and Catherine, were 
 apprehended and examined. On her first examina- 
 tion Walburga confessed that her brother had bor- 
 rowed the axe exactly as Wolflin had stated, under 
 pretence of wanting it for a burglary ; that between 
 two and three in the morning he brought it back 
 to her partly cleaned, and at the same time made 
 her a present of his boots, which had been washed 
 up to the ankle, telling her that he had not been 
 lucky in his burglary, but that whenever he got 
 any money he would send her some. At Forster's 
 desire she then fetched their father, to whom he paid 
 1 fl. 38 kr. which he had borrowed of him a fortnight 
 before. On her second examination, however, when 
 pressingly admonished by the judge, she confessed 
 that her brother had said to her on that night, " I
 
 JOHN PAUL FORSTER. 17 
 
 have committed a crime I have done a great thing 
 I have murdered a man ! Fetch my father quickly, 
 I am going hop-picking. Do you wash the axe and 
 the boots, and take care of them for me, so that no 
 one may know anything of the matter." On the 
 boots she had observed large spots, which disap- 
 peared on washing, and which she supposed must 
 have been blood. She added in a subsequent exami- 
 nation, that the silk tassels of both boots were quite 
 glued together with blood. 
 
 The circumstantial evidence against Forster now 
 appeared conclusive. The dark brown coat worn 
 by the accused on the day of the murder, and 
 left with the waiter at the inn of Fiirth, was found 
 to be much stained with blood. It was further 
 proved that over it he wore a good grey greatcoat, 
 which he exchanged at Fiirth with a Jewess for the 
 blue one in which he was apprehended. This grey 
 coat had belonged to Baumler, and the white lining 
 was much stained with blood : the nankeen trow- 
 sers and the Suwarrow boots were also identified 
 as Baumler's property by the tradesmen who had 
 made them for him. All these things, and the money- 
 bags, which could have belonged to no one but 
 Baumler, were stronger evidence of his guilt than 
 the testimony of the most unsuspected witnesses. 
 
 Such was the state of the case when Forster sent 
 to request an audience of the judge. The solitude of 
 the prison had afforded him leisure to reflect that a 
 number of damning circumstances were clearly proved 
 against him. His natural acuteness and long expe- 
 rience of such matters taught him that by persevering 
 in the affectation of ignorance as well as innocence of 
 
 c
 
 18 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 the crime laid to his charge, he would expose himself 
 to the danger of being compelled step by step to deny 
 manifest truths, in the teeth of the most conclusive 
 evidence. This, he saw, would be a difficult and 
 dangerous game, in which he must be driven from 
 one retreat to another, and end by being entangled 
 in snares woven of his own answers and admissions. 
 He therefore resolved to disarm the judge by making 
 a confession, which, while it should throw the guilt 
 on others, might nevertheless accord with the evidence 
 already in the possession of the judge, or likely to be 
 still produced. He opened the audience on the 3rd 
 November by asking " pardon of the judge for all the 
 untruths of which he had been guilty on the first 
 examination, and by declaring that he would now relate 
 circumstances which must lead to the discovery of the 
 murderer." His statement was shortly this : 
 
 " On Monday the 18th September he had gone 
 from Diesbeck to Langenzenn, determined in conse- 
 quence of his misfortunes to leave his native country 
 and to enlist as a soldier in Bohemia. While sitting 
 in a melancholy mood by the road side near Lan- 
 genzenn, two men, followed by a couple of dogs, 
 came up to him, asked what was the matter, and, 
 on hearing his distress, expressed great interest in 
 his fate. They told him that they were hop-mer- 
 chants, of the name of Schlemmer, from Hersbruck ; 
 that they were brothers, and had rich relations in 
 Bohemia, whither they were going with a cargo of 
 hops, and offered to take him with them to Bohemia, 
 where he would be sure to find employment. They 
 added that on the morrow or the next day (Wednes- 
 day, the day of the murder) they should be going
 
 JOHN PAUL FORSTER. 19 
 
 with a hop-cart into Niirnberg, where they had a 
 cousin, a corn-chandler, of the name of Baumler, 
 who lived near the church of St. Laurence. On the 
 following day, the 19th September, he went to Niirn- 
 berg, walked up and down the street near the church 
 of St. Laurence, inquired of a barber for Baumler, 
 and asked ' who the woman in the house might be.' 
 He was told it was the maid. He waited in vain till 
 six in the evening for the Schlemmers ; and then re- 
 turned to the suburb of St. John's and slept in the 
 shed. On the following morning, the 20th September, 
 he again went into the town, and after wandering 
 about until four in the afternoon, the thought struck 
 him that he would go and take leave of his sisters 
 before starting for Bohemia. On this occasion his 
 sister Walburga gave him an axe, with the request 
 that he would take it to the grinder at Niirnberg, 
 whence she would fetch it herself. At about five 
 o'clock, as he was going with the axe to the grinder, 
 he met the Schlemmers, who asked him to carry a 
 letter to the post for them as quickly as possible, 
 offering to take care of the axe in the mean time, and 
 to wait for him where they then stood. After putting 
 the letter into the post he returned to the spot, but did 
 not find the Schlemmers, and passed the time in walk- 
 ing up and down the street until about six o'clock, 
 when he went into Baumler's house and drank some 
 red clove-brandy. At a quarter before ten, when all 
 the other guests were gone, the Schlemmers at length 
 arrived, and Baumler greeted them as cousins. Soon 
 after they sent him to wait in the Caroline-strasse 
 for their cart, which was coming from Fiirth, drawn 
 by two white horses. This he did ; and soon after a
 
 20 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 quarter to ten the two Schlemmers came to him, 
 carrying a trunk between them, and one of them with 
 a white parcel under his arm. At this moment the 
 cart drove up with two men in it, to whom the 
 Schlemmers said that ' they had had great luck ; they 
 had won the great prize.' They then made him get 
 into the cart with them. But at the gate of the town 
 they told him that as they had had such luck they 
 should not go into Bohemia; but that, in order to 
 show him how kindly they felt towards him, they 
 would give him something which might assist him in 
 his own country. They then gave him the white 
 parcel which one of them had under his arm, and at 
 the same time returned the axe to him. He then 
 went back to the suburb of St. John, and on opening 
 the parcel found in it a greatcoat, a pair of boots, 
 a pair of trowsers, and three bags of money." 
 
 During the whole of this examination, which with 
 the questions and answers took up six full hours, the 
 prisoner stood in the same position, without once 
 sitting down on the chair which the judge offered 
 him. The story flowed from his lips as glibly as 
 though it had been learnt by rote, and he looked 
 the judge full in the face the while; but when he 
 was cross-examined about the appearance, figure, 
 dress, &c. of the two Schlemmers, he became em- 
 barrassed, spoke more slowly, hesitated and con- 
 sidered, and avoided the eyes of the judge. 
 
 That no such people as the brothers Schlemmer 
 were to be found at Hersbruck or elsewhere was of 
 course to be expected. But that Forster had accom- 
 plices was in fact implied in this statement. This 
 had been suspected by the judge from the very begin-
 
 JOHN PAUL FORSTER. 21 
 
 ning; and indeed it seemed scarcely credible that one 
 man should be able to murder two people almost at 
 the same moment, and in so public a street. Besides, 
 the mere act of killing was not all ; several other ar- 
 rangements and precautions were necessary to pre- 
 vent interruption and discovery. At the very moment 
 when the maid was in all probability on her way 
 home, a few seconds after the murder of Baumler, the 
 glass door had to be taken off, the other door to be 
 placed on the hinges, and the bell to be stopped, 
 and then the maid was let in and murdered. The 
 commodes, chests, and closets up-stairs were to be 
 broken open and rifled. This apparently required 
 several pairs of hands. Moreover Forster himself had 
 said, while sitting in Baumler's shop, that he was 
 waiting for his companion, who was gone to the play. 
 The maid too, when she bought the rolls, spoke of 
 several fellows who were still at her master's house. 
 One of the watchmen set to guard the waggons stated 
 that he saw a suspicious-looking man standing with 
 folded arms gazing at Baumler's house; and Wal- 
 burga, Forster's sister, declared that when her brother 
 gave her back the axe she saw, at a distance of fifty 
 paces, a person with a white apron, whom she took 
 for Margaret Preiss. A few days after Forster had 
 been confined in the fortress at Niirnberg, on the 
 28th September, at eleven o'clock at night, two men 
 were seen by the sentinel looking up at the window 
 of Forster's room, and on his approach they ran away. 
 Another time the sentinel saw two men lying under 
 a tree on the bank of the river close beneath the 
 fortress ; on his calling out " Who's there ?" they 
 only answered the challenge by a volley of stones :
 
 22 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 the sentinel at length fired, whereupon they ran 
 away. 
 
 The presumption that the murders and robbery 
 were committed by several accomplices was strength- 
 ened by statements made by some of Baumler's ac- 
 quaintances, that he had at that time a sum of 1500 
 or 2000 florins in his house in ready money, for the 
 purpose of purchasing a stock in trade ; whereas after 
 the murder little or no cash was found in the house, 
 and the whole sum in Forster's possession did not 
 amount to much more than 360 florins. All these 
 circumstances certainly encouraged the idea that he 
 must have had accomplices who shared the booty 
 with him. 
 
 The judge was accordingly called upon to exert all 
 his sagacity in endeavouring to discover Forster's 
 accomplices, as well as in examining the evidence 
 against the prisoner himself. An extensive corre- 
 spondence was set on foot, witnesses were examined, 
 journeys undertaken, as far even as Frankfort-on-the- 
 Main ; the faintest shadow of suspicion was eagerly 
 pursued ; all persons of doubtful character, all who 
 had been in any way connected with Forster or his 
 sister Walburga, all the convicts who had been ac- 
 quainted with him in prison or since his release, were 
 examined, and many arrested. But after the court 
 and the police had resorted to every possible means 
 of detection, and had exhausted all their ingenuity in 
 the pursuit of evidence, they found themselves at 
 exactly the same point whence they had started. In 
 most cases the innocence of the suspected persons 
 immediately appeared upon investigation ; and all 
 those to whom the slightest suspicion could attach
 
 JOHN PAUL FORSTER. 23 
 
 proved most satisfactory alibis. In short, we are per- 
 suaded that if so much zeal and ingenuity failed in 
 making any further discovery, it was solely because 
 there was nothing to discover. 
 
 The remarkable coincidence between the wounds 
 upon both corpses renders it in the highest degree 
 probable that they were inflicted with the same hand. 
 
 The danger and difficulty of such an enterprise 
 vanish as we become better acquainted with the cha- 
 racter of Forster, a villain who united to great bodily 
 strength, and a hand trained to strike, very uncommon 
 acuteness and a determined will one who perceived at 
 a glance whatever opportunities offered themselves, 
 and instantly seized them ; who pursued his purpose 
 with a clear head and a cold heart whom no im- 
 pediments could disconcert, no horrors dismay. To 
 such a man the greater and more daring the scheme, 
 the more inviting it would appear. But the whole 
 can be easily explained, without supposing either the 
 existence of accomplices, or of any very extraordinary 
 courage in the one murderer. Forster had devoted 
 several days to watching Baumler's house and finding 
 out his habits. His long stay in the shop on the 
 evening of the murder made him thoroughly ac- 
 quainted with the place, and gave him an opportunity 
 of observing every thing, and of seizing the most 
 favourable moment for the execution of his purpose. 
 As soon as the maid had left the house, Forster sud- 
 denly attacked Baumler, who was sitting upon his low 
 seat by the stove, and felled him, dead or dying, to 
 the ground, with one blow of the axe which he had 
 hitherto concealed. He must then have hastened to 
 the entrance of the shop, bent back the bell, stuffed it
 
 24 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 with paper, taken the glass door off its hinges, shut 
 and locked the folding-door, and hidden himself 
 behind it. On Schiitz's return he opened the door to 
 let her in, and must have struck her from behind 
 with his murderous weapon, as was shown by the 
 fracture in her skull, and then despatched her in 
 the corner of the shop. Baumler's house was so 
 small, and every thing so conveniently placed, that 
 to unhinge the glass door, to fix the wooden one, 
 and to prepare every thing for the murder of the 
 maid, would scarce require more than half a minute. 
 Besides, Forster had so often walked up and down 
 the street, and so carefully examined the ground, that 
 he could exactly Calculate the time it would take 
 the maid to go to and return from the baker's, and 
 his cool head was not disturbed by the sight of 
 blood. It can easily be explained why none of the 
 neighbours heard a scream ; the blows aimed by the 
 steady hand of the murderer with the heavy axe were 
 so sudden and so tremendous, that they must have 
 instantly deprived the victims of consciousness, if not 
 of life. 
 
 Another circumstance strongly corroborates the 
 opinion that only one person was concerned in the 
 murder and robbery : many articles of value, belonging 
 to Baumler, were found in his house. Several accom- 
 plices in robbery and murder would not have left such 
 booty behind ; but Forster, to whom time was valu- 
 able, took only what he most wanted money, and 
 such clothes as first fell into his hands. That Baumler 
 had as much as 1500 or 2000 florins in the house was 
 a mere supposition. If even he had wanted so much 
 for the purchase of stores, it does not follow that he
 
 JOHN PAUL FORSTER. 25 
 
 would have kept such a sum in hard money by him. 
 After his death, too, it appeared that common report 
 had greatly magnified his wealth. 
 
 It was clearly proved that Forster was the only 
 guest left in Baumler's house after nine o'clock. Had 
 one or more accomplices joined him then, they wouk'. 
 have called for brandy as an excuse for staying; but 
 on the following morning, only one glass that out of 
 which Forster had drunk was found upon the table. 
 
 Moreover, Forster had been seen about Niirnberg by 
 many persons for several days before the murder, espe- 
 cially in the street near B'aumler's house, and always 
 alone. During this time no one came near him who 
 could be in the slightest degree suspected of being his 
 accomplice, either at Diesbeck, before he went to Niirn- 
 berg to commit the murder, or after he had returned 
 to Diesbeck by way of Fiirth, after accomplishing it. 
 We must, indeed, except his sister, Walburga, and 
 Margaret Preiss, but both completely proved alibis. 
 
 If he had accomplices, it is strange that all clue to 
 them was lost, while every species of evidence accu- 
 mulated against Forster. 
 
 It is true that Forster told Baumler and the other 
 guests that he was waiting for the return of his com- 
 rade from the play; but a stranger requires some 
 excuse for staying from six till nine in the same 
 tavern. 
 
 The baker's wife, from whom Anna Schiitz bought 
 the rolls, certainly understood her to say that there 
 were still several fellows at Baumler's house, but the 
 poor girl was already several paces distant from the 
 shop when she answered ; and if we consider the un- 
 importance of the question and answer, and the allow-
 
 26 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 ances to be made for the treachery of memory, it 
 seems very uncertain whether the baker's wife accu- 
 rately heard or remembered what the maid had said. 
 Moreover, she said that Anna Schiitz was very angry 
 at being sent out so late, and anger is not apt to mea- 
 sure words very correctly. 
 
 The suspicious-looking fellow, whom the watch- 
 man Weism tiller saw in the street opposite Baumler's 
 house, at a quarter past nine, was in all probability 
 Forster himself, who may have made some excuse 
 for leaving Baumler's shop for a moment, in order 
 to see whether there were many people about, or to 
 fetch the axe, which he may have hidden somewhere 
 near the house. 
 
 Walburga's statement, that on the night of the 
 murder she saw some one at a distance of about fifty 
 yards behind her brother, deserves little attention, not 
 only because it was dark at the time, but also because 
 she evidently wished to gain importance in the eyes 
 of the court by making interesting revelations. 
 
 The accidental circumstance of two men looking up 
 at the Bridewell at eleven o'clock at night, on the 
 28th September, could only be of consequence if it 
 were proved that they looked up not from mere curi- 
 osity, but with the knowledge that it was Forster's 
 window at which they were looking. The second 
 occurrence on the 31st October probably had no 
 connection whatever with any of the prisoners: the 
 two men who were then lying under the tree by the 
 Pegnitz were most likely a couple of drunken fellows 
 who amused themselves by throwing stones at the 
 sentinel, but who naturally ran away when he dis- 
 charged his musket.
 
 JOHN PAUL FORSTER. 27 
 
 The special inquisition to which Paul Forster, his 
 sister Walburga, and Margaret Preiss were first sub- 
 jected, on the 7th November, 1820, produced nothing 
 of importance against Forster. He underwent thirteen 
 long examinations, in which he had to answer one 
 thousand three hundred and thirteen questions, besides 
 confrontations with innumerable witnesses ; but no 
 confession could be wrung from him. Animated by 
 a spirit as powerful and enduring as his bodily frame, 
 he often stood during his examinations for five or six 
 hours on the same spot, and nothing ever made him 
 flinch or waver. Once in the Bridewell he said to some 
 of his companions, that " If ever he got into trouble 
 again, he would persist in denial until his tongue 
 turned black and rotted in his mouth and his body 
 was bent double." After his discharge he said the 
 same thing to his sister and to Wolflin. Indeed he 
 combined in his person all the qualities which could 
 enable him to resist truth even when most evident. 
 He was a man whom no question could embarras 
 and no admonition disconcert. He had considered 
 beforehand the whole array of evidence against him 
 as carefully as the judge himself. Thus nothing took 
 him by surprise; there was nothing for which he 
 was unprepared. He clung to his fable of the two 
 hop-merchants like the shipwrecked sailor to the 
 plank which is to convey him to shore. This tale, 
 in which he never varied the smallest circumstance, 
 although he admitted that unfortunately for him 
 no one would believe it, always afforded him a 
 loophole by which to escape from the most con- 
 vincing facts or from the clearest evidence. His pre- 
 sence in Baumler's house, the axe with which the
 
 28 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 murder was committed, Baumler's clothes found upon 
 him, did not, according to his version of the matter, 
 criminate him, but the two hop-merchants. His con- 
 fession of the murder to his sister, and the fact that 
 his boots were bloody, rested merely on her testimony, 
 and he positively denied both to her face. He ac- 
 counted for the blood on his brown coat and that 
 on Baumler's green one by some incredible fiction. 
 All means of attack recoiled from his iron soul ; 
 neither the bloody clothes nor the axe, nor con- 
 frontation with his sister and other witnesses, could 
 shake him. If a passing flush or paleness, or a 
 downcast eye, occasionally betrayed surprise and em- 
 barrassment, it was but for a moment, and he 
 quickly recovered his self-possession. When the axe 
 was produced, his changing colour and rolling eye 
 betrayed the fearful emotion within ; but his voice and 
 his answers remained unshaken. Upon being con- 
 fronted with his sister Walburga, he seemed con- 
 fused, his colour fled, and his hands trembled; but he 
 still preserved so complete a command over himself 
 as to look her full in the face whilst he denied the 
 most manifest truths. During the whole special in- 
 quisition, the emotions he exhibited were those of a 
 wild beast suddenly caught in a net, vainly seeking 
 an outlet by which to escape from the hunters who 
 surround him. When the judge animadverted upon 
 his changing colour or his embarrassed air, he replied 
 with perfect truth, " It is quite possible for an innocent 
 man to seem more embarrassed than a guilty one : 
 the latter knows exactly what he has done ; the former 
 feels that he cannot prove his innocence." He con- 
 cealed his obstinacy under an assumption of calmness,
 
 JOHN PAUL FORSTER. 29 
 
 gentleness, and piety, as if humbly submitting to a 
 fate he did not deserve. " I see plainly," said he in 
 his last examination, " that I cannot escape unless the 
 Schlemmers are taken. I have therefore nothing to 
 do but to pray to God that he will enlighten my 
 judges and enable them to distinguish between guilt 
 and innocence, between the possible and the im- 
 possible. In this case guilt and innocence touch, and 
 I have no means of proving my innocence." The 
 following circumstance will give some idea of his 
 cunning, hypocrisy, and dissimulation : During the 
 trial a certain John Wagner, who had formerly been 
 in prison with him at Schwabach, was confronted with 
 him to give evidence touching expressions which 
 Forster had dropped concerning some scheme for 
 future crimes. Wagner, on this occasion, accused 
 him of stealing a pair of silk braces. Forster denied 
 the charge, and even when the braces were produced 
 in court and identified by Wagner, he persisted in his 
 denial. But in the solitude of his prison he reflected 
 that he could turn this incident to good account in 
 giving an air of truth to his falsehoods respecting 
 the murder. Accordingly, after an interval of two 
 days, he requested an audience and appeared before 
 the judge, with downcast looks and trembling hands, 
 like one bowed down by shame and remorse, and con- 
 fessed in a circumstantial manner that " he had given 
 way to the temptations of Satan and had stolen Wag- 
 ner's silk braces." This repentant confession was 
 doubtless intended to convince the judge that one 
 whose tender conscience could not bear even the bur- 
 den of a stolen pair of braces would be still less able to 
 endure the remorse which must follow a double murder.
 
 30 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 Towards the close of the trial he must have seen, 
 and indeed he acknowledged as much, that, in spite 
 of his courage, obstinacy, and cunning, truth could 
 not be overpowered by fables and evasions. His 
 obstinate perseverance in denial must therefore be 
 attributed not only to a hope of thus avoiding capital 
 punishment, but also to pride. Impressed with a con- 
 viction of his own mental superiority, and ambitious 
 of a character for dauntless courage and immovable 
 strength of will, he was resolved not to allow the judge 
 to gain the slightest advantage over his feelings or his 
 understanding. If he must fall, at least he would fall 
 like a hero. If he could not avoid the fate of a cri- 
 minal, he would avoid the disgrace of a confession 
 wrung from weakness or cowardice. Men might 
 shudder at him, but his fearful crimes should excite 
 wonder, not contempt. The murder of Baumler and 
 his maid was a crime which any common villain 
 might commit ; but to stand unmoved by all the 
 dangers which followed the deed, to bid defiance to 
 truth, to the skill of the judge, to behold the most 
 terrible sights with a steady gaze and without one 
 feeling of pity ; to turn a deaf ear to the admonitions 
 of conscience ; to remain firm in the dreadful solitude 
 of the cell, as well as in the presence of the court; 
 this it was which raised him, in his own estimation, 
 far above the common herd of criminals. 
 
 Forster escaped capital punishment in spite of the 
 strong circumstantial evidence against him, as no 
 confession could be extorted from him, and as there 
 were no competent eye-witnesses to the murder. 
 Sentence to this effect was accordingly passed upon 
 him on the 22nd July, 1821 :
 
 JOHN PAUL FORSTER. 31 
 
 " That John Paul Forster is convicted of the murder 
 of the chandler Baumler and of his maid-servant, on 
 the night of the 20th September, 1 820, and that he is 
 condemned to imprisonment for life in chains." 
 
 His sister Walburga was convicted of aiding and 
 abetting the murder committed by her brother, and 
 sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment in the 
 house of correction. Margaretha Preiss was acquitted. 
 
 Imprisonment in chains annihilates civil existence, 
 as completely as death puts an end to physical life. 
 It deprives a man for ever of his rights as a citizen, a 
 husband, and a father ; of honour, property, and free- 
 dom ; nothing is left him but bare life passed in 
 slavery and chains. Evidence of guilt strong enough 
 to justify such a punishment ought to entail that of 
 death. In case of error, the hardship is equally great, 
 as it is no more possible to restore a man to civil life 
 after the execution of this sentence, than to resuscitate 
 him after his head has been cut off. The Bavarian 
 code affords no means of relief for the man dead in 
 law ; how, indeed, could he recover his property from 
 his heirs, or claim his wife then living in lawful wed- 
 lock with another? In a word, in cases in which the 
 State hesitates to award capital punishment, it should 
 equally refrain from inflicting this sentence of death 
 in life. 
 
 The Bavarian law directs that the criminal be pre- 
 viously exposed for one hour, if possible on the spot 
 where the crime was committed, in chains, and with 
 a tablet on his breast specifying the nature of his 
 offence and the sentence passed upon him. Thus a 
 man convicted on the clearest evidence instructs the
 
 32 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 people from the pillory by the inscription on his 
 breast, " Imprisonment for twofold Murder," that a 
 man may be convicted of such crimes as these, and 
 yet not have deserved death. The popular sense, 
 utterly unable to distinguish between the niceties of 
 legal evidence, and believing with blunt simplicity that 
 conviction is conviction, and that guilt is guilt, must 
 be strangely puzzled and disturbed in its faith in the 
 justice of the laws and the impartiality of those who 
 administer it. The most ignorant of the people are 
 aware that the guilty occasionally escape, from want 
 of evidence; but that a murderer publicly and solemnly 
 denounced as guilty should escape the punishment in- 
 curred by his crime, owing to some mere technical 
 objection, is far beyond the comprehension of the most 
 intelligent among them, and utterly repugnant to 
 their sense of justice. 
 
 John Paul Forster was born on the 22nd Janu- 
 ary, 1791, and professed the Lutheran faith. His 
 father arid his sisters Walburga and Catherine lived, 
 as we have before mentioned, in the suburb of St. 
 John's, and the whole family belonged to a sect of 
 chosen brethren who do as little work as possible, in 
 order that they may have more time for praying, 
 singing hymns, arid reading the Bible, and who com- 
 pound with heaven for their vices by their so-called 
 piety. 
 
 Forster has given a very circumstantial account of 
 his own life and character, not only in his evidence 
 before the court, but also in a MS. composed by
 
 JOHN PAUL FORSTER. 33 
 
 himself in 1817-18, during his imprisonment at 
 Schwabach, and entitled ' The Romance of my Life 
 and Loves/ In this autobiography truth and fiction 
 are so closely blended, that it is scarce possible to say 
 where the one begins and the other ends. But the 
 manner in which he speaks of himself, and of his real 
 and fictitious adventures, gives an exact picture of the 
 inmost workings of his mind, and serves as a key to 
 his character. 
 
 As a child, his quiet prudent behaviour distin- 
 guished him, as he assures us, from other boys. 
 While his brother was running about the streets, 
 playing or fighting with his companions, and often 
 returning home with torn clothes or a bloody nose, 
 Forster's delight was to sit in a neighbouring public- 
 house where the good burghers of the town were wont 
 to spend their leisure hours at the game of loto. Here 
 he would do them small services, by which he not only 
 gained many a penny, but also the "respect of the 
 whole company, and the name of good little Paul." 
 When he was in his eighth year a Prussian nobleman 
 came to live in a house in the garden which Forster's 
 
 father cultivated. Baron von D had two children 
 
 of the same age as Paul Forster, and the " good little 
 Paul " occasionally had the honour of associating with 
 these young nobles. He carried their toys, fetched 
 their bread and butter, and insinuated himself into 
 their good graces by waiting upon them " as if he had 
 really been their servant." He seems to have been as 
 proud of acting the part of a lackey to these boys as 
 if he had become a baron himself. " My conduct," 
 says he, " pleased the noble parents so much, that they 
 every day renewed their invitation to me. My other 
 
 D
 
 34 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS.' 
 
 companions now began to treat me with indifference, 
 and even with contempt. My brother Christopher 
 looked at me coldly, and said, * Go ! I am not good 
 enough for you now ; I see you mean to be a fine 
 gentleman, since you will not play with us any 
 longer.' I excused myself civilly, and continued my 
 own way of life." In his self-satisfied account of him- 
 self we trace the character of an idle effeminate boy, 
 who prefers loitering about public-houses to the 
 natural enjoyments of youth; a premature hypocrite, 
 who cringes and flatters in order to worm himself into 
 the favour of strangers, and who reckons it a high 
 honour to be the menial slave of boys of noble birth, 
 while he despises his own equals. The mixture of 
 pride and meanness, of vanity and coarseness, and 
 the desire to bask in the sunshine of nobility, even 
 in the most servile position, still appear in the 
 further account of his early life. When he had left 
 
 school, he says that *' the noble Baroness von D 
 
 begged his father to permit the boy to enter her 
 service." His fatherVconseut obtained, Forster was in 
 the seventh heaven. He was no longer called Paul, 
 but John ; and, as a reward for his attention and care, 
 dressed in a grey livery, so that "he might accom- 
 pany his noble master and mistress to balls and assem- 
 blies, and thus learn the manners of the fashionable 
 world." 
 
 This felicity did not, however, last long. " My 
 father," he says, " from a regard to the welfare of my 
 soul, recalled me and endeavoured to impose upon me 
 the task of learning the profession of a shoemaker ; 
 but my attachment to the nobility was too strong, and 
 I threatened to run away." At last Forster chose the
 
 JOHN PAUL FORSTER. 35 
 
 trade of a gardener, because " a gardener frequently 
 comes into contact with gentlefolks." He speaks in 
 high praise of his own proficiency in gardening ; and, 
 indeed, nothing is known to his disadvantage before 
 he entered the army. About this time the rector of 
 the parish gave him the character of being active, 
 industrious, and well-behaved. He himself states that 
 he so entirely gained the confidence of the owner of 
 the garden rented by his master, that after the death 
 of the latter it was intrusted to his management, 
 which he exercised for two years "with great ap- 
 plause," at the end of which time he was forced to 
 leave the place by the tender importunities of the 
 gardener's widow, a woman of fifty, who conceived a 
 violent passion for this " half-blown rosebud of seven- 
 teen." He next served as gardener in a family where 
 Babetta the cook " subjugated him by the charms of 
 her person, and still more by the graces of her mind." 
 The romance with Babetta was approaching its catas- 
 trophe when, in 1807, " the voice of his country sum- 
 moned him to the musket of military life ;" that is to 
 say, he was drawn on the conscription, and enrolled in 
 a regiment of the line. 
 
 At this time Forster seems to have entered upon 
 his career of vice and crime : the fact is, that he 
 wanted patience and fortitude to endure a life which 
 thwarted his inclinations and mortified his pride. 
 The day on which he joined his battalion was his 
 " first day of humiliation ;" for his Babetta signified 
 to him that she did not consider it compatible with 
 her honour to associate with a common soldier. But 
 the worst was still to come. After his first drill, he 
 exclaims, "Ah, this was the real beginning of my 
 
 D'2
 
 36 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 misery ! From the earliest dawn until the close of 
 day a merciless corporal was busied in beating mili- 
 tary ardour into me, in twisting me about like a 
 puppet, and making me as lank and as supple as a 
 greyhound. He scarce" allowed me time to swallow 
 my scanty rations ; and when I stretched myself at 
 night upon my sack of straw, I felt as if I had been 
 broken upon the wheel. Bavarian blows and Bava- 
 rian rations are an infallible remedy against love ! 
 During the first few weeks I seldom thought of my 
 lovely Babetta, but often enough of running away. 
 I envied every cobbler his golden leisure, and tottered 
 through the streets at midday like a hunted stag 
 seeking a spring of fresh water." The life of a 
 soldier never ceased to be an intolerable burden to 
 him. How was an effeminate libertine to endure 
 privations and hardships, or sleep on hard boards, 
 instead of on his mistress's bed ? Was one so fond 
 of existence to expose his person to cannon-balls? 
 or one so vain to submit to the rude contact of a 
 corporal's stick, and to be confounded with thou- 
 sands of other men in the dress of a common 
 soldier? His ill-regulated passions were fretted and 
 increased by control, and his powers of dissimula- 
 tion called forth by the severity of the discipline 
 under which he was forced to bend. As his desires 
 increased in violence, he grew more reckless as to the 
 means by which he gratified them ; and the fre- 
 quency of his trials, imprisonments, and corporal 
 punishments only taught him indifference to the 
 penalty of his crimes. 
 
 In 1808, when his regiment was encamped at 
 Furth, he contrived to steal out of his tent and
 
 JOHN PAUL FORSTER. 37 
 
 through all the outposts, and went to Niirnberg, 
 where he spent the night with Babetta, and crept 
 back early the following morning to his tent. But 
 the same day, on parade, he was called out of the 
 ranks and questioned as to his absence during the 
 night. At first he denied the charge. But when he 
 found that the proofs were strong against him, he 
 confessed, making excuses for his conduct, " but 
 not," he adds, " until he saw that he was clearly con- 
 victed." Twenty lashes were immediately inflicted 
 on him. 
 
 He made the campaign in 1809 against Austria ; 
 was, according to his own account, taken prisoner, 
 ransomed himself, and returned to Niirnberg. In 
 1810 he left his barracks, but returned after eighteen 
 days' absence, and was placed under arrest. In that 
 year he became acquainted with Margaretha Preiss, 
 who already had an illegitimate daughter by a mar- 
 ried man, but for whom he conceived the most violent 
 and lasting passion. In 1811 a furlough was granted 
 to him for an indefinite time, during which he acted 
 as gardener and tavern-keeper at a small property 
 near Adlitz which Margaretha rented ; and he endea- 
 voured, but without success, to obtain his discharge, 
 in order to marry his mistress. In 1812 he was sum- 
 moned to join his regiment. At Adlitz he com- 
 mitted several petty thefts. He stole an umbrella 
 and a shawl from one of the guests in his garden, 
 for which he was punished in the following year by 
 order of his commanding officer. It is extremely 
 probable that he committed greater thefts, as he 
 relates that he was able to lend out at interest two 
 sums, one of 600 florins, another of 250. In 1813
 
 38 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 he deserted, and wandered about for eleven weeks, 
 living chiefly in the woods : at the end of which 
 time he went back to Margaretha, who then rented 
 a small public-house at the suburb of St. John's 
 at Niirnberg, where he was discovered soon after. 
 He was condemned for desertion and theft to run 
 the gauntlet three times backwards and forwards 
 through one hundred and fifty men, and to six addi- 
 tional years of military service. On the very day of 
 his punishment he deserted again, was again taken, 
 and again received the same sentence. This lesson 
 also was vain. In 1815 he was again subjected to 
 a criminal trial for desertion, theft, and conspiracy 
 with a younger sister of his mistress to extort money, 
 and was drummed out of the regiment. 
 
 This long wished for dismissal from the service, 
 disgraceful as it was, at length rewarded him for the 
 indomitable obstinacy and indifference to disgrace 
 which he had displayed for so many years, in a 
 stubborn neglect of his duties. 
 
 From this time forward he led an idle and dissolute 
 life, occasionally working as a day-labourer, but 
 much oftener stealing and squandering the proceeds, 
 which were considerable, with his mistress, until, in 
 1816, he was arrested and tried before the criminal 
 court at Niirnberg for theft and housebreaking, and 
 sentenced to three years and six months' imprisonment 
 in the House of Correction. In consequence of his 
 good conduct in confinement, he was released at the 
 expiration of three-fourths of his term, on the 21st of 
 August, 1820, exactly four weeks before the murder. 
 He left this high school of iniquity firmly resolved to 
 find the means of enjoying permanent happiness in the
 
 JOHN PAUL FORSTER. 39 
 
 undisturbed possession of his mistress, and fully con- 
 vinced that no way to this object save that of crime 
 was open to him. He had long since broken with 
 virtue and honour, and Margaretha was his last re- 
 maining link with mankind. As he was to depend 
 upon crime for his subsistence, it was indifferent to 
 him what form it took. He was disposed to run any 
 risk in order to obtain a large sum of money, which 
 he might share with Margaretha. He perilled his 
 freedom, his life he felt sure of saving by his cun- 
 ning, boldness, presence of mind, and by the fixed 
 determination never to confess. The wonderful 
 stories he had read of heroic robbers and remarkable 
 criminals, who escaped the vengeance of justice by 
 their boldness or their cunning, and of celebrated 
 captives who in the end obtained their liberty by 
 some miraculous accident, made him see his plan of 
 life in the light of a romance, and hope to enrol his 
 name in the list of those heroes whose fame he so 
 much envied. Filled with these hopes and schemes, 
 he awaited with impatience the day of his release, 
 and contrived by hypocritical submissiveness, repent- 
 ance, and humility, to shorten the time of imprison- 
 ment. Thus resolved for the worst, he was thrown 
 back upon society its bitter foe ; and before a month 
 had elapsed, he signalized himself by a deed which, 
 for the cruelty, cunning, and boldness with which it 
 was planned and executed, has few parallels in the 
 annals of crime. 
 
 The bare fact of writing his own life, proves how 
 important a personage this man considered himself. 
 It is true that, according to the preface, the work was 
 intended as a legacy for his beloved Margaretha, in
 
 40 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 the event of his death ; but it is manifestly written 
 with a view to other readers nay, perhaps even to 
 an honourable place on the shelves of a circulating 
 library. 
 
 This work, allowing for several faults of spelling, 
 shows a degree of information, cultivation of mind, 
 and power of composition very unusual in Forster's 
 class. Several anecdotes for instance, the account 
 of his childish amour with a girl of eleven, of the 
 name of Wilhelmine, and of his stealing out of the 
 camp at Fiirth to visit his mistress Babette, at 
 Niirnberg, are told with a clearness, simplicity, and 
 truth, that would do credit to many a practised 
 pen. But by far the greater part, and especially the 
 long diffuse preface, is written in the pompous in- 
 flated style of the worst romances. In many places 
 he has introduced songs and poems borrowed from 
 the best German authors, which, according to his 
 own account, he sang or recited on various occa- 
 sions, and which he pretends to have composed him- 
 self. His head seems to have been crammed with 
 sentimental phrases and romantic images, which ex- 
 cite disgust and horror in the mouth of such a being. 
 This tiger, who, with a hand reeking with the blood 
 of an old man, could murder an innocent and beau- 
 tiful girl, can talk " of departed souls that hold con- 
 stant communion with him;" of the " soft murmur 
 of the evening breezes, and the melting harmonyof 
 the senses, which, after his death, would inform his 
 beloved Margaretha that he was near her;" of his 
 ' name, which would die away in the shadow of the 
 grave, like the echo of the songs of love ;" of the 
 " glancing of the moonbeams upon the silver stream
 
 JOHN PAUL FORSTER. 41 
 
 of the Pegnitz :" and of himself in his seventeenth 
 year, as " a half-blown rose on a beautiful morning in 
 spring." Who could have recognised the murderer 
 Forster in the following passages ? " Ah ! for one 
 thing I praise God," says he in his preface, apostro- 
 phizing Margaretha ; " for this, that our child, the 
 first fruit of our love, sleeps the sleep of peace ! When 
 he was torn from me I accused Heaven, and could not 
 understand the inscrutable ways of God, but mur- 
 mured against him. But now I shed tears of joy that 
 he is safe, and I pluck the flowers of the valley to 
 weave fresh garlands for his grave. Ah ! do you 
 remember how I planted the forget-me-nots upon 
 his little green grave ? Then my heart knew not 
 God, and my tears flowed in the violence of my 
 sorrow. I thought myself the most miserable of men. 
 I now understand things better." No man who really 
 feels thus can murder. Passages like these and 
 there are many such merely prove the utter cor- 
 ruption of one who, cold and hardened as he was, 
 could use the language of the most devout piety and 
 ape the most tender sensibility. The high prin- 
 ciple and love of virtue, of which he boasts, are as 
 false as his sentiment. He could not have forgotten, 
 while writing, that he was then in prison for theft, 
 and yet he has the shameless effrontery to write these 
 words in his preface : " Oh, Margaretha ! tell our 
 daughter what present help in trouble is the inno- 
 cence of the heart : how it inspires us with heroic 
 strength to support the heaviest affliction." Who 
 would not attribute the following phrase to a philo- 
 sopher rather than to a housebreaker? " I know not 
 which best deserves the name of heroism, that
 
 42 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 courage which enables a man to conceal his woes 
 within his own breast, in order to spare pain and 
 sorrow to others ; or that which induces him to sacri- 
 fice himself for the preservation of another." 
 
 Religion had no real influence on his mind. His 
 conviction, as he declared to a fellow-prisoner, was 
 that religion was necessary for the sake of public 
 order. He neither hoped nor wished for a future 
 life, for all his desires centred in the pleasures of 
 this world. " Had I but money and my mistress, 
 I should wish to remain for ever in this world, and 
 never think about another. The wisest philosophers 
 and the greatest naturalists and magicians have ever 
 devoted their skill and their knowledge to the art of 
 prolonging human life. They would not have done 
 this, had they thought there was a future life." This 
 was the confession of faith made by him to another 
 fellow-prisoner. Nevertheless, his knowledge of the 
 Bible might shame many a clergyman, and in his 
 autobiography he quotes passages from the sacred 
 volume, just as he does phrases from romances and 
 stanzas from love poems, but more frequently and 
 with greater ostentation. When he wishes to marry, 
 but resolves first to consider the matter more deeply, 
 he refers himself to the twenty-seventh and following 
 verses of the twenty-fifth chapter of Jesus Sirach. 
 When in prison, he complains with Job x. 19. 
 When released from gaol he exclaims with Daniel xvi. 
 22, " My God hath sent his angels and hath shut 
 the lions' mouth, that they have not hurt me : for- 
 asmuch as before him innocency was found in me; 
 and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt." 
 Once, he informs us, as he was going through a wood
 
 JOHN PAUL FORSTER. 43 
 
 with a man who intended to rob him or, as is far 
 more likely, whom he intended to rob he recited 
 the fourth verse of the seventy-first Psalm : " Deliver 
 me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked ; out of 
 the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man." He then 
 suddenly called to mind the passage in the second 
 book of Moses, xxi. 23-25, " And if any mischief 
 follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for 
 eye, tooth for tooth," &c.; and encouraged thereby, he 
 took the initiative in attacking the robber. Two 
 other robbers then came to their comrade's assistance, 
 and began unmercifully to belabour the pious Forster 
 with their clubs, while he sang Luther's hymn 
 
 " I know not, Lord, where I may die, 
 Nor where my grave may be." 
 
 But at length, though terribly bruised, he escaped, 
 and reached a village, where a peasant whom he en- 
 treated to give him a night's lodging, refused him 
 without mercy; whereupon he with the greatest civility 
 recommended the man to read and carefully consider 
 the nineteenth and following verses of the sixteenth 
 chapter of St. Luke. 
 
 But false as he is in everything else, his entire 
 devotion to Margaret Preiss cannot be doubted. She 
 occupies a place in the romance of his life as promi- 
 nent as his own. Neither time, misfortune, absence, 
 disgrace, nor imprisonment was able to overcome their 
 mutual attachment. In spite of all impediments he 
 had never abandoned the intention of making this 
 woman his wife. He had tattooed on his breast in 
 red letters these words, " My heart is Margaretha's." 
 In the fortress of Lichtenau, where he was to pass his
 
 44 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 life loaded with chains, he said to a fellow-prisoner, 
 " There is but one thing I wish to see my mistress 
 once more, and die." In his Life he apostrophizes her 
 as "his wife;" "his noble, true-hearted creature;" 
 " the beloved wife of his youth ;" " a pious, gentle 
 spirit, who loved him as only angels love ;" " the 
 faithful companion of his journey through life." In 
 his preface he longs " to be buried by her side, bedews 
 her hair with his tears, and presses it to his parched 
 lips." 
 
 For years Forster has borne in dogged silence the 
 hardships of imprisonment, the misery of civil death, 
 the burden of his chains, and the still heavier burden 
 of a troubled conscience. This unbending obstinacy 
 is no doubt owing partly to great want of sensibility, 
 partly to prodigious bodily power of endurance, and 
 partly to a cowardly clinging to life, however wretched 
 and degraded, characteristic of the most contemptible 
 sensualists. He may perhaps also have flattered him- 
 self with the vague hope that his punishment was 
 only inflicted in order to extort from him a confession, 
 and that determined silence would in the end tire out 
 the patience of the court and procure his libera- 
 tion. But what chiefly strengthened him in this re- 
 solution were his romantic ideas of the heroic great- 
 ness displayed in his own person. At Lichtenau, 
 before his solitary cell was ready to receive him, 
 while he was with the other prisoners, one of them 
 exhorted him to confess ; but he replied, " Steadfast- 
 ness of purpose is the chief ornament of a man ! He 
 should not easily give up life : however wretched, 
 life is a noble thing. Believe me, comrade, whenever 
 I look upon my chains and the ball attached to them,
 
 JOHN PAUL FORSTER. 45 
 
 I feel proud to think that even on my death-bed 
 my last breath shall be drawn with courage. In 
 my earliest days, whatever I undertook, that I did. 
 As I said before, steadfastness and secrecy are what 
 adorn a man." He treated his heavy chains as a 
 badge of honour, and polished them in his leisure 
 hours till they shone like silver. During the early pe- 
 riod of his imprisonment at Lichtenau, where the 
 most distinguished villains enthusiastically admired 
 and revered him, he condescended to amuse them 
 with stories of enchanted princes and princesses, 
 fortunate robbers, &c., to shorten their long dreary 
 evening hours. But one evening he suddenly declared, 
 " Gentlemen, from this time forward I shall tell you 
 no more stories : in future I will say nothing but 
 yea, yea, nay, nay. I see plainly that things look ill 
 with me, and that among the worst I am supposed to 
 be the worst of all." One of his fellow-prisoners asked 
 him whether any one had forbidden him to speak, 
 or whether he had taken offence ? But he answered, 
 " No one but my own soul, and that has never coun- 
 selled me amiss." Pride kept him true to his word : 
 from that time forward he told no more stories, and 
 answered only in monosyllables. Thus he stood alone, 
 distinguished from the common herd of malefactors. 
 He maintained this sullen silence for years in his 
 solitary cell, asking nothing, and uttering no com- 
 plaint. He took what was offered to him, suffered 
 any thing to be taken from him, bore every thing in 
 sullen silence and with apparent calmness. He even 
 managed to give an appearance of quiet submission 
 to the obstinate resistance which he offered to the 
 orders of his superiors. Some task which was im-
 
 46 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 posed upon him seemed to him too hard ; he left it 
 untouched. On being asked the reason, he quietly 
 answered that he was unable to perform it. When 
 told that if it were not done they would be com- 
 pelled to punish him, he replied with perfect cool- 
 ness that he could not perform impossibilities, and 
 that they might do as they pleased with his body. 
 He offered his back to the lash with perfect indif- 
 ference, received the severest blows without moving a 
 muscle or uttering a sound, returned to his cell just 
 as if nothing had happened, and left the work undone 
 as before. Exhortations and repeated chastisements 
 were of no avail ; the authorities were at length forced 
 by his iron obstinacy to give him some other work 
 that he liked better and which he most regularly per- 
 formed ever after. He frequently read the hymn-book 
 in prison ; listened to the sermon on Sundays, though 
 without much appearance of interest ; received the 
 sacrament like the other convicts, whom he far sur- 
 passed in religious knowledge ; and, with a double 
 murder on his conscience, played the part of a patient, 
 humble, and resigned martyr to truth. He care- 
 fully avoided making any statement respecting his 
 crime ; and whoever questioned him at all on the 
 subject was either civilly yet earnestly entreated to 
 refrain from all such inquiries, or was put off with 
 mysterious complaints of the terrible destiny which 
 forced him for ever to conceal a dark secret, on the re- 
 velation of which his innocence would instantly shine 
 forth like the sun at noonday. When hard pressed, 
 he sometimes began to relate the romance of the 
 Schlemmers, and accused the Niirnberg people as 
 the real authors of his misfortune, because the cry
 
 JOHN PAUL FORSTER. 47 
 
 of murderer ! murderer ! with which they assailed 
 him had induced him to pretend ignorance of what 
 had happened, which first and only falsehood had 
 induced his judge to disbelieve his subsequent true 
 narrative, and had finally brought him to these chains. 
 Hardened as he was, however, it appears that he did 
 not altogether escape from the pangs of a guilty con- 
 science : he frequently sighed deeply ; and once, when 
 a lawyer well acquainted with the whole case visited 
 him in prison, vividly represented to him the heinous- 
 ness of his crime, spoke to him of the heavy burden 
 on his conscience, far heavier to bear in silence than 
 the weight of his chains and then proceeded to de- 
 scribe the bloody scene of the 20th September, 1820, 
 and to bring before him the victims bleeding under the 
 axe, and trodden under his feet, the sullen coun- 
 tenance of the prisoner suddenly flushed scarlet, and 
 one present thought he saw tears in his eyes. Some 
 months after this visit, an organ was placed in the 
 chapel of the prison, and the sacrament administered 
 on the occasion. Forster, who had hitherto always 
 displayed the most callous indifference, was now 
 deeply affected. On approaching the altar, support- 
 ing his chains and the bullet in both arms, he trembled 
 in every limb, tears gushed from his eyes, and his 
 loud sobs filled the chapel. What he thought or felt, 
 whether the notes of the organ pealed in his ear like 
 the " Dies ira3, Dies ilia," could not be discovered. 
 When he returned to his cell he was sullen and impe- 
 netrable as before. 
 
 Forster's countenance is vulgar and heavy. The 
 lower part of his long narrow face is of a length
 
 48 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 strangely disproportioned to the upper ; this gives a 
 revolting animal expression to his whole countenance, 
 which is singularly harsh, and so unvarying that his 
 head is like a marble bust, lifeless but for two large 
 prominent eyes, which are usually fixed on the ground, 
 and filled with rage and despair.
 
 (49 ) 
 
 THE ANTONINI FAMILY; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE MURDER ON A JOURNEY. 
 
 Ax four o'clock in the evening of the 26th November, 
 1809, Joseph Antonini and his wife Theresa, both 
 dressed as postilions d'armee in the French service, 
 drove up to the door of the post-house at Maitingen 
 near Augsburg, accompanied by a beautiful young 
 woman called Dorothea Blankenfeld. They arrived 
 in a carriage, had a French passport (feuille de 
 route), and took rooms at the inn. The landlord 
 showed them into two adjoining rooms on the first 
 floor, one of which was occupied by Blankenfeld, the 
 other, containing two beds, by the Antoninis. Shortly 
 after their arrival a boy joined them, who was not, 
 however, again seen in the house until the following 
 morning. This was Carl Marschall, the brother of 
 Antonini's wife. 
 
 About three or four in the morning, the postmaster 
 and a postboy heard a piercing shriek, like that of a 
 child. The former jumped out of bed and listened 
 at the door, but lay down again on hearing nothing 
 further. Soon after, the boy Carl Marschall ran 
 hastily down the stairs, covering his face with his 
 hands as if he were crying, and complained to the 
 postboy that his master (Antonini) had beaten him.
 
 50 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 At about six Antonini went into the postboy's room 
 with a light, and requested him to make a large 
 fire in the stove above stairs, as it was bitterly cold. 
 His hand was stained with blood, but the postboy 
 thought nothing of this, and merely supposed that 
 Antonini had made the boy's nose bleed by striking 
 him. 
 
 On the previous evening the strangers had an- 
 nounced their intention of starting at five in the 
 morning. But it was past nine before they were 
 ready to go. The postmaster, who was standing at 
 the window, observed how busy they were; and his 
 attention was attracted by a large strangely shaped 
 bundle which Antonini and the boy dragged out of 
 the house and flung into the carriage : it looked, 
 he thought, just like the carcass of a dead dog, or 
 of a human being. At last Antonini, the boy Carl 
 Marschall, and Theresa Antonini, who was now 
 dressed in women's clothes, got into the carriage and 
 drove away. At that moment the thought struck the 
 postmaster's son, who was already surprised by The- 
 resa's change of dress, that the young woman who 
 had arrived with the party on the evening before, had 
 not got into the carriage. This alarmed the people 
 of the house, who hastened to the two rooms which 
 had been occupied by the strangers. The first look 
 showed them, by the stains of blood on the floor, the 
 wall, and the bed, that a murder had been committed. 
 They instantly informed the local authorities of the 
 fact, and the carriage, which had scarcely gone more 
 than four hundred yards from the door when the dis- 
 covery was made, was immediately followed, and 
 overtaken under the gates of Augsburg. The sus-
 
 THE ANTONINI FAMILY. 51 
 
 picious-looking bundle wrapped in a blue cloak, 
 which had been put inside the carriage at Maitingen, 
 was now tied up behind it. When opened it was 
 found to contain the body of a woman covered with 
 wounds. 
 
 When it was shown by the police to the three pri- 
 soners, they recognised it as the body of Dorothea 
 Blankenfeld, who had travelled with them as far as 
 Maitingen, and on seeing it the boy at once confessed 
 that he and his brother-in-law Antonini had mur- 
 dered the woman. Antonini and his wife denied 
 that they had any share in the crime. They said 
 that the boy had murdered her from hatred, and 
 without their knowledge ; and that it was only out 
 of charity to him that they had concealed the deed, 
 but that the boy was a hardened villain, who had 
 already attempted to kill his father and to stab his 
 sister, and that Antonini had taken him away from 
 Berlin in the hope of reforming him. 
 
 On inspecting the body, the hands were found 
 much bruised and swollen, the collar-bone broken, 
 and nine wounds, apparently inflicted with some 
 blunt instrument, on the brow and other parts of 
 the head quite sufficient, in the physician's opinion, 
 to cause death. He nevertheless asserted that the 
 wretched woman had not died immediately of her 
 wounds, but had perished gradually under continued 
 violence. 
 
 The boy had openly confessed his share in the 
 murder, but for a long time the Antoninis obsti- 
 nately persisted in denial. Carl, they said, had done 
 it all. They continued to deny everything save the 
 concealment of the murder, of which they were con-
 
 52 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 victed by the clearest proof. At last, after nineteen 
 long examinations, Theresa Antonini, on being con- 
 fronted with her brother, confessed the main points of 
 her own share in the deed. Antonini, whose cunning 
 equalled his obstinacy, endeavoured, after long though 
 vain denial, to deceive the judge by a variety of false 
 confessions, till at length he was confronted with his 
 wife, and forced to confess the truth, though still in a 
 disjointed manner. 
 
 Joseph Antonini, a man about thirty years of age, 
 was born, according to his own account, at Messina, 
 where his parents carried on the trade of cloth- 
 weavers. He stated himself to be a barber by trade. 
 He related that in his eleventh or twelfth year he 
 sailed to Naples to be present at the feast of the Holy 
 Grotto, and that during this voyage he was unfortu- 
 nately taken by an Algerine corsair, which was again 
 captured in the roads of Alexandria by a French ship 
 of war. He thus obtained his freedom, and was 
 landed in Greece. The first portion of his life was as 
 romantic as the rest was strange, dark, and varied. 
 At one time he was a drummer in the Corsican bat- 
 talion under the French, then a laquais de place, 
 then a sutler, and lastly a French postilion d'armee. 
 He had been twice in prison at Berlin : once on sus- 
 picion of theft, by command of the French authorities, 
 who transferred him to Mayence ; and a second time, 
 together with his wife, by order of the Berlin police, 
 for having in their possession various articles of which 
 they could give no satisfactory account. They were, 
 however, released after eight days' confinement; and 
 within a few weeks they committed this cruel murder 
 on the unfortunate Blankenfeld. The following cir-
 
 THE ANTONINI FAMILY. 53 
 
 cumstance, however, joined with the history of his 
 chequered life and the character he bore before the 
 murder of Blankenfeld, shows that in all probability 
 this was not the first crime Antonini had committed. 
 Whenever Antonini and his wife quarrelled, the latter 
 always called him a thief and an incendiary, and the 
 passionate Sicilian bore it in patient silence. He told 
 his companions in gaol that he had once stolen three 
 hundred louis d'or and some valuable rings, and had 
 not only broken out of prison at Erfurt, but had also 
 effected the escape of his fellow-prisoners. His con- 
 duct on examination, and during his imprisonment 
 at Augsburg, showed boundless cunning and malice. 
 To relate how by cunning, force, and bribery he en- 
 deavoured to effect his escape, how he contrived to 
 steal out of his cell in order to ascertain the state of 
 the proceedings against him, how he plotted with 
 his fellow-prisoners to escape, how he wrote to his 
 wife, urging her to persist in a denial of her guilt, 
 and how he at length attempted to destroy himself, 
 all this would be beyond the scope of the present 
 work. 
 
 Carl Marschall and Theresa Antonini, the former 
 not quite fifteen, the latter about twenty-six, were the 
 children of a certain John Christian Marschall, a very 
 poor but honest workman in a manufactory at Berlin. 
 Carl, according to the unanimous testimony of his 
 parents, schoolmasters, and acquaintance, was a good- 
 humoured and remarkably docile boy, always anxious 
 to please and to do what he was bid. On the other 
 hand, Theresa was described by her own parents as a 
 wild, obstinate, malignant, and dissolute girl. Advice 
 and punishment alike failed to bend her stubborn
 
 54 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 will or to mend her morals. She showed neither 
 love nor honour to her parents, nor obedience or 
 respect to those she served. At Berlin she became 
 acquainted with Antonini, then a postilion d'armee in 
 the French service, and married him at Kustrin, in 
 1806. Their life is involved in mystery from that 
 time till 1809, when they visited Theresa's parents 
 and were arrested by the Berlin police for having in 
 their possession suspicious property. From Berlin 
 Antonini wished to return home to Messina with his 
 wife, and persuaded Carl to accompany them and 
 to take care of his horse during the journey. The 
 parents refused their permission; but the boy, thus 
 placed between obedience to his father and mother 
 and the more attractive scheme of the Italian, natu- 
 rally chose the latter, and was taken from his parents 
 against their will and almost by force. It is worthy 
 of notice that the old father, when informed of 
 the charge against his children, wrote a touching 
 letter to the magistrates of Augsburg begging the life 
 of his poor misguided boy, and of the boy alone ; 
 even the father's heart could find nothing to say in 
 favour of his daughter. 
 
 Dorothea Blankenfeld, born at Friedland, of parents 
 in the middle class of life, was a beautiful girl, scarce 
 four-and-twenty, of spotless reputation, and a kind 
 and gentle disposition. She left Danzig in November, 
 1809, on her way to Vienna to join her lover, a French 
 commissaire ordonnateur, to whom she was about to 
 be married. The secretary to the French commissaire, 
 Mons. Gentil, to whom she was recommended at 
 Dresden, had taken a room for her at the Hotel de 
 Baviere, and there she waited for a convenient oppor-
 
 THE ANTONINI FAMILY. 55 
 
 tunity to continue her journey. This soon presented 
 itself, but for her destruction. 
 
 Two persons, giving their names as Antoine (Anto- 
 nini) and Schulz, and stating themselves to be French 
 postilions d'armee, appeared before the above-named 
 secretary, provided with the proper recommendation 
 from the commandant at Dresden, and demanded a 
 passport for the army. Mons. Gentil immediately 
 acquainted Dorothea Blankenfeld with this cheap and 
 safe opportunity for continuing her journey, and 
 offered to insert her name in the feuille de route. She 
 gladly accepted the offer, and after staying three or 
 four days at Dresden, she started in a carriage with 
 these people. 
 
 The feuille de route named Sieur Antoine, Sieur 
 Schulz, and Dame Blankenfeld. Meanwhile Carl, 
 who had first assumed the name of Schulz, changed 
 characters with his sister, who was not mentioned in 
 the passport, and she now got into the carriage 
 dressed in men's clothes, under the name of Schulz ; 
 while Carl acted as a servant to the party, in which 
 capacity he contrived to get through everywhere with 
 the rest. 
 
 Dorothea Blankenfeld was well provided with money 
 and property. Her trunk was full of good clothes and 
 fine linen, and she had 2000 thalers sewed in her 
 stays. The Antoninis did not know this at first, but 
 Blankenfeld's fashionable dress, and the rank of her 
 acquaintances at Dresden, led them to suspect enough 
 to be a strong temptation to villainy. 
 
 Antonini and his wife were very ill provided with 
 money for their journey. They wanted to reach 
 Messina, and Antonini had but a few thalers in his
 
 56 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 pocket. It is impossible to avoid suspecting that in 
 undertaking the journey with such utterly insufficient 
 resources, they must have relied on obtaining money 
 by dishonest means on the road. One cannot be- 
 lieve that Antonini, who had not nearly enough for 
 himself and his wife, would have burdened himself 
 with the additional expense of young Carl, merely 
 for the sake of giving the boy pleasure, or for the 
 use he might be of as a groom. Was it not far 
 more likely that he took the boy with the intention of 
 making him a tool and a scape-goat for his crimes ? 
 The feigned name of Schulz which was given to Carl, 
 Theresa's disguise and subsequent change of parts 
 with her brother, make this extremely probable. 
 This masquerading and changing of names and per- 
 sons was excellently contrived to help them through 
 difficulties and to mislead the police. Moreover, the 
 thought of murdering Blankenfeld seems to have 
 struck the Antoninis so soon, and to have been so 
 quickly resolved into a settled plan, that one can hardly 
 resist the inference that the idea of procuring money 
 for their journey by some crime had been all along 
 firmly fixed in their minds, and only waited for an 
 opportunity to be carried into execution. 
 
 They had left Dresden but a few posts behind them, 
 when Antonini acquainted his wife with his intention 
 of murdering Blankenfeld, in order to obtain pos- 
 session of her property. Theresa, far from raising 
 any objections, approved highly of the plan. They 
 immediately took young Carl into their confidence, 
 telling him in a few words that " Dorothea Blanken- 
 feld must and should be murdered." 
 
 The docile boy had nothing to say against it, and
 
 THE ANTONINI FAMILY. 57 
 
 was ready to do their bidding in all things. Thus the 
 main point was settled at once, and nothing remained 
 but to determine the how, when, and where. 
 
 On so long a journey some favourable opportunity 
 could not fail to present itself, and to that they re- 
 solved to trust. From this time forward these three 
 people were incessantly occupied in seeking opportu- 
 nities and devising means of murder and conceal- 
 ment of their crime. Each strove to surpass the 
 others in zeal, activity, and ingenuity. The whole 
 journey was one continued attempt to destroy the in- 
 nocent and unsuspecting Blankenfeld. Each succeed- 
 ing failure incited them to fresh attempts. Their night 
 quarters were always selected with a view to the execu- 
 tion of their project ; and every night, while the ill- 
 starred girl slept unconscious of her impending fate, 
 death threatened her in one form or another. Nothing 
 but accident diverted the murderers from their plan, 
 until it was executed at Maitingen. 
 
 At Hof, Antonini devised a plan for stifling Blan- 
 kenfeld with smoke while she slept. But his wife 
 raised some objections to it. She thought the idea a 
 good one, but too uncertain. This plan, therefore, 
 was not even attempted. 
 
 The next sleeping-place between Hof and Baireuth, 
 probably Berneck, appeared peculiarly well suited for 
 the execution of their scheme. The village itself lies 
 in a hollow at the entrance of the Fichtelgebirge ; the 
 inn was lonely, out of the way, and stood just at the 
 foot of a mountain covered with wood. Thus the 
 deed might have been committed in security, and the 
 dead body buried during the night on the mountain. 
 But Theresa Antonini had appeared at Berneck in
 
 58 REMAKKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 women's clothes, and not as a postilion, so that the 
 people of the inn had seen two women arrive ; and 
 the Antoninis feared that if only one left the inn on the 
 following morning it might excite suspicion. This 
 excellent opportunity was thus lost. 
 
 On the following night, at Baireuth, matters be- 
 came still more serious. Antonini returned to his ori- 
 ginal scheme of stifling Blankenfeld with smoke, and 
 talked of making holes in the stove of her room, and 
 then heating it with damp straw.* But Theresa 
 repeated her former objection, that the result was 
 uncertain ; Blankenfeld might awake, and open her 
 window to get rid of the smoke. It was therefore 
 finally resolved to kill her by blows. Carl was ordered 
 to provide himself with a good club, and to have 
 plenty of water ready to wash away the blood. But 
 Blankenfeld was again protected by some chance 
 which prevented the murder. 
 
 The Antoninis had thus lost three days. Expe- 
 rience had taught them that the execution of their 
 design was not so easy as they had at first imagined. 
 They saw difficulties and dangers before them to 
 which they did not choose to expose themselves for a 
 trifling gain. They accordingly determined, before 
 proceeding with their perilous undertaking, to con- 
 vince themselves that their risk and trouble would 
 be sufficiently rewarded. A little village between 
 Baireuth and Niirnberg most likely Leopoldstein 
 was selected for this purpose. Blankenfeld here 
 ordered some negus, into which Antonini contrived 
 to pour opium. When she was in bed and fast asleep, 
 the keys were taken from under her pillow, and her 
 
 The German stoves are supplied with fuel outside the room.
 
 THE ANTONINI FAMILY. 59 
 
 trunks opened and examined by Antonini and his 
 wife. They found in them no money, but plenty of 
 fine linen, good men's and women's clothes, and a 
 few jewels. "At all events," said Antonini, " it is 
 worth while to kill her." Hereupon they replaced 
 every thing with the utmost care, locked the trunks, 
 and put back the keys under her pillow. This was 
 sufficient for that night. 
 
 The following day found them at Niirnberg, again 
 debating how they might kill Blankenfeld. The 
 many streams of water which run through the city 
 afforded favourable opportunities for getting rid of 
 the body; but a sentinel, who stood opposite the 
 inn, was an insurmountable obstacle. Carl, who en- 
 deavoured to deserve the trust reposed in him, not 
 only by obedience, but occasionally by advice and 
 suggestion, proposed to mix pounded glass in Blan- 
 kenfeld's soup, and thus to do the deed quietly. But 
 Antonini rejected the scheme as inefficient; he had 
 often swallowed broken glass himself in sport, with no 
 ill effect. Blankenfeld thus escaped once more. 
 
 From Niirnberg they went to the small manufac- 
 turing town of Roth, which they reached towards 
 nightfall. The active, watchful Theresa discovered 
 a mattock, with three iron prongs, in the loft, and 
 showed it to her husband and Carl with the words, 
 " That would give a deadly blow." Carl, who was 
 the one selected to do the deed, secretly conveyed this 
 instrument into the bed-room, and hid it behind the 
 stove. His sister, meanwhile, instructed him how to 
 use it. Another sleeping-draught was administered 
 to Blankenfeld, and nothing more was wanting but 
 to find a place of concealment for the dead body.
 
 60 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 Carl and Antonini went out separately to reconnoitre : 
 the former discovered a hole in a field, which might 
 do; the latter chose a pool of water in the neighbour- 
 hood. But all was again in vain. Accident had 
 brought a number of carriers to the inn, whose eyes 
 and ears might have been awkward witnesses : the 
 murder was, therefore, again deferred. 
 
 They encountered similar impediments on the two 
 following nights, which they passed at Weissenberg 
 and Donauwbrth, on the road between Roth and 
 Maitingen. 
 
 Time now pressed, for Blankenfeld was to leave 
 them at Augsburg, and they were to pass only one 
 more night on the road before reaching it. Now, 
 then, or never, the plan must be carried into execu- 
 tion. 
 
 During the last post before Maitingen, Antonini ex- 
 ercised all his ingenuity to ascertain from Blankenfeld 
 whether she had money or valuables concealed else- 
 where than in her trunk. He turned the conversation 
 on the Tyrolese insurgents, and the dangers which 
 she might encounter. He said that the Tyrolese had 
 already penetrated into Swabia and Bavaria, where 
 they committed all sorts of cruelties and murders for 
 the sake of the most trifling booty. By these exagge- 
 rated statements, he excited the imagination of the un- 
 suspecting girl to such a degree, that at length, losing all 
 prudence in her terror, she put her hand to her breast 
 and said, " Ah ! I will give the Tyrolese all this most 
 willingly, if they will only spare my life!" Had any 
 scruples still lurked in the minds of the Sicilian and 
 his wife, this discovery would have dissipated them. 
 The prospect of a rich booty determined them to run
 
 THE ANTONINI FAMILY. 61 
 
 all hazards, and they arrived at Maitingen firmly 
 resolved that their intended victim should die that 
 night. 
 
 Antonini and his wife had calculated that if so young 
 a lad as Carl committed the murder alone, he would 
 relieve them of the greater part of the guilt, without 
 incurring capital punishment himself. They hoped 
 to secure themselves by throwing the whole blame 
 upon him. They had accordingly drawn him into the 
 plot from the very beginning, and the execution of 
 the murder was now intrusted to him at Maitingen, 
 as it had been before. At this last place they did 
 everything in their power to inflame his young 
 blood, and to inspire him with courage and deter- 
 mination. The boy, equally docile for good or for 
 evil, blindly followed Antonini's orders, and regarded 
 the murder of an innocent girl as a commonplace event. 
 No feelings of compassion, no pangs of conscience, 
 seem to have touched him in favour of one who had 
 treated him with uniform kindness during the jour- 
 ney ; nor had he any fear of detection or punishment. 
 He only hesitated from fear that his strength was 
 not equal to the undertaking ; but his sister promised 
 him all her husband's clothes as a reward for the 
 deed, and Antonini said he would assist him, if neces- 
 sary, as soon as the first blow had been struck. 
 
 Carl had discovered in the post-house a large roller 
 weighing about four pounds, which he thought might 
 serve their purpose, and had concealed it in Antonini's 
 bed-room. He was then sent out to dig a hole in a 
 dunghill, in which to conceal the body ; but in this he 
 did not succeed. Antonini secretly bought some 
 candles, so as to have a light all night, and some
 
 62 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 brandy. After supper he persuaded her to drink some 
 of the brandy, with which he had mixed laudanum ; 
 and at about eight o'clock she went half stupified to 
 bed in her own room, leaving the door open between 
 herself and the Antoninis. Warm water was then 
 procured, under the pretence of a foot-bath, to wash 
 away the blood, and the outer door was locked and 
 bolted. 
 
 About midnight Carl stole into Blankenfeld's room 
 to see how she lay. She slept, heavily, but her posi- 
 tion was by no means favourable for their purpose, as 
 her face was turned towards the wall. 
 
 While the murderers were waiting for her to move 
 into a more convenient posture, it struck Antonini that 
 it would be better to kill the sleeping woman by less 
 violent means than blows on the head, and he pro- 
 posed to pour melted lead into her ears, or, as Carl 
 suggested, into her eyes. They broke a pewter spoon 
 into small pieces, which they melted in an iron one 
 over the candle. But a drop which fell upon the 
 sheet and merely scorched it, proved to the murderers 
 that melted pewter cooled too soon for their purpose. 
 This plan was therefore abandoned, and they deter- 
 mined to abide by their original intention. 
 
 At about four Carl again stole into the room, and 
 found Blankenfeld lying on her back asleep, with her 
 head towards him. " Now," said Antonini, " is the 
 proper moment," and went up to the bed. Carl followed 
 him with the heavy roller, and when urged to strike 
 the blow he raised the murderous instrument, but hesi- 
 tated, trembled, and drew back in alarm. Antonini 
 whispered to him some words of reproach, seized his 
 hand which clasped the weapon, gave it a proper
 
 THE ANTONINI FAMILY. 63 
 
 direction over their victim's head, and the first blow 
 fell upon the forehead of Blankenfeld, who exclaimed, 
 "Jesus! my head!" and raised herself in bed. At 
 this moment Antonini seized her by the shoulders, 
 and Theresa by the feet; the unhappy girl now 
 began to cry, and offered her murderers everything 
 she possessed, if they would but spare her young life. 
 Pity, fear, and horror seized upon Carl, who hastily 
 flung the weapon upon the floor, and ran to the door 
 to escape. But Antonini's wife rushed after him, 
 dragged him back into the room, and, placing the 
 roller in his hand, ordered him to complete his task. 
 He again stepped up to the bed, and aimed a second 
 blow at Blankenfeld's head, which struck Antonini's 
 forehead at the same time, and Carl again threw down 
 the roller and ran away, while the pain of the blow 
 forced Antonini to let go Blankenfeld, who collected 
 all her strength, jumped out of bed, and rushed 
 towards the door of the outer room. But Antonini 
 fiercely pursued her, and struck blow after blow on her 
 head till she sank upon the floor, where he still con- 
 tinued to strike her. As she lay on the ground with 
 the death-rattle in her throat, Antonini tore off her 
 clothes and the stays which contained her money. He 
 then lifted the dying woman on his shoulders, intend- 
 ing to carry her out into the yard and bury her in the 
 dungheap. But the weight was too much for him, 
 and Theresa dissuaded him. They therefore took her 
 back into her own room. But the wretched woman 
 still breathed, and again began to groan. " The carrion 
 is coming to life again," exclaimed Theresa. Anto- 
 nini then stood upon Blankenfeld's body and trampled 
 on it with both feet until she was dead. The corpse
 
 64 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 was then by Theresa's advice thrust into a sack and 
 rolled up in a coverlet. In order to be perfectly secure 
 Antonini took the further precaution of tying a cord 
 tightly round her neck, while Theresa was busily em- 
 ployed in washing away as much as she could of the 
 bloody stains. She then prepared for the journey by 
 taking off her postilion's dress and putting on the 
 clothes which Blankenfeld had worn on the previous 
 day. 
 
 This is the connected narrative of the transaction, 
 as repeatedly and circumstantially confessed by Carl 
 Marschall. 
 
 Theresa Antonini acknowledged the truth of Carl's 
 statement on most points ; but, when confronted 
 with her brother, she so stoutly denied having held 
 Blankenfeld's feet, as to make Carl hesitate and con- 
 clude himself mistaken. But on his fourteenth exa- 
 mination he returned to his former charge, and confi- 
 dently asserted that his sister held Blankenfeld's feet ; 
 at all events, while he struck the second blow. On a 
 second confrontation, Theresa persisted in her denial ; 
 and when Carl repeated his statement she grew vio- 
 lent, attempted to strike him, swore she would be 
 revenged on him, and cursed him and her parents. 
 We can only account for Theresa's denial of this one 
 circumstance, on the supposition that she entertained 
 the vulgar notion that the other charges against her, 
 the truth of which she had confessed, would not be 
 punished with death, provided she could prove that 
 she had not laid hands upon the murdered woman. 
 
 Antonini himself, in all his examinations and con- 
 frontations with Carl and Theresa, never made a clear 
 arid connected confession.
 
 THE ANTONINI FAMILY. 65 
 
 In his first twelve examinations he threw the whole 
 blame on Carl, and asserted that he himself had had 
 no share in or even knowledge of the murder. 
 
 In his thirteenth audience, which he demanded, 
 he unintentionally confessed something by relating the 
 following tale : " That he had been awakened in the 
 
 O 
 
 night by his wife, who told him there was a noise in 
 the next room, and that she thought some one was 
 attempting suicide. He jumped out of bed, and on 
 entering Blankenfeld's room received a blow on the 
 head. While in the act of parrying a second, the 
 club with which he had been struck fell into his hand. 
 He seized it and gave a violent blow, he knew not 
 to whom, for the room was pitchy dark, and he was 
 half stunned. He then struck towards the other side 
 of the room, but encountered nothing. He shortly 
 afterwards discovered that Blankenfeld had been mur- 
 dered by Carl." 
 
 In his fourteenth examination, which he also de- 
 manded, he gave a second version totally different 
 from the first. He said that at about five in the morn- 
 ing a chaise arrived at the post-house : thinking it 
 was theirs, he awakened Carl, and told him to call 
 Blankenfeld. Soon after he heard angry words, and 
 then blows. He jumped out of bed and went into her 
 room, where he found her fighting with Carl. He 
 tried to separate them, but received a kick from 
 Blankenfeld which sent him reeling against the bed. 
 He called out, ' Carl, help me !' and the lad then re- 
 doubled his blows. Anger then took possession of 
 me," said Antonini, " and I wrested the club out of 
 Carl's hands and struck Blankenfeld three or four 
 blows, whereupon she fell dead on the floor." It was 
 
 F
 
 66 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 not till afterwards that he discovered for desire of 
 gain was not the motive of his crime that Blanken- 
 feld had money concealed about her person, which how- 
 ever he appropriated to himself. He confirmed this 
 confession in his fifteenth examination ; adding, that he 
 had no intention of killing Blankenfeld ; that he had 
 struck about him wildly, and might have hit her on 
 the body as well as the head. This he improved into 
 a statement that his agitation had prevented him from 
 seeing whether he struck Carl or Blankenfeld. 
 
 In his nineteenth examination he came somewhat 
 nearer the truth. He stated that " During the jour- 
 ney they had constantly quarrelled with Blankenfeld. 
 As he had spent his own money, and had frequently 
 paid for her, Carl suggested to him that 'As 
 Blankenfeld had a good deal of money in her pos- 
 session, why not kill her on the road ? No one 
 would observe it, as Theresa might pass for her.' 
 But he (Antonini) and his wife had refused to agree 
 to this, whenever it was proposed. At Maitingen, 
 Carl came to him during the night with the club in 
 his hand, and awoke him, saying, ' that he was de- 
 termined to kill Blankenfeld, come what might.' He 
 (Antonini) represented to him that this was not to 
 be done in a place where it would be sure to be 
 discovered, and to get them all three into mischief. 
 Hereupon he went to sleep, but was awakened by 
 the sound of blows, and on running into Blankenfeld's 
 room he caught hold of some one, who turned out 
 to be Blankenfeld, and found his hands covered 
 with her blood. Carl still continued to strike her, 
 but he (Antonini) exclaimed, ' My God ! my God ! 
 Carl ! and, Jet go Blankenfeld.' He then wrested
 
 THE ANTONINI FAMILY. 67 
 
 the weapon out of Carl's hands, and struck Blan- 
 kenfeld three blows more, which felled her to the 
 ground, but did not intentionally strike her on the 
 head. He must, however, confess that during the 
 journey he had thought of killing her, in order 
 to possess himself of her money; but his wife had 
 always dissuaded him, and that he certainly should 
 not have killed her had not Carl struck the first 
 blow. He added, that on his entrance into Blanken- 
 feld's room, he had stumbled; and, half stunned 
 by that, and by a knock he received on the head 
 when he quitted his hold of Blankenfeld, he only 
 discovered, after giving the third blow, that it was 
 Blankenfeld whom he had struck. It was not until 
 after she was dead that he knew anything of the 
 money concealed about her person." 
 
 The twentieth examination elicited from him the 
 following circumstance : That at Maitingen, im- 
 mediately before the deed, Carl represented to him 
 their wretched condition, and again urged him 
 to kill Blankenfeld, and take her money. When 
 he objected from fear of discovery, Carl pro- 
 posed to him to pour melted pewter into Blan- 
 kenfeld's ears. He agreed; but on attempting to 
 hold the spoon over the candle, his hand shook so 
 violently that the spoon fell upon the ground, and 
 he told Carl that he never could do such a deed. He 
 then repeated much the same version of the murder 
 as before. 
 
 Neither the subsequent examinations nor repeated 
 confrontation with Carl, produced a clearer confession. 
 It was only on being brought face to face with his 
 wife, who coaxed him to confess the truth, that he 
 
 F2
 
 68 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 conceded some few points : but he never made a com- 
 plete and repentant confession. 
 
 Joseph Antonini and his wife Maria Theresa were 
 sentenced by the court at Niirnberg to death by the 
 sword. Carl Franz Ludwig Marschall, in considera- 
 tion of his youth, was condemned to ten years' im- 
 prisonment with hard labour. 
 
 Antonini escaped 'his well-deserved punishment by 
 dying in prison ; but his wife mounted the scaffold, 
 and died as she had lived, bold, hardened, and un- 
 repentant.
 
 (69) 
 
 RIEMBAUEE, 
 
 THE TARTUFFE OF REAL LIFE. 
 
 FRANCIS SALESIUS RIEMBAUER was born on the 27th 
 January, 1770, in the market-town of Langquaid 
 (circuit of Pfaffenberg). He was the son of a poor 
 day-labourer, and began life as a shepherd-boy: he 
 early displayed considerable talents and a strong- 
 desire for knowledge, and soon conceived the ambi- 
 tion of studying for the church. In his thirteenth 
 year he fell upon his knees before the priest of his 
 parish, whom he implored to give him the instruction 
 required to prepare him for the gymnasium of the 
 town. The boy made such rapid progress that within 
 the year he was received into that school. After re- 
 maining there a short time he was admitted into the 
 gymnasium of Ratisbon. Here his good behaviour, 
 diligence, and rapid progress, gained him the cha- 
 racter of an admirable student who would one day 
 do honour to the church and to himself. His know- 
 ledge of ecclesiastical law and history was consider- 
 able. He chiefly devoted himself to the study of 
 dialectics and casuistry, in which ne selected as his 
 guide the works of P. Benedict Stattler. In 1795 
 he took holy orders at Ratisbon, and for many years 
 served different parish churches in succession. At
 
 70 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 Christmas, 1815, he was translated to Pirkwang, 
 where he had charge of the Filial Church at Ober- 
 Lauterbach. He remained there for two years ; and 
 in 1807 passed his examination, as candidate for a 
 cure, with great honour at Munich, and was appointed 
 parish-priest at Priel on the 18th March, 1808, from 
 whence, two years later, he was translated to Nan- 
 delstadt. 
 
 From the commencement of his ecclesiastical ca- 
 reer, he was so remarkable for his talents and virtues 
 as to be held up as a model to other priests. His 
 stately figure and handsome face, his persuasive elo- 
 quence and insinuating manners, gained him general 
 good will. He performed his clerical duties with 
 punctuality, dignity, and grace, and his outward de- 
 meanour was decorum itself. His leisure hours at 
 least until his removal to Pirkwang, where the pur- 
 chase of a small property involved him in agricultural 
 pursuits were passed in reading and study. And 
 when those priests to whom he was attached as 
 chaplain, expressed their admiration of his zeal for 
 learning, he replied that this was the proper calling 
 of the clergy, who ought not to concern themselves 
 with worldly affairs. His preaching was distin- 
 guished for fire and unction, and out of church, as 
 well as in it, he declaimed against the corruptions 
 of the world : his soft words and gentle manners 
 seemed those of a saint living in communion with 
 God, and in charity with his neighbour. He always 
 walked out of church smiling, with his head on one 
 side, his eyes half closed and fixed upon the ground, 
 and his hands folded. Even those who felt a personal
 
 THE TARTUFFE OF REAL LIFE. 71 
 
 dislike to him, or distrusted his character, praised 
 his merits as a priest, and his eloquence in the 
 pulpit. " He was," said one Niedermeyer, " really a 
 most charming preacher, and would have converted 
 us all to righteousness, had he stayed longer at Hof- 
 kirchen : he cast his eyes towards heaven, and preached 
 most powerful doctrine." Besides this, the common 
 people believed, and he encouraged the idea, that 
 he stood in close and constant communication with the 
 invisible world. The dead came from purgatory to 
 visit him in his chamber, and entreat him to say a 
 mass for the repose of their souls, and when this was 
 done they were released. Even before the mass was 
 over, he saw the beatified spirit fly towards heaven 
 in the form of a white dove. When his spiritual 
 duties called him abroad by night, the distressed 
 souls of the departed flitted before him in the shape of 
 small flames, probably to obtain his benediction, and 
 followed the direction of his hallowed finger as he 
 pointed to the right or to the left. For some time 
 he was honoured almost as a saint by the people, and 
 many would eagerly rush to seat themselves upon the 
 chair he had just left, in the hopes of feeling something 
 of his holy influence. 
 
 Some of his clerical brethren, indeed, beheld in 
 him a hypocrite and a pharisee. It was whispered 
 at Hirnheim that the parish priest had received a 
 letter from his brother priest at Hofkirchen, where 
 Riembauer had acted as chaplain, warning him against 
 the new comer as a wolf in sheep's clothing ; and tell- 
 ing him that he had obtained his removal on this 
 account. Nor did all his penitents implicitly believe
 
 72 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 in the piety and virtue of this holy man : some of 
 them privately doubted whether a man, who flattered 
 all alike, and looked no one in the face, were not a 
 very great hypocrite. There were many good, pru- 
 dent fathers of families, who, while they felt highly 
 honoured in receiving the pious young ecclesiastic in 
 their houses, nevertheless took especial precautions for 
 the security of their daughters, to whom Riembauer 
 invariably paid particular attention, whenever he 
 passed the night under their roofs. 
 
 It was not until many years later, when other far 
 more important discoveries had been made, that the 
 following circumstances in the life of this holy man 
 became public. While he was chaplain at Hof- 
 kirchen, he seduced the priest's cookmaid, Maria 
 H , and afterwards gave her the means of retiring 
 to Landshut, where, in 1801, she was delivered of a 
 son, who died soon after. During his residence at 
 Hirnheim as chaplain, he lived with Anna Eich- 
 stadter, the kitchen-maid at the manse, and in 1803 
 he had a daughter by her, which was born and chris- 
 tened at Ratisbon, both parents giving false names. 
 While he was chaplain at Pfarrkofen, in 1803, he 
 seduced a sempstress, Walburga R , who bore him a 
 daughter, named Theresa, who also was alive at the 
 time of the trial. It was also rumoured that the cook- 
 maid of the parish priest of Pfarrkofen was in the same 
 state by him. He was then chaplain at Pondorf in 
 1804, where, according to his own account, he received 
 great offence from the wickedness of the world, and the 
 corruption of the young clergy ; for some of the other 
 chaplains paid particular attention to the youthful
 
 THE TARTUFFE OF REAL LIFE. 73 
 
 cousin of the parish priest, to which she did not appear 
 insensible. He was hereby compelled to procure his 
 removal to some other curacy. He was translated to 
 Pirkwang ; and at Lauterbach, a small village within 
 his cure, he selected as his mistress a farmer's 
 daughter, named Magdalena Frauenknecht, whose 
 history we shall have to relate hereafter. After the 
 death of this mistress, he lived with his last cookmaid, 
 Anna Weninger, by whom he had no less than three 
 children. 
 
 In order to quiet the conscience and secure -the 
 fidelity of those concubines with whom he intended to 
 live for any length of time, Riembauer used to per- 
 form the marriage service over them, uniting in his 
 own person the characters of priest and bridegroom. 
 Catherine Frauenknecht asserted that, hidden behind 
 Riembauer's bed, she witnessed the strange espousals 
 of her sister Magdalena ; that Riembauer repeated 
 all the usual prayers and exhortations, and placed a 
 gold wedding-ring on her sister's finger. Anna We- 
 ninger said that the same thing took place at her 
 
 o o 
 
 union with him, but was not sure whether the 
 priestly bridegroom performed the ceremony clad in 
 his stole and with burning candles, or not. He him- 
 self denied having thus profaned his sacred functions, 
 but confessed that he had instructed his mistresses in 
 the duties of the married state, and then given and 
 received a formal promise. He was very earnest in 
 persuading his female penitents that they might safely 
 permit themselves certain sins with the saints of the 
 Lord. Many other charges were proved against him 
 which we will pass over in silence, the more so as we 
 want nothing: further to convince us that the whole of
 
 74 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 his ecclesiastical career was a perfect illustration of 
 the well-known and popular maxim 
 
 Le mal n'est jamais que dans 1'eclat qu'on fait. 
 Le scandale du monde est ce qui fait 1'offense, 
 Et ce n'est pas pecher que pecher en silence.* 
 
 Without having read Moliere, Riembauer thoroughly 
 understood not only how to sin in secret, and to 
 appear before the world as a saint, but also how 
 to keep an amicable account with heaven for sins 
 already committed, or to be committed hereafter. 
 
 Le Ciel defend, de vrai, certains contentements ; 
 Mais on trouve avec lui des accommodements. 
 Selon divers besoins, il est une science 
 D'etendre les liens de notre conscience, 
 Et de rectifier le mal de 1'action 
 Avec la purete de notre intention, f 
 
 These errors and frailties were not his sins, 
 but the sins of celibacy ; and casuistry furnished 
 him with arguments to prove that in procreating 
 illegitimate children he was instrumental in ex- 
 tending the kingdom of God ; that, therefore, this 
 conduct, far from being reprehensible, was praise- 
 worthy, and agreeable in the sight of heaven. " I 
 considered," these are his words, " 1st, That reason 
 tells us that it cannot be unlawful to beget a child ; 
 for to call into existence an immortal and rational 
 being is a good deed. It is thus that a man becomes 
 in a peculiar manner the image of God, with whom 
 he co-operates in the creation of a human being, as is 
 said by Saint Clement of Alexandria ; 2nd, That it 
 cannot be contrary to God's ordinances, for thus it is 
 that the number of the elect is increased ; 3rd, 
 
 * Le Tartuffe. f Ibid -
 
 THE TARTUFFE OF REAL LIFE. 75 
 
 Neither is it against the decrees of the Church, if the 
 child be educated in the Christian faith ; 4th, Nor 
 against the interests of the State, provided this mem- 
 ber of it receive moral and civil instruction, so as to 
 become a good citizen and faithful subject, and pro- 
 vided the mother of the child be not forsaken. I 
 frequently considered all these arguments, which were 
 supported by the history of the church,* and by my 
 own experience. My conscience was thus made easy 
 under these errors of celibacy." 
 
 Riembauer, impelled by feelings of duty and kind- 
 ness, or by prudential motives, did everything in his 
 power to provide for his children and to keep their 
 mothers quiet and contented, so that they might do 
 nothing to injure his reputation. 
 
 The child of Anna Eichstadter was educated at his 
 expense at Ratisbon, and he kept up a constant and 
 friendly intercourse with the mother, who served in 
 various places as housemaid or waiting-maid. He 
 corresponded with her, and provided her with linen, 
 money, &c. ; occasionally visited her, and held out 
 hopes of taking her to live with him permanently as 
 his cook, whenever he should have a parsonage of his 
 own. Anna Eichstadter, the daughter of a carpenter 
 at Fiirth, was a well-shaped, tall, strong, broad-shoul- 
 dered woman, remarkable, among other things (which 
 is important in the sequel), for two rows of most 
 beautiful teeth. The intimate and friendly connexion 
 subsisting between her and Riembauer received a con- 
 
 * It is probable that the learned Riembauer refers to those por- 
 tions of ecclesiastical history which treat of the lives of Sergius III., 
 John XII., Innocent II. and VII., John XXIII., Alexander VI., 
 Julius II., &c.
 
 76 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 siderable shock about a year after his removal as 
 chaplain to Pirkwang : this shock eventually caused 
 her cruel death. 
 
 Riembauer, as we have already said, had the charge 
 of the church at Ober Lauterbach, where the Frauen- 
 knecht family lived at a farm called the Thomashof. 
 The Frauenknechts, by their industry and frugality, 
 their benevolent and Christian spirit, and their pious 
 conduct, had gained the respect and love of all their 
 neighbours. When Riembauer began his ministry 
 there at Christmas, 1805, the family consisted of the 
 father, who died two years after, his wife and two 
 daughters the eldest of whom, Magdalena, was born 
 in 1788 ; the second, Catherine, in 1796. The former 
 was described by all who knew her, both high and 
 low, as a most pious, gentle, amiable girl ; and, until 
 Riembauer came near her, of spotless reputation. The 
 latter, who was then but a child, was generally said 
 to be a frank and honest girl, with an understanding 
 beyond her years. 
 
 Riembauer's cupidity was soon excited by this 
 family, and he determined to possess not only the 
 daughter, Magdalena, but likewise the property of 
 these simple-hearted people. He obtained their entire 
 confidence, not only by his air of sanctity and the 
 superiority of his education and profession, but also 
 by laying aside in his intercourse with them the 
 outward honours of his station, and becoming, in 
 pure Christian humility, their equal. Whenever 
 his duties or his pleasure took him to Ober Lauter- 
 bach, he assisted the Frauenknecht family in their 
 husbandry, doing for them, to the astonishment of 
 the neighbours, the work of a common day-labourer.
 
 THE TARTUFFE OF REAL LIFE. 77 
 
 He \vho could find in his theological code a trium- 
 phant apology for every action, frequently quoted 
 the decrees of the Council of Carthage, the testi- 
 mony of Saint Epiphanius, and the example of many 
 bishops and priests of ancient times, who united the 
 offices of preachers aritT common labourers, to prove 
 that an ecclesiastic forfeited none of the dignity of his 
 sacred calling by following the plough or carting- 
 dung. Without having any money, he bought the 
 farm called the Thomashof from the Frauenknecht 
 family in December, 1806, for 4000 florins, frau- 
 dulently inserting into the contract a recital that 
 2000 florins had already been paid : and after the 
 death of old Frauenknecht he presented to the widow 
 a false bill of expenses, amounting to 2000 more, 
 which she, in her good-natured simplicity, admitted. 
 After thus gaining possession of the Thomashof, where, 
 however, the Frauenknecht family continued to re- 
 side, he removed to Lauterbach, and lived there, 
 dividing his time between his professional duties and 
 agricultural labour. This conduct procured for him 
 the reputation of a patriarch among some of his 
 neighbours of the higher class; but the peasants, 
 whose good common sense was shocked by the impro- 
 priety of this proceeding, called him the farmer of 
 Thomashof. 
 
 Soon after the fraudulent purchase of the farm, 
 the eldest daughter, Magdalena, found herself about 
 to become a mother by this reverend patriarch, and 
 was sent by him to Munich, nominally to learn 
 cooking, but in reality to conceal her pregnancy. 
 There she served for six or seven months in the house 
 of the Registrar Y , and was afterwards delivered
 
 78 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 of a son in June 1807, while living in the same house 
 with Riembauer at the very time when he passed 
 his examination for priest's orders with great honour. 
 The expenses of Magdalena's stay at Munich which 
 was entirely owing to Riembauer were put down by 
 him at 500 florins, and deducted, with other charges 
 of a similar nature, from the sum owing to the widow 
 Frauenknecht for the Thomashof. 
 
 During Riembauer's stay at Munich, from about 
 the 9th to the 15th June, Anna Eichstadter, who was 
 then in service at Ratisbon, came to Lauterbach to 
 extract from her lover the money for her child, which 
 Riembauer's embarrassments had prevented him from 
 paying as heretofore ; and possibly also to take him 
 to task about his connexion with Magdalena, and 
 to compel him to fulfil his promise of taking her as 
 his cook. When she learnt from Catherine Frauen- 
 knecht that Riembauer was absent, she demanded 
 the key of his room, saying that she was his cousin. 
 Here she acted as if she were mistress of the house, 
 ransacked all the chests and drawers in her search 
 for money. On finding none, or at any rate not 
 enough, she wrote him a threatening letter, which 
 she left ; and after sleeping at Thomashof she re- 
 turned to Ratisbon. After Riembauer's return from 
 Munich he received a second and still more angry 
 letter from her, threatening him with legal pro- 
 ceedings if he did not fulfil his engagements to- 
 wards her. 
 
 Shortly after, Riembauer went to visit Anna Eich- 
 stadter at Ratisbon, and satisfied her for the present. 
 On his departure she accompanied him with her child 
 as far as Kumpfmuhl, and urged him to break off his
 
 THE TARTUFFE OF REAL LIFE. 79 
 
 connexion with Magdalena, and not to forsake her- 
 self. She sat on the bank by the road-side with her 
 child, and implored him, with uplifted hands and 
 tears in her eyes, to keep the promises he had made 
 her. But the pious priest raised his stick with 
 a threatening gesture, struck it angrily upon the 
 ground, and went his way. 
 
 Anna Eichstadter had lived hitherto with a horse- 
 dealer at Ratisbon, but in October, 1807, she quitted 
 
 his service for that of the parish priest at P . On 
 
 the 1st of November she went to the house of her new 
 master, but requested permission to visit her relations 
 before entering upon her duties as cook. As a pledge 
 of her promise of service she left with her master her 
 silver necklace, and several other articles of value. 
 As it was raining, he lent her a green cotton umbrella, 
 on the handle of which were engraved his initials, 
 J. O. Several days passed, and she did not return. 
 Her master, who had reason to suspect that she had 
 gone to Riembauer, wrote to him, requesting him to 
 tell Anna Eichstadter, if she did not like to enter his 
 service, at any rate to return his umbrella. Riem- 
 bauer answered that he was unable to give any 
 information about her, as he had neither seen her 
 nor the umbrella. Anna Eichstadter never appeared 
 again from the 1st of November, the day she left her 
 master's house ; she neither returned to Ratisbon, 
 nor went to her native town, Fiirth. Her relations 
 and friends could not discover her place of abode, 
 or whether she were alive or dead. It was supposed 
 either that she was drowned, or had fallen into the 
 hands of a notorious robber, who was executed in the
 
 80 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 following year ; and, at length, nobody thought any 
 more about her. 
 
 Some months after the disappearance of Anna 
 Eichstadter in 1808, Riernbauer was appointed to the 
 living of Priel. Hereupon he sold at a profit the ill- 
 gotten farm of Thomashof, and the widow Frauen- 
 knecht and her two daughters accompanied him 
 to his new home, where Magdalena served him as 
 cook. But in the following year both she and her 
 mother were seized with a sudden illness and died, 
 the daughter on the 16th, the mother on the 21st 
 June, 1809. 
 
 The younger daughter, Catherine, had quitted the 
 parsonage some time before her mother's and sister's 
 death, partly on account of quarrels with her sister, 
 partly from confirmed dislike to Riembauer. She 
 first went into service at his brother's house, after 
 which she lived with different masters. Wherever 
 she went, though generally even-tempered and cheer- 
 ful, she was subject to fits of terror and despondency. 
 Solitude filled her with horror ; she was afraid to 
 sleep alone : she seemed to be haunted by fearful 
 visions, and her terrors increased with her years. 
 Some dreadful secret appeared to weigh upon her mind. 
 Occasionally she let fall expressions about some wo- 
 man, whose image pursued her wherever she went. 
 She once told a certain Catherine Schmid, with 
 whom she slept at Ratisbon, of a horrid murder com- 
 mitted by the priest Riembauer. Afterwards, when 
 
 she was in service at D , she told the same story 
 
 to her mistress, who advised her to open her heart to 
 a confessor. She accordingly applied to a priest, to
 
 THE TARTUFFE OF REAL LIFE. 81 
 
 whom she related that Riembauer, by whom her 
 family had been defrauded of 2000 florins, and she 
 herself deprived of her home, had cut the throat of a 
 woman who visited him at Lauterbach in November, 
 1 807 ; that he had also destroyed her mother and 
 sister by poison, on account of their knowledge of the 
 murder; and, lastly, that he had endeavoured to get 
 her into his power, doubtless with the intention of 
 putting out of the world the only living witness of 
 his crime. The confessor dissuaded her from laying 
 any information against Riembauer in a court of 
 justice, and advised her to leave him, if he were 
 guilty, to the judgment of God. He afterwards 
 assured her that he had secretly consulted several 
 other ecclesiastics on this case, and that this advice 
 had been approved by them all. Another priest, 
 
 Co-operator S , to whom Catherine subsequently 
 
 told the same tale, also recommended silence, but took 
 the opportunity of endeavouring to serve both her and 
 Riembauer, by writing to the latter an anonymous 
 Latin letter, threatening him with the revelation of 
 some terrible secret if he did not satisfy the person 
 knowing it by a full restitution of her property.* 
 The co-operator had previously asked advice upon 
 this casum conscientice of the parish priest, who was of 
 opinion that the affair should certainly be laid before 
 the proper tribunal, but approved the generosity of 
 the motives which had dictated the threatening letter. 
 
 * The letter which Riembauer afterwards repeated from memory 
 was as follows : " Habeo casum mihi propositum, quern tantum- 
 modo tu solvere potes. Vir quidam, quern tu bene noscis, debet 
 alicui personae 3000 florenorum circiter. Si conscientia tua vigilat, 
 solve hoc debitum. Nisi intra quatuor hebdomedas respondeas, 
 horrenda patefaciet ista persona. Hannibal ante portas .'" 
 
 G
 
 82 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 At length, in 1813, Catherine Frauenknecht laid a 
 formal accusation against Riembauer, first at Ober 
 Lauterbach, and afterwards at a criminal court at 
 Landshut, specially held for this case. The evidence 
 she gave was nearly as follows, and she repeated it 
 upon oath in the following year, when she became 
 of age. 
 
 "During the summer of 1807, while my sister 
 Magdalena and the reverend Mr. Riembauer were 
 at Munich the former to learn cooking, the latter to 
 pass his examination a woman of about twenty- two, 
 tall, handsome, with an oval face, and light brown 
 hair, in a peasant's dress, with a gold cap on her head, 
 came to our house ; my mother was at work in the 
 field. She told me that she was a cousin of Riem- 
 bauer's, and on hearing that he was at Munich for his 
 examination, she requested me to give her the key of 
 his room, which I refused. But when my mother 
 returned home she obtained it from her, went into 
 Riembauer's room, and searched it thoroughly, just as 
 though she were in her own house. She remained 
 with us that night, and said that she had found no 
 money, and had therefore left a letter for the priest, 
 sealed up in a cover. In about a week Mr. Riem- 
 bauer returned from Munich. I told him what had 
 happened, and he said, ' that she was a cousin of his, 
 to whom he owed some money.' 
 
 " In the November of the same year, I do not know 
 exactly on what day (it was afterwards discovered to 
 have been All Souls' Day, the 2nd of November), 
 the same cousin came again to Thomashof, just as 
 Riembauer had carted home turnips from the. field. 
 My sister was at home with him, but my mother
 
 THE TARTUFFE OF REAL LIFE. 83 
 
 and I came in from work somewhat later. As we 
 drew near the house we heard a voice upstairs in the 
 priest's room whether crying or laughing we could 
 not at first distinguish but we soon perceived that it 
 was wailing. The moment we reached the threshold 
 of our house, my sister ran towards us, all in tears, 
 and hastily told us, ' that a strange woman, who 
 called herself his cousin, had come to see the reverend 
 gentleman ; that Mr. Riembauer had taken her up 
 into his own room, and had there told her that he was 
 going to fetch some beer : that under this pretext he 
 had come down stairs, fetched his razor, and gone up 
 stairs again with it in his hand : that he had then 
 approached the woman, who was sitting on a chair 
 (as Magdalena, who had crept up-stairs after him, 
 saw through the key-hole), and catching hold of her 
 neck, as if to kiss her, had pressed her head down 
 towards the floor, and cut her throat.' 
 
 " While my sister was telling us this on the door- 
 step, we still heard the wailing noise, and Mr. Riem- 
 bauer's voice saying, ' Nanny ! make a clean breast, for 
 you must die.' We then heard a moaning voice say- 
 ing, ' Franzel ! don't do it ! only spare my life, and I 
 will never again come to you for money.'* 
 
 " My mother and sister instantly went into the 
 room below, but from curiosity I ran up-stairs, and 
 distinctly saw, through the key-hole, Mr. Riembauer 
 
 * An attempt was afterwards made to impugn the credit of Cathe- 
 rine's evidence on this point. It was said that if Riembauer had 
 already cut the woman's throat before Magdalena had come down 
 stairs, it was impossible she should speak loud enough to be heard 
 on the door-step. But Von Walther gives it as his opinion that 
 even when the windpipe is cut, it is possible for a person to speak 
 with the head bent forward. 
 
 G2
 
 84 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 sitting or kneeling upon the body of the woman, who 
 lay upon the floor kicking and struggling. He held 
 her head and throat with both hands while the blood 
 gushed from her. 
 
 " I then went down stairs, and told what I had 
 seen to my weeping mother and sister, who still 
 hesitated whether they should not call for help. 
 When I went out again into the passage I met Mr. 
 Riembauer coming down stairs, dressed in his usual 
 brown jacket and a white apron ; his hands and the 
 apron were covered with blood, and in his right hand 
 he held the bloody razor, which he laid upon the 
 small chest by the door; he then went into the room 
 where my mother and sister were. I listened at the 
 door, and heard him tell them ' that this woman had 
 had a child by him ; and was always plaguing him 
 for money ; that she had now asked him for between 
 100 and 200 florins, and had threatened him with 
 an action if he refused ; and that, as he could not 
 raise the money, he had cut her throat to get rid of 
 her.' 
 
 " I afterwards slipt into Mr. Riembauer's room, 
 and there I saw the same person who had been at 
 our house the previous summer, stretched on the 
 floor, in a pool of blood, with her throat cut through, 
 her hair dishevelled, and her clothes torn. I screamed 
 and let fall the candle from fright. 
 
 " When I came down stairs again, I saw the re- 
 verend gentleman washing the blood from his hands, 
 and told him that I had seen the person who had 
 come in the summer lying dead in his room. He 
 then coaxed me, told me I was mistaken, and pro- 
 mised me quantities of fine clothes if I would not
 
 THE TAHTUFFE OF REAL LIFE. 85 
 
 mention what I had seen or heard to any one. My 
 mother still continued to weep, and to declare that 
 she must inform against him. But Mr. Riembauer 
 threw himself at her feet, and entreated her not to 
 betray him. My mother still insisted, adding that 
 her silence would be of no avail, as the neighbours 
 must have seen the stranger and heard the noise. Mr. 
 Riembauer at last said that nothing then was left for 
 him but to destroy himself. 
 
 " He then put on his coat, fetched a rope out of the 
 outhouse, and ran with it towards the wood. My 
 mother and sister, who followed him at a distance, 
 saw that he was really in earnest, and thinking that 
 it would only make matters worse if Mr. Riembauer 
 were to hang himself, they ran after him, and by 
 promises of secrecy prevailed upon him to relinquish 
 his design. 
 
 " When he had returned home with my mother 
 and sister, he debated in my presence about a safe 
 place where he might bury the body, and chose for 
 the purpose the little room on the left hand in the 
 newly built outhouse. He quieted my relations 
 by assuring them that he would bury the body him- 
 self, and that nothing would be discovered if only I, 
 then a child of twelve, could be prevented from 
 talking. 
 
 " At midnight, between twelve and one, he took a 
 lantern and a spade, and went into the closet in 
 the outhouse, where he dug a hole. After a time I 
 heard a noise overhead, opened our room-door, and 
 saw a light near the cellar-door, and Mr. Riembauer 
 dragging the body, which was completely dressed, 
 down-stairs by the shoulders, so that the head hung
 
 86 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 down backwards. A shudder came over me, and I 
 cannot tell how he then conveyed the body into the 
 outhouse. But I afterwards went thither, and looking 
 in at the open door, my mother and sister and I saw 
 that the reverend gentleman had already put the 
 murdered woman into the hole, and was covering her 
 over with earth. 
 
 " He washed away the blood which stained the 
 ground from the house to the outhouse the same 
 night, and on the following morning he cleansed the 
 house with his own hands, first using cold, then hot 
 water. 
 
 " But in his own room the blood was already dry, 
 and washing was of no use ; I was therefore sent to 
 borrow a plane from our nearest neighbour, Michael 
 the carpenter; with this Mr. Riembauer planed the 
 floor till the stains disappeared, and threw the shavings 
 into the grate. 
 
 " On the morning after the murder, as I was going 
 to school, I saw our dog dragging a woman's bloody 
 shoe about the yard. I mentioned this to Riembauer, 
 and he told me to carry it into the room down-stairs. 
 I took it up on a stick, as it made my blood run cold, 
 and threw it on the floor of our room : I do not know 
 what became of it afterwards. 
 
 " When our neighbours inquired what had happened 
 in our house to cause such disturbance and crying, we 
 answered, as the reverend gentleman had instructed 
 us, that we had wept about our father's death and 
 the loss of the 2000 florins which Mr. Riembauer had 
 squeezed out of us, as all the village knew. 
 
 " The murdered woman had brought with her a 
 green umbrella belonging to the priest at P .
 
 THE TARTUFFE OF REAL LIFE. 87 
 
 Mr. Riembauer kept it, and still had it when he was 
 parish priest of Priel. 
 
 " About fourteen days after the body was buried 
 there was a dreadful stench in the outhouse. The 
 women who were threshing complained of this to 
 Mr. Riembauer, who told them he could not conceive 
 the reason. Soon after, one of the women, who had 
 gone into the little side-room, stumbled against some- 
 thing in the dark, and called for a light, that she 
 might see what it was, as she was sure that it could 
 not be a stone. Mr. Riembauer prevented her, and 
 instantly fetched a padlock out of his own room, and 
 fastened the door, which until then had always stood 
 open. He told us all this down-stairs, adding that it 
 was one of Nanny's feet sticking out of the earth. 
 That same evening he fetched more sand, and co- 
 vered the grave over with it." 
 
 Catherine then proceeded to give an account of the 
 sickness and sudden death of her mother and sister in 
 June, 1809, when she was at the vicarage, having 
 been fetched from school at Ratisbon to take charge 
 of the kitchen during her sister's illness. She con- 
 fidently asserted that Mr. Riembauer had poisoned 
 her mother and sister, and added that they had fre- 
 quently quarrelled with him, and that her sister had 
 even threatened to leave his service, for which reason 
 Riembauer lived in constant dread of discovery. 
 That during their illness he did not allow them any 
 medical or religious attendance, and himself gave her 
 sister medicines, which he got from a barber-surgeon, 
 and even forced her to take them. She herself was 
 sent to fetch some drugs from the barber, which 
 Riembauer gave next morning to her sister, who
 
 88 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 shortly after swooned and died. " The body of my 
 sister," said Catherine, " was exceedingly swollen and 
 covered with spots; blood ran from her nose and 
 mouth. The barber supposed her to have been with 
 child ; the village people said the same, and pointed 
 out Riembauer as the father. All wondered that 
 my mother and sister should both have died so sud- 
 denly." 
 
 Lastly Catherine maintained that Riembauer had 
 several times expressed an intention of killing her 
 also. Her sister once warned her that he had said 
 that he would not mind giving two or three hundred 
 florins to any one who would put her out of the 
 way : adding, " the girl is growing taller and more 
 sensible every day, and at last no dowry will be 
 large enough to keep her silent." After her sister's 
 death he begged her not to leave him, and promised 
 to give her eight thousand florins as her marriage- 
 portion if she would but stay. But after four weeks 
 she left his house, and because he appropriated to 
 himself all her sister's money, clothes, and letters, she 
 said to him as she went away, " Reverend sir, I do 
 not forget the past ;" whereupon he answered, " It 
 will go harder with you than with me : I have made 
 up my mind what to say ; your mother and sister are 
 dead, and can tell no tales, and I shall say it was 
 they who murdered the woman." But he did not lose 
 sight of her, and several times afterwards attempted 
 to get her into his service, or rather into his power. 
 
 This accusation, brought by a girl of seventeen 
 against a clergyman of high consideration, was so 
 strange in its details, so improbable and extravagant, 
 that at first it was regarded as the invention of a dis-
 
 THE TARTUFFE OF REAL LIFE. 89 
 
 eased imagination. But the narrative was so con- 
 sistent, so circumstantial and so clear, and the girl 
 showed so much sense, and was so unembarrassed and 
 confident, that it was impossible to let the matter rest. 
 
 The farm-house of Thomashof, in which the event 
 was said to have taken place, and the body of Anna 
 Eichstadter to be buried, had fortunately passed into 
 other hands, and the accused priest was living at 
 a distance. It thus was possible without exciting at- 
 tention to make the necessary investigations on the 
 spot. 
 
 Directions were accordingly given at Lauterbach 
 to examine the Thomashof. The new outhouse de- 
 scribed by Catherine was found, and within it on the 
 left hand a small closet. On digging, they found, 
 very near the surface, one shoe and a female skeleton, 
 the skull of which contained two rows of beautiful 
 white teeth. On the floor of the room formerly in- 
 habited by Riembauer stains were found, which, on 
 being wetted with warm water, clearly showed them- 
 selves to be marks of blood ; several of the boards bore 
 traces of having been planed by an unskilful hand, 
 evidently for the purpose of effacing similar spots. 
 The carpenter Michael remembered that the Frauen- 
 knecht family had borrowed a plane of him some six 
 years before. 
 
 Upon this Riembauer was apprehended and con- 
 veyed to Landshut. He showed but little surprise, 
 and indeed seemed fully prepared for the occurrence. 
 At the first examination, of the 27th October, 
 1813, he did not affect ignorance of the cause of his 
 apprehension, but immediately mentioned Anna Eich- 
 stadter. He said he had made acquaintance with
 
 90 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 her at Hirnheim, but that nothing improper had 
 passed between them : that she had had the greatest 
 confidence in him, had intrusted to his care 50 florins 
 of her savings, and had begged him to take her as his 
 cook, which he promised to do, on condition of her 
 future good conduct. That since he had left Hirnheim 
 he had heard nothing more of her, excepting at 
 Pirkwang, where she had twice sent or written to him 
 for part of the 50 florins. That during the summer 
 of 1807, while he was at Munich for his examination, 
 she had come to Lauterbach to see him, and had told 
 the Frauenknecht family, to their great annoyance, 
 that he had promised to take her as his cook. 
 
 " It was," said Riembauer, " about the 3rd, 4th, or 
 5th November, 1807 (he purposely misstated the 
 day), that I returned from celebrating a funeral 
 at Pirkwang to Thomashof, the farm which I had 
 lately bought. It was just twilight. I went straight 
 up to my own room, and found the door open and a 
 person lying upon the floor. I imagined it to be one 
 of the women belonging to the house, and called out 
 * How now what is the matter ?' On receiving no 
 answer, I touched her, and found, to my horror, 
 that she was dead. I ran down stairs in utter 
 dismay, and in the room below I found the mother 
 and her daughter Catherine clinging to each other 
 and trembling like aspen-leaves. Upon asking them 
 what had happened, they seized my hands and im- 
 plored me amid tears and lamentations to keep every- 
 thing secret. I then learnt that Anna Eichstadter, 
 who had been to see me once before, while I was at 
 Munich, had arrived at Thomashof that afternoon, 
 and had insisted upon going up into my room ; that
 
 THE TARTUFFE OF REAL LIFE. 91 
 
 both mother and daughter had quarrelled violently 
 with this woman, who had attempted to stab them, 
 and that Magdalena had seized my razor and cut her 
 throat. The dispute which led to such terrible results 
 had been caused by Eichstadter's assertion that she 
 was come to be my cook, and that the Frauenknechts 
 would be forced to leave the house. 
 
 " I afterwards lighted a candle, and in the person 
 lying in my room recognised Anna Eichstadter. 
 
 " I wished to quit Thomashof immediately, and 
 told the Frauenknechts that I could no longer stay 
 with them. But they held me by both hands, im- 
 ploring me with tears and groans, by all that was 
 most sacred, to stay, that they would give me anything 
 I might ask, and deduct as much as I pleased from 
 the purchase-money which I still owed them for the 
 farm. At last I suffered myself to be persuaded to 
 stay, brought my bed down into the passage, and 
 slept there. 
 
 " I went out early the next morning, leaving the 
 dead body in my room. When I returned in the 
 evening, it was lying on a litter, and the Frauen- 
 knechts told me that they wished to bury it in the 
 left-hand room in the outhouse. I told them that 
 they might do as they pleased, that I could not assist 
 them. 
 
 " Between eight and nine at night, the mother and 
 daughter carried the body on a litter into the little 
 closet and covered it with the earth, which had already 
 been dug out. 
 
 " The following morning I went to the spot myself, 
 and found the earth loosely heaped over the body. 
 Upon calling their attention to this, and remarking
 
 92 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 that should any man or beast enter the outhouse, the 
 thing must be discovered, they took some sand and 
 rubbish and covered the grave with it. 
 
 " I continued to sleep down stairs in the passage 
 some few nights longer, and then returned to my own 
 room after it had been cleaned." 
 
 These were the chief points of a statement by which 
 he attempted to prove that he had, at his own peril, 
 consigned this horrible event to the keeping of his 
 priestly conscience, out of compassion for the crimi- 
 nals, whose spiritual director he was, and because 
 that which was done could not be undone, and the 
 women deeply repented of their crime. 
 
 Unlike meaner criminals, who usually deny every- 
 thing, Riembauer pursued the highest line of policy, 
 freely admitting all the facts which were already 
 proved, but endeavouring to arrange them in such an 
 order that the certainty of their truth need not bring 
 with it a conviction of his own guilt. Upon this 
 system Riembauer repeated the statement made against 
 him, the tenor of which he could easily guess, almost 
 word for word as Catherine had related it, with this 
 one important difference, that he changed the persons, 
 accusing Magdalena and her mother of the crime, and 
 assuming for himself the part of spectator, which had 
 belonged to Catherine. That which he really did, he 
 pretended only to have seen ; and to have concealed, 
 from Christian charity, that which in fact Magdalena 
 and her mother had concealed for him. 
 
 This change of persons at once converted the ac- 
 count of the murder at Thorn ashof the main facts 
 of which were acknowledged by the accused to be 
 true from a fearful romance into a manifest ab-
 
 THE TARTUFFE OF REAL LIFE. 93 
 
 surdity. Who could imagine such a deed possible 
 to a gentle kind-hearted woman, who, as Riembauer 
 said, had the soul of an angel ? What circumstances 
 could be strange enough, what excitement sufficiently 
 strong, suddenly to transform a woman so sweet- 
 tempered, and at the same time so timid and ner- 
 vous, as Magdalena is represented to have been, into 
 a bloodthirsty fury ? Eichstadter was tall, strong, 
 broad-shouldered, and powerfully made ; Magdalena, 
 on the contrary, was small, thin, and weak : how 
 could it have been possible for her to cut Eichstadter's 
 throat? In a contest, such as that described bv 
 
 / 
 
 Riembauer, a few wounds might have been inflicted ; 
 but it is impossible thus to cut the throat of a person 
 having the free use of her limbs. 
 
 Thus by admitting the fact of the murder, Riem- 
 bauer confirmed the truth of the accusation against 
 himself, indirectly, it is true, but still conclusively. 
 
 His conduct in prison afforded convincing proofs of 
 his guilt. He began by bribing his gaolers. He wrote 
 long letters to a number of persons of his acquaint- 
 ance, directing them what evidence to give in his 
 favour; especially to affirm that the deceased, Mag- 
 dalena Frauenknecht, had confessed to them that she 
 had murdered the woman.* He gave especial orders 
 to his mistress, Anna Weninger, to get rid of the 
 green umbrella as speedily as possible. Some of these 
 letters reached their destination, among others that 
 
 * In one letter, addressed to a priest of his acquaintance, he en- 
 deavoured to induce him to give such evidence : 1. In considera- 
 tion of our brotherly love ; 2. For the sake of the worthy Nanny 
 (his cookmaid Weninger) ; 3. On account of our friends, who are 
 grieved for me ; 4. On account of the clergy, who are thereby cast 
 into the shade ; 5. On account of the faithful, who are offended.
 
 94 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 addressed to Anna Weninger, who punctually exe- 
 cuted his commission. Riembauer went so far in his 
 system of corruption as to endeavour, though without 
 success, to gain a sight of the documents, or at any 
 rate to ascertain the precise charge brought against 
 him. 
 
 Hereupon his gaolers were changed, and himself 
 removed to another prison, whence he inferred that 
 his letters had been intercepted. He therefore endea- 
 voured to weaken the presumption which his conduct 
 might have raised against him, by informing the 
 judge that he had a disclosure to make, namely, that 
 distress had thrown him into a state of temporary 
 madness, during which he had written without con- 
 sciousness or design letters which might appear like 
 the production of a sane and guilty mind. He then 
 endeavoured to explain to his judge, according to 
 some Jesuitical theory, the difference between the 
 human sensus externus, internus, and intimus ; and 
 that this very bribery, &c. proved that he possessed 
 the sensus externus and interims, but that the sensus 
 intimus, upon which everything in fact depended, was 
 totally wanting to him when he wrote the letters in 
 question. 
 
 Notwithstanding the absurdity of his first state- 
 ment, it remained for four years during which he 
 underwent ninety-nine examinations, besides count- 
 less confrontations with witnesses the theme to which, 
 with few variations, he constantly adhered. He per- 
 sisted in the assertion that he was not the murderer 
 of Anna Eichstadter ; that the day of the murder was 
 the 3rd, not the 2nd of November ; that Magdalena 
 Fraueuknecht committed the crime from jealousy and
 
 THE TARTUFFE OF REAL LIFE. 95 
 
 anger, and that he had nothing to accuse himself of 
 but an error in judgment in suffering himself to be 
 led by Christian charity and a mistaken sense of duty 
 as a priest, to conceal her horrid deed. This, he 
 said, was the truth, from which he could not depart, 
 even though, like Saint Bartholomew, he were flayed 
 alive ; and which, even on the scaffold, and sur- 
 rounded by a thousand devils, he would still proclaim 
 to the world with his latest breath. 
 
 During most of the examinations he affected the 
 resignation of a martyr, and usually answered the 
 judges with a sweet smile. If occasionally assum- 
 ing an air of injured innocence and honour, he 
 burst forth in vehement words or gestures, he sud- 
 denly stopped short and " with bated breath and 
 whispering humbleness" begged pardon for this 
 warmth, intelligible in one who saw the most mani- 
 fest truths always contradicted, who was like " a de- 
 fenceless sheep worried by savage dogs." When 
 closely pressed, he sometimes attempted to overawe 
 the judge by the assumption of a pulpit style ; at 
 other times he burst into a laugh at the " unheard- 
 of lies which the devil invented against him ;" and 
 then he would strain his face into an appearance 
 of sorrow and dejection, and vainly strive to shed 
 tears. All the endeavours of the judge to overcome 
 the obstinacy of the accused by representing to him 
 the improbability and the absurdity of his tale, were 
 foiled by his matchless self-possession and his dialectic 
 skill. He had a solution for every difficulty ; an hypo- 
 thesis for every conflicting statement ; there was no- 
 thing, however impossible, which he did not attempt 
 by dint of his psychological and metaphysical learn-
 
 96 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 ing to demonstrate into probability. When it was 
 urged how incredible it was that Magdalena, whom 
 he represented as remarkable for kindness and gen- 
 tleness, should commit such an action, he launched 
 out into a disquisition upon the influence of jealousy 
 and anger in general, and upon the excitability of 
 the female sex in particular, under the influence 
 of which Magdalena, hardly conscious of what 
 she was about, might have done the deed. If his 
 attention was called to the physical impossibility of 
 the action as narrated by him, he was ready with the 
 suggestion that Magdalena's mother might have come 
 to her assistance, or, with his habitual smile, he bared 
 his own throat, and showed upon it how easily the 
 operation might have been performed. When it was 
 objected that the weak and unpractised hand of a 
 woman could not, under any circumstances, inflict so 
 deep a wound with a razor, he brought out of his store 
 of metaphysical learning the theory of a certain motus 
 primo primus, by which, when once the razor was set 
 in motion, it acquired unusual force in a particular 
 direction. 
 
 He left no means untried to cast suspicion upon 
 Catherine's character and evidence. The testimony 
 of others who proved the falsehood of many parti- 
 culars of his statement was seldom able to shake 
 his confidence or to induce him to retract any of his 
 assertions. When confronted with witnesses, he always 
 gave them to understand what he wished them to say, 
 and endeavoured to work upon their feelings of com- 
 passion or of reverence. Sometimes he would try to 
 overawe them by eloquence, and by the dignity of his 
 spiritual character, or to confuse and lead them into
 
 THE TAHTUFFE OF REAL LIFE. 97 
 
 contradictions by candidly and eloquently reminding 
 them how easily man may be so deceived by the im- 
 perfection of his nature, delusion of the senses, or 
 want of memory, as in all honesty to mistake false- 
 hood for truth. When these wiles had, as usual, 
 failed, he accused the witnesses of gross error or of 
 impudent deceit, invoked all the persons of the 
 Godhead and all the saints in Heaven to testify that 
 he had spoken truth ; or, in holy wrath at the corrupt 
 nature of man, he called down upon their heads the just 
 vengeance of offended Heaven. Once, when clearly 
 convicted of a falsehood by the evidence of several 
 witnesses, he exclaimed with flashing eyes, " Quis 
 contra torrentem ? If thirty thousand men stood there, 
 and said the devil is white, I would ever maintain 
 him to be black, and in the same manner I must 
 still affirm," &c. Occasionally, but very seldom, he 
 altered his course, and confessed the truth of some 
 fact, which, for months and in spite of all proof, he 
 had obstinately denied ; but then either the action of 
 melancholy on the sensus intimus, or some innocent 
 confusion of his ideas an involuntary deception caused 
 by the associatio idearum had to bear the blame of 
 his former assertions, which were instantly replaced by 
 others equally false. He was inexhaustible in hypo- 
 critical figures of speech, by which he endeavoured to 
 persuade the judge of his innocence. He assured him 
 " that his heart was like that of a dove, without gall ;" 
 " that he wished him a magic mirror in which he 
 might behold the purity of his soul." That he had 
 hitherto invariably shown himself to be one of the 
 most goodnatured of men ; how therefore could any 
 one suspect him of so horrible an action ? cum nemo 
 
 H
 
 98 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 repente fiat pessimus. " My heart shudders," says 
 he, " at the bare accusation. In order that you may 
 perceive how improbable it is, I beg of you to consider 
 my priestly character. You know, 1, that by com- 
 mitting murder a priest becomes irregularis ; 2, eoc- 
 communicationem majorem ipso facto illatam incur- 
 rere ;* 3, that though David did severe penance for 
 the murder of Uriah, he was no longer worthy to 
 build the Temple. How then could it be possible for 
 me to forget my God, my future happiness, eternal 
 and temporal punishment, and, with hands still reek- 
 ing with innocent blood, to grasp God's image, admi- 
 nister the sacred mysteries of religion, and thus cast 
 myself headlong from one abyss to another ?" 
 
 As Riembauer could not be moved by admonition, 
 exhortation, argument, or evidence, the judge at- 
 tempted to find a way to his conscience through his 
 
 * Riembauer is perfectly correct in his canon law ; but this 
 knowledge only made his character appear still more atrocious 
 when he subsequently confessed the murder. Since the 2nd Novem- 
 ber, 1807, he had become irregularis, i. e. incapable of adminis- 
 tering any sacred function, and still he continued to do so (Van 
 Espen, ' Jus Eccl. Un.,' torn. II. p. ii. tit. 10, c. i. and vii. ; Rieger, 
 ' Instit. Jurisprud. Ecclesiasticae,' p. ii. 125-144). No fasting, 
 no penitence, can remove irregularity on account of murder ; and 
 he who, conscious of this irregularity, continues to administer the 
 sacraments, is guilty of deadly sin (' Add. Silvestri ad Van Espen,' 
 I. c. 7). A dispensation from the pope was alone able to remove 
 it, upon which one learned in the Catholic canon law (Pyrrhus 
 Corradus) remarks: " Pontifex in dispensationibus hujus modi 
 concedendis, non parum difficilem se reddit ; cum abominabile sit, 
 quod effundens sanguinem humanum, offerat sanguinem Christi et 
 hostiam immaculatam, vel officium Deo ad altaris ministerium 
 prcestet" What a priest, then, was Riembauer, and what a man ! 
 Moreover, he afterwards owned that he had never confessed his crime 
 to any other priest, but, as he expressed it, referred the whole matter 
 to God alone.
 
 THE TARTUFFE OF REAL LIFE. 99 
 
 imagination. The trial had now lasted two whole 
 years, when the judge appointed All Souls' Day in 
 1815, the eighth anniversary of the murder, for a new 
 examination, the eighty-eighth in number. It com- 
 menced at 4 P.M., and was intended to convince 
 him, by the overwhelming mass of evidence collected 
 against him, of the inutility of further denial, and to 
 work upon his feelings more powerfully than usual, by 
 admonition and appeal to his recollections. But he 
 remained unmoved as ever. At midnight the judge, 
 after addressing the accused in most moving language, 
 suddenly raised a cloth, under which lay a skull 
 upon a black cushion. " This," said the judge, 
 " is the skull of Anna Eichstadter, which you may 
 easily recognise by the beautiful teeth." Riem- 
 bauer started from his seat, stared wildly at the 
 judge, then smiled in his usual manner, and stepped 
 aside to avoid looking straight into the empty sockets 
 of the eyes, but quickly recovered himself, and said, 
 pointing to the skull, " Could this skull speak, it 
 would say, * Riembauer was my friend, not my mur- 
 derer !' ' He added, " I am calm, and can breathe 
 freely, but I am pained by being exposed to such 
 scenes, and by the charge brought against me. To- 
 morrow" (for Riembauer still asserted that the murder 
 took place on the 3rd November) " is the anniversary 
 of the day on which, some years ago, at my return from 
 Pirkwang, I found the whole body lying dead in my 
 room, as now I find this skull. As a citizen I ever stand 
 in need of the king's mercy, but not as a criminal." 
 When the report had been read and signed, the judge 
 again led him up to the skull, which he held before his 
 eyes while he exhorted him to confess. Riembauer
 
 100 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 betrayed some emotion, but with his usual hypocritical 
 smile thus addressed the skull in a solemn tone, " Oh ! 
 if thou couldst but speak, thou wouldst confirm the 
 truth of my assertions !" 
 
 After a long series of examinations, during which 
 the documents had swelled to a bulk of forty-two folio 
 volumes, on the 13th October, 1817, the prisoner re- 
 quested an interview, in which he stated to the judge 
 " that he had reflected more deeply on the subject, 
 and had besought the Holy Ghost to assist his me- 
 mory, whereupon it had become clear to him that he 
 had made a mistake in his former statement." He 
 then withdrew the assertion, which he had maintained 
 for four years, that Anna Eichstadter had been mur- 
 dered by Magdalena Frauenknecht, and affirmed that 
 he had heard one day from Madame W. that a certain 
 Catherine Schmidt had told her that she had been 
 told by Magdalena Frauenknecht that it was not she 
 who had murdered the woman, but her mother. This 
 new story gave rise to fresh judicial proceedings. 
 
 It so happened that on the 20th November, 1817, 
 a Jew called Lammfromm was executed at Landshut 
 for murder. Riembauer saw him led out to execu- 
 tion, and was struck by the tranquillity and cheerful- 
 ness with which this man went toward his bloody 
 end. On expressing his wonder that this man, a 
 murderer, and moreover a Jew, should meet death 
 with so much composure, he was told that ever since 
 Lammfromm had eased his conscience by confessing 
 his crime, he had been in a most happy frame of 
 mind, in which he continued till his death. From 
 that moment the Christian priest grew more and 
 more restless and anxious, ate and drank less, and on
 
 THE TARTUFFE OF REAL LIFE. 101 
 
 the 26th requested another interview, " as he thought 
 he was suffering from a diseased conscience, the pangs 
 of which might be eased by a full confession." In 
 this interview, which was the hundredth, he fell upon 
 his knees, begged that the trial might be brought to 
 end, said that he was weary of life, and talked of all 
 manner of phantasms how he received visits from 
 strangers arid from persons whom he knew ; and how 
 for the last three nights, after the Ave Maria, he had 
 heard the sad and solemn roll of a funeral drum. 
 Even now he could not at first resolve upon making 
 a full confession. When the judge observed that his 
 distress of mind was entirely owing to his guilt, he 
 replied that " he was exhausted by sleepless nights, 
 but that he had told the story as he knew it and as 
 it occurred." The judge once more recapitulated all 
 the falsehoods, improbabilities, and contradictions 
 contained in his statement, animadverted upon his 
 strangely pusillanimous and confused demeanour, and 
 concluded with the remark that his feelings seemed 
 deeply touched, and that he had better, by a free and 
 full confession of the truth, endeavour to obtain some 
 peace of mind. Upon this the criminal at last ex- 
 claimed, " Yes ! I feel deeply shaken ; my health is 
 broken ; and you, Sir, are perfectly right when you 
 say that I cannot do better than make a repentant 
 confession. But before I take the decisive step, let 
 me implore the royal protection for my innocent chil- 
 dren, and for my last cook, Anna Weninger." He 
 then gave directions for the disposal of his property. 
 " And now receive my sincere confession : Catherine 
 has spoken falsely on many points, but her assertions
 
 102 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 are in the main true, for it was I who deprived Anna 
 Eichstadter of life." 
 
 After this the criminal gave, in thirteen several 
 examinations, a narrative of the whole transaction. 
 His motive to the crime was the dread lest Anna 
 Eichstadter should unmask him before the world, rob 
 him of his honour and good name, and ruin his 
 prospect of preferment. Anna declared, said Riem- 
 bauer, " when I met her at Ratisbon, that she would 
 not part from me. I represented to her most strongly 
 that it was impossible for me to take her, but all in 
 vain. My position, my reputation, everything that 
 was sacred and dear to me, would be endangered by 
 her coming to Lauterbach. I thought within myself, 
 ' What is to be done should she come ?' and I sud- 
 denly remembered the maxim laid down by Father 
 Benedict Stattler in his Ethica Christiana* accord - 
 
 * The chief passages from which Riembauer selected his dictamen 
 practicum are the 1889th, 1891st, and 1893rd paragraphs of this 
 truly antichristian Ethica Christiana, which appeared in 1789, in 
 six thick volumes. In the above-named paragraphs a Christian is 
 allowed to prevent a " contumelia gravis certo proviso, aut perquam 
 dolore molesta, aut magnopere ignomi?iiosa" or a " calumnia," by the 
 murder of the " injusti aggressoris" or " injusti calumniatoris." 
 This species of morality would clearly justify a man in secretly 
 murdering any one who might be suspected of designing a secret 
 attack on his honour. This is further proved by the 1893rd para- 
 graph, in which a man is permitted to rid himself of an enemy : 
 " Si non ipsa occisione injusti calumniatoris tantundem periculi 
 infamies incurramus, quantum vitare declinatione calumnite in- 
 tendimus :" also " Si tantundem periculi nobis ex occisione calum- 
 niatoris immineat, profecto utile remedium occisio esse non potest, 
 ac proinde nee licitum" that is, the murder should only take place 
 when it can be committed with secrecy and security. There is 
 nothing, however infamous, for which Father Stattler's Christian 
 ethics do not afford a justification. The 1894th paragraph permits
 
 THE TARTUFFE OF REAL LIFE. 103 
 
 ing to which it is lawful to deprive another of life, 
 when honour and reputation cannot be otherwise 
 maintained ; for honour is of higher value than life, 
 and the law of necessity holds good against those who 
 attack our honour, as much as against robbers. I 
 
 thought over this maxim, which Professor St 
 
 used formerly to explain to us young ecclesiastics in 
 his lectures; and finding that it exactly applied to 
 my own predicament, I took it as my dictamen prac- 
 ticum. My honour, thought I, will be lost, should 
 this wicked woman come to Lauterbach and carry her 
 threat into execution. I shall be suspended by the 
 consistory, my property will be forfeited, and my 
 name will become a reproach and a byeword through- 
 out the diocese. Although I had considered this 
 maxim of Stattler's for some time past, and applied it 
 to my own position, still it was but an idea, and I 
 had not yet formed any plan for putting it in practice." 
 
 While he was engaged in these meditations, the 
 month of November, 1807, found him in arrear with 
 his payments to Anna Eichstadter for the support of 
 her child ; and as he had no ready money, he lived in 
 daily dread lest she should come or write to Lau- 
 terbach. 
 
 On All Souls' day, the '2nd of November, towards 
 
 calumny to be met by calumny : Licet certam gravem calumniam 
 qufe nullo alto remedio, hoc uno autem certo et efficaciter, de pelli 
 potest, enervare imponendo calumniatori falsum crimen prcecise 
 tale^ nee majus quam necesse sit, et sufficiat ad elidendam calum- 
 niatoris auctoritatem ac Jidem, etfamam propriam dependendam I 
 Riembauer, of course, reckoned Anna Eichstadter among his injustos 
 aggressores. Father Stattler's book is printed cum permissu supe- 
 riorum, and is still used in several places as a manual for ecclesi- 
 astics !
 
 104 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 evening, as he was carting home turnips, accompanied 
 by Magdalena Frauenknecht, he recognised, to his 
 utter dismay, Anna Eichstadter entering the house at 
 Thomashof. 
 
 He found her in the lower room, and after a short 
 conversation took her with him up stairs. " I at first 
 intended," said he, " to hide her in the loft, so that 
 Magdalena might not see her. But it was already 
 too dark, and we turned back half way. I must con- 
 fess that for a moment I thought of throwing her 
 down the stairs, and I don't exactly know why I did 
 not ; I was filled with terror, and perhaps I thought 
 within myself that she might only break a limb in 
 the fall, and that then matters would be worse than 
 before." 
 
 In his room Eichstadter told him that she was re- 
 solved to know what she had to expect, and insisted 
 on his taking her as his cook, arid getting rid of Mag- 
 dalena. Riembauer endeavoured to pacify her by 
 explaining the nature of his connexion with the 
 Frauenknechts, and the impossibility of complying 
 with her demands, but in vain. 
 
 He then left her, under pretence of fetching her 
 some beer, went down stairs where, he asserts, con- 
 trary to all probability, that Magdalena persuaded 
 him to murder Eichstadter took a bread -knife and 
 his razor, and returned to Eichstadter, who reiterated 
 her demands with great violence and many threats 
 of denouncing him to justice and before the consis- 
 tory, and of publishing his true character everywhere. 
 At this critical moment Father Stattler's maxim again 
 recurred to his mind, and he seized the bread-knife 
 and stabbed Eichstadter with it on the right side of
 
 THE TARTUFFE OF REAL LIFE. 105 
 
 her throat ; but finding the knife too blunt, he dropped 
 it, and she endeavoured to defend herself; he then held 
 her by the throat, gave her a heavy blow on the back 
 of her head, thrust his fingers into her mouth, and 
 tried to choke her, exhorting her in the mean time to 
 repentance and confession, as she must die. She re- 
 plied by earnestly entreating him to spare her life ; 
 " then," said he, " I took the razor out of my pocket, 
 embraced her from behind, and with my right hand 
 put the blade to her throat, while with my left I 
 forced it into her windpipe. I instantly perceived 
 by her sobs that I had made a deep incision, and I 
 dropped the razor. She remained standing for three 
 or four minutes, during which I said to her, ' Marian- 
 del, I pray to God and to you for pardon : you would 
 have it so. Pray to God for forgiveness of your sins, 
 and I will give you absolution.' I accordingly gave 
 it her, as it was in casu necessitatis. She then tot- 
 tered, as if her knees were failing under her ; and I 
 took her under the arms, and let her down gently ; 
 for a few minutes longer I gave her religious consola- 
 tion as she lay on the floor, until she began to kick 
 and struggle, and presently breathed her last." 
 
 After the murder, he went down stairs to the 
 Frauenknechts, upon whom he enjoined silence, and 
 washed the blood from his hands ; but all at once he 
 heard a noise of trampling and scuffling overhead. 
 " One of the Frauenknechts," continued the prisoner, 
 " cried out, ' Jesus and Mary! the woman is come to 
 life again ;' and I hastened up stairs in continued evil 
 disposition, firmly resolved on no account to sufler 
 Eichstadter to return to life, as she would be still more
 
 106 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 formidable to me after this catastrophe ; so I drew her 
 neckerchief tighter, partly to hasten her death and 
 partly to shorten her sufferings : whether she then 
 moved, I cannot determine." 
 
 He maintained, in direct contradiction to Catherine's 
 statement, that the corpse lay the whole of the next 
 day in his room, and that it was not until the night of 
 the 3rd November that he buried it in the closet in 
 the outhouse. He owned that he himself had dug the 
 hole, but asserted that Magdalena and her mother had 
 helped him to carry the body down the stairs and 
 into the outhouse, and to bury it there ; this scene we 
 will describe in Riembauer's own words: " The grave 
 which I had dug was too short and too shallow, so 
 that the head and the arms, which had stiffened in an 
 attitude of entreaty, projected far above the sand. I 
 therefore stamped with both feet, and with the whole 
 weight of my body, upon the corpse, in which I heard 
 a strange rumbling noise. I then covered it with 
 more sand, and some time afterwards with brick 
 rubbish, because a woman who had come to thresh 
 stumbled over one of the hands which protruded from 
 the earth." 
 
 He afterwards confessed that in carrying Eich- 
 stadter's body down the stairs one of her shoes fell off, 
 which he chopped in pieces and threw upon the dung- 
 hill ; likewise that he appropriated to himself her 
 silver buckle, her purse containing about two florins, 
 and the green umbrella belonging to the priest at 
 
 P , and that he effaced the bloody stains partly 
 
 by washing them with warm water and partly by 
 planing the boards. " And now," he continued, " I
 
 THE TARTUFFE OF REAL LIFE. 107 
 
 have nothing further to tell about this sad story, save 
 my silent grief and sorrow, and that I have applied* 
 frequent masses for the soul of Anna Eichstadter." 
 
 Even after confessing every circumstance of the 
 crime, he showed no true repentance ; but continued 
 to exert his skill in casuistry to justify or extenuate 
 the murder. Sometimes he would maintain that his 
 hands had been impelled by terror, fear, and sudden 
 impulse, and that the gash had thus been inflicted 
 without the consent of his reason. When it was ob- 
 jected to him that this excuse stood in direct contra- 
 diction to his assertion of having acted upon the 
 maxim of Father Stattler, he attempted to prove that 
 his reasoning powers were lulled to sleep by the 
 maxim in question, while horror and dread rendered 
 all further action merely mechanical. Another time 
 he would quote the doctrine thai all means are justi- 
 fied by the end, and would prove that his purpose 
 being noble, his action could not be criminal. " I 
 had no object but that of preventing the many evils 
 and sins arising from public scandal, and of up- 
 holding the honour of the clergy and the reverence 
 due to my sacred calling. Had I not stood in such 
 high consideration with the people, I might more 
 readily have submitted to the disgrace. But I foresaw 
 that the discovery of my crime would bring with it a 
 train of evils ; that many men would henceforth think 
 all sins permitted ; some would cease to believe in 
 God, others would no longer hold anything sacred." 
 Thus Riembauer not only committed murder ad ma- 
 
 * An expression which shows the estimation in which this priest 
 held the holy offices of his church : he talks of applying a mass as 
 an apothecary would of applying a blister.
 
 108 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 jorem Dei gloriam, but for the same cause persevered 
 for four long years in denying his crime. " It was," 
 said he, " only in order to preserve the honour of the 
 clergy in my person that I pined so many years in 
 captivity without confessing my crime. But as soon 
 as I perceived that it was the will of God that I 
 should reveal the deed, I made a full confession." 
 So utterly perverted and corrupt was the mind of this 
 Tartuffe, that he actually boasted that he had deserved 
 well of the State by his deceit and hypocrisy. " I have 
 openly confessed," says he, " my manner of life, and I 
 think myself entitled to some indulgence for so govern- 
 ing my conduct as to cause no public scandal." 
 
 With regard to the alleged poisoning of Magdalena 
 Frauenknecht and her mother, no proof was forth- 
 coming;. The bodies were exhumed in 1813, but no 
 
 o 
 
 trace of poison was discovered, and everything led to 
 the conclusion that they died of a nervous fever which 
 at that time raged in the district of the Danube, 
 and which killed many persons in the neighbourhood, 
 among others an Austrian soldier, who, from charity, 
 was taken into the manse, and nursed by Magdalena 
 herself. Riembauer denied having any hand in the 
 death of these two women. 
 
 Several other circumstances appeared during the 
 course of inquiry ; among others, a charge of forging 
 a document for 635 florins, in which the grounds 
 of suspicion were very strong against the prisoner, 
 although he did not confess. In his 107th examina- 
 tion, he related that once when the innkeeper of 
 Grafentraubach refused him a loan of money, he had 
 meditated burning his house down. This was to 
 prove that sinful thoughts are not crimes. He also
 
 THE TA11TUFFE OF REA.L LIFE. 109 
 
 said, in another examination, in order to show his 
 sincerity, that he had once fervently prayed to God to 
 destroy some man who was hateful to him, and that 
 the man had died, probably from the effect of his 
 prayers. 
 
 However, the murder of Anna Eichstadter was the 
 chief point under consideration of the court. 
 
 So long as Riembauer denied his guilt, the whole 
 force of the examination was directed to cumulate 
 evidence against him. Catherine's testimony was on 
 some points defective. Riembauer's confession re- 
 moved all difficulties, and changed the whole posture 
 of affairs. 
 
 It was confirmed beyond doubt by the evidence of 
 Riembauer's own brother, who up to this time had 
 resolutely denied, in the face of several witnesses, all 
 knowledge of his brother's crime. He now made the 
 following statement : 
 
 " I am indeed in a most terrible position : Riem- 
 bauer is not only my brother, but has also been my 
 constant benefactor ; gratitude and fraternal love have 
 induced me hitherto to deny all knowledge of the 
 murder of Eichstadter, but now* that my brother has 
 himself confessed the dreadful deed, I may speak 
 without incurring the reproach of ingratitude. I once 
 visited my brother at his parsonage at Priel, and 
 stayed there three or four weeks : one evening his 
 cookmaid, Magdalena Frauenknecht, a good quiet 
 girl, came to my bedside, and began to weep bitterly. 
 I asked her why she cried, and she answered, * Ah ! 
 brother, if you knew what I know, you would cry 
 too ! ' " 
 
 Riembauer's brother then repeated Magdalena's
 
 110 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 statement, which exactly coincided with that of 
 Catherine, save only that she admitted that she her- 
 self was present at the murder, and helped her master 
 to carry the body into the outhouse, and to bury it 
 there. Her reason for confiding the story to Riem- 
 bauer's brother was, that the farmer who had bought 
 Thomashof of him was then digging in the out- 
 house, and she was afraid lest the body might be 
 discovered. " I knew not what to say," continued 
 his brother, " save my horror of the crime, and that 
 I could advise her nothing, but to let things take their 
 course." 
 
 Riembauer's confession is complete, consistent in 
 all its parts, and legally sufficient. It tallied with a 
 number of facts which were proved by other wit- 
 nesses. It was certain that Anna Eichstadter had a 
 child by Riembauer, that she pressed him for money, 
 and that at the time of the murder he had none to 
 give to her. It was further proved that Eichstadter 
 had left Priel on All Souls' day, 1807, and might 
 easily have reached Lauterbach the same day, and 
 that she was never after seen alive. On the very spot 
 described by Riembauer himself the skeleton of a 
 woman was found, which was recognised by the teeth 
 as that of Anna Eichstadter. Six years after the 
 murder there were spots of blood upon the floor of 
 Riembauer's room, as well as marks of the plane, evi- 
 dently made in endeavouring to obliterate the traces 
 of the murder. Only one shoe was found Riem- 
 bauer mentioned having chopped the other in pieces. 
 
 According to the common law of Germany, the 
 proof of a murder having been committed, confirmed 
 by the confession of the murderer, justifies sentence
 
 THE TARTUFFE OF REAL LIFE. Ill 
 
 of death ;* and in Riembauer's case the fact had been 
 fully proved and the confession made ; nor were there 
 any extenuating circumstances which should mitigate 
 the severity of the usual punishment. 
 
 Nevertheless, on the 1st August, 1818, the court 
 passed the following sentence on the criminal : 
 
 " Francis Salesius Riembauer is found guilty of 
 murder, and is condemned to imprisonment of the 
 severest kind in a fortress for life." 
 
 The reasons assigned for so lenient a sentence were, 
 first, that the fact of the murder was not clearly 
 proved, as the skeleton, which had lain six years in 
 the damp earth, bore no marks of violence ;f and 
 secondly, that Riembauer's character was not notori- 
 ously bad.J 
 
 * Stubel fiber den That bestand der Verbrechen. 
 
 f Art. 27 1 of the Bavarian code. 
 
 J When the fact of a murder having been committed rests chiefly 
 on the murderer's confession, the Bavarian penal code (art. 269, 
 2) requires that " the accused should be either a notorious cri- 
 minal, or one proved by the clearest circumstantial evidence to be 
 a person from whom a crime such as that of which he is accused 
 may be expected." Feuerbach adduces several excellent but 
 obvious arguments against this law, and states his opinion that in 
 this particular case every condition required by law was fulfilled, 
 and every defect in the evidence supplied by the confession.
 
 THE UNKNOWN MURDERER? 
 
 OB, 
 
 THE POLICE AT FAULT. 
 
 IN the year 1817 there lived in the town of M 
 
 a goldsmith of the name of Christopher Rupprecht. 
 He was between the ages of sixty and sixty-five, and 
 in easy circumstances. He had been twelve years a 
 widower, and had but one child living, a daughter, 
 married to a furrier named Bieringer, a brother and 
 two sisters. Rupprecht could neither read nor write, 
 and therefore kept no accounts either of his trade or of 
 the money he lent out at interest, but trusted entirely 
 to his memory and to the assistance he occasionally re- 
 ceived from others in arranging and drawing up his bills. 
 He was a man of vulgar mind and coarse habits, fond 
 of associating with people of the very lowest class, and 
 of frequenting alehouses, where his chief delight was 
 in slang and abuse, and where he suffered himself to 
 be made the butt of the roughest jokes and the most 
 vulgar witticisms. His ruling passion was avarice, 
 and his favourite business the lending money at 
 usurious interest. Though rich, he deprived himself 
 of necessaries, and was glad when his sister or his 
 daughter sent him a dinner; and for a long time 
 after his wife's death he kept no servant, in order 
 to save food and wages. Two days before the occur-
 
 THE UNKNOWN MURDERER. 113 
 
 rence which caused the present inquiry, he had 
 taken one into his service. Hard, morose, and repul- 
 sive, as a miser is apt to be, and at the same time 
 crotchety, violent, and ready on the most trifling oc- 
 casion to use abusive language, he kept most of his 
 family at a distance. His daughter and his sister 
 Clara visited him regularly, but his brother, with 
 whom he had a law-suit, and his other sister, avoided 
 his company ; he had also quarrelled with his son-in- 
 law several months before, and had ceased to see him 
 from that time. He was cross-grained and quarrelsome, 
 continually at law with his neighbours, and on bad 
 terms with a number of people, though no one could 
 be pointed out as his declared enemy. 
 
 For about a year he had been in the daily habit of 
 frequenting a small beer-shop, commonly called the 
 Hell. To this place, which was scarce fifty yards 
 distant from his own house, Rupprecht went on the 
 7th February, at half-past eight in the evening, in his 
 dressing-gown and with a leathern cap on his head. 
 The party assembled there consisted of eleven respect- 
 able burghers, who sat talking and drinking together 
 till about half-past ten, when Rupprecht called for an- 
 other glass of beer, and the host left the upper parlour 
 where his guests were assembled, and went down 
 into the tap to fetch it. As he was going up stairs 
 with the beer, and had almost reached the top, he 
 heard the bell over the street-door, and on asking what 
 was wanted, he was answered in a strange voice by 
 the inquiry whether Mr. Rupprecht was there. With- 
 out looking round, the host answered that he was, 
 and the stranger requested him to desire Rupprecht to 
 step down to him for a moment. The host delivered 
 
 I
 
 114 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 the message to his guest, who instantly rose and left 
 the room. Scarcely a minute had elapsed, when the 
 other guests were alarmed by hearing loud groans 
 like those of a person in a fit of apoplexy. They all 
 hastened down stairs, and found Rupprecht lying 
 just within the door, covered with blood which was 
 pouring out of a large wound on his head. About a 
 foot and a half from the body lay his cap, cut evi- 
 dently by a sharp instrument. He was only able to 
 mutter the words "Wicked rogue! wicked rogue! with 
 the axe !" When asked whether he knew who had 
 done it, he made an effort to speak, but no one could 
 understand what he said. The guests carried him 
 into the parlour, where he began to moan and mutter 
 unintelligibly. Excited by the questions of one of the 
 guests as to whether he knew the man, he distinctly 
 said " My daughter ! my daughter !" which was under- 
 stood to mean that he wished to see Madame Bieringer: 
 she was accordingly informed of what had happened, 
 and brought to the house by one of those present ; but 
 Rupprecht apparently did not recognise her; he was 
 insensible, and lay moaning like one in a fit, with 
 his head drooping upon his breast and his limbs 
 paralysed. 
 
 The physician and surgeon attached to the Criminal 
 Court were sent for, and found a wound four inches 
 long, which had penetrated the skull. This they 
 attributed to a blow from some sharp heavy instru- 
 ment according to all appearances a large sabre, 
 wielded by a practised hand. 
 
 The Hell Tavern stands in the end of a narrow 
 dark alley, from which there is no outlet. The side 
 on which is the door forms an angle with the opposite
 
 THE UNKNOWN MURDERER. 115 
 
 house, so deep that no light falls into it by night. 
 Two stone steps lead up to the house-door, of which 
 one wing only opens, and is provided with a bell. 
 Outside the door, on the left of these steps, is a stone 
 bench. The hall within is small, narrow, and little 
 more than six feet high ; the wound could not there- 
 fore have been inflicted upon Rupprecht in the hall, 
 as space and height were required to give force to 
 the blow. It would moreover have been madness to 
 attempt the deed in a passage which was lighted by 
 an oil-lamp, which, though dim, would have enabled 
 the victim or a passer by to recognise the murderer. 
 In the hall, too, Rupprecht coming down the stairs 
 would have met his enemy face to face, and must 
 have seen him prepare for the attack, from which he 
 might easily have escaped by running to the rooms 
 above. 
 
 Supposing the wound which slanted downward, 
 and had evidently been inflicted from behind to have 
 been given during Rupprecht's flight up the stairs, 
 those who ran down on hearing his screams would 
 have found the wounded man on the staircase, or at 
 any rate close to the foot of it. But he was found 
 just within the house-door, and it is far more likely 
 that, after receiving the wound outside, he tottered 
 back into the hall and fell there, than that he should 
 have attempted to reach the house-door after being 
 wounded in endeavouring to escape up the stairs. 
 
 Again, the wound was on the left side of the head, 
 and the dark corner we have before mentioned is on 
 the left hand of any one leaving the tavern. The 
 probability therefore is that Rupprecht received the 
 wound on the very door-step. In this case he had 
 
 i2
 
 1 16 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 but to totter one step back to fall on the spot where 
 he was found. It would have been scarcely possible 
 for one in Rupprecht' s condition to retain sufficient 
 strength to crawl up the steps from the street into 
 the hall. 
 
 On the other hand, it would have been impossible 
 for the murderer, standing in the street, to have struck 
 Rupprecht from behind, while he stood on the door- 
 steps. This difficulty is, however, completely removed 
 by the stone bench on the left of the door, which we 
 have already mentioned. 
 
 Thus all circumstances combine to make us con- 
 clude that the occurrence took place as follows : As 
 soon as the murderer had requested the landlord to 
 send Rupprecht down to him, he went into the dark 
 corner on the left, mounted the stone bench near the 
 door-steps, and stood there in readiness to strike. 
 Rupprecht went down stairs, expecting to find some 
 one who wanted to speak to him on business, and 
 seeing no one in the passage, went outside the door 
 and turned to look down the street after the man who 
 had sent for him, when he was struck a well-aimed 
 heavy blow from the stone bench behind him. 
 
 Nothing was found on or near the spot that could 
 throw the slightest suspicion on any one, nor could 
 any person present form a conjecture as to the author 
 or the motive of the deed. 
 
 Something, it was hoped, would be learnt from 
 the wounded man himself when he should have reco- 
 vered consciousness. On the evening of the following 
 day, the 8th of February, the judge and two other 
 officers of the court accordingly visited him, and 
 found him sensible. He frequently said " Oh, dear !
 
 THE UNKNOWN MURDERER. 117 
 
 Oh, dear !" and when he wished for something to 
 drink, he pronounced the word beer plainly enough. 
 Conceiving him to be in a fit state to give information, 
 the judge asked him the following questions, which 
 were thus answered by the wounded man : Who 
 struck you the blow ? " Schmidt." What Schmidt? 
 "Woodcutter." Where does he live? "In the 
 Most." With what did he strike you ? " Hatchet." 
 How did you recognise him ? " By his voice." Does 
 Schmidt owe you money ? He shook his head. What 
 then could have induced Schmidt to do such a thing ? 
 " Quarrel." As Rupprecht was unable to speak 
 connectedly, no questions were asked about the nature 
 of this quarrel. But when the first and second ques- 
 tions were again put to him, he distinctly repeated 
 the words " Schmidt woodcutter." The judge or- 
 dered that an officer of the court should be in con- 
 stant attendance on the wounded man, in order to 
 gather every word that might fall from his lips. In 
 this man's presence Rupprecht continually repeated 
 " Schmidt woodcutter," whenever any one, his maid- 
 servant, his daughter, his sister, or his son-in-law 
 asked him who the murderer was. Only when his 
 sister Clara asked him if he knew who had struck the 
 blow, he muttered something apparently in the nega- 
 tive. 
 
 The first though not the sole object of the judge 
 now was to discover the Schmidt of whom Rupprecht 
 was thinking. But in this town, as everywhere else, 
 there were a vast number of people called Schmidt, 
 several of whom were woodcutters. Three of these 
 especially engaged the attention of the court : the first 
 was a certain Abraham Schmidt, who lived in the
 
 118 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 Hohes Pflaster, and who, it was rumoured, had once 
 been taken up with a band of robbers and been sent 
 to the House of Correction. The second was one John 
 Gabriel Schmidt, commonly known as " big Schmidt/' 
 who lived in a street called the Walch, and had for- 
 merly been on friendly terms with Rupprecht, whose 
 favour he had lately lost by some evidence which he 
 gave against him in an action for defamation. The 
 third was big Schmidt's half-brother, distinguished 
 from him by the name of " little Schmidt :" he also 
 lived in the Walch, and was one of Rupprecht's 
 acquaintance. 
 
 This seemed to point out the direction in which in- 
 vestigation should be made. On the 10th February 
 the physician announced that Rupprecht had been 
 trepanned the day before and was now sensible, and 
 a commission of inquiry with two witnesses accord- 
 ingly went to his house. The judge seated himself 
 beside the bed and greeted Rupprecht, who opened 
 his eyes, looked about him, and distinctly answered 
 " Yes " to the judge's question whether he knew 
 him. The judge, convinced by this and other ap- 
 pearances that the wounded man was in the possession 
 of his faculties, desired him to remember that, when 
 asked about his wound, he had always mentioned a 
 name in connection with it, told him that the commis- 
 sion was now come to take down his deposition in the 
 presence of witnesses, and adjured him to reflect upon 
 the danger in which he lay, the infinite knowledge 
 and justice of God, and the awful consequences of 
 every false word. Then came the following questions 
 and answers. " Do you know who struck the blow ?" 
 Rupprecht repeatedly moved his right hand, imitating
 
 THE UNKNOWN MURDERER. 1 19 
 
 the motion of striking, and answered " Schmidt." 
 " Have I understood you aright ? did you say 
 Schmidt?" "Yes." "Who is this Schmidt?" 
 " Woodcutter." " How do you know that it was 
 Schmidt, since it was dark ?" Rupprecht endeavoured 
 to speak, but could not utter a sound : he then moved 
 his right arm with increased vehemence. " But there 
 are several of that name ; can you tell me whether 
 you mean the big or the little Schmidt?" Rupprecht 
 made vain attempts to answer this and the question 
 where the Schmidt lived to whom he referred. When 
 asked whether he lived in the Walch, the Schiitt, or 
 the Most, Rupprecht was silent. At last, when asked 
 whether Schmidt lived on the Hohes Pflaster, he dis- 
 tinctly answered "Yes." Hereupon he sunk into a 
 state of stupor, and the inquiry had to be postponed. 
 
 As equal suspicion attached to the three Schmidts 
 above named, Abraham, as well as the big and the 
 little Schmidt, were arrested that evening; and not- 
 withstanding the alarming condition of the wounded 
 man, they were severally taken to his bed-side on the 
 chance that the murderer might be recognised by 
 Rupprecht, or that fresh cause for suspicion might 
 appear against him on the occasion. Rupprecht ap- 
 peared sensible, but could not open his eyes, so that 
 the main object entirely failed. Both the big and 
 the little Schmidt appeared perfectly unembarrassed : 
 the former exclaimed several times, " Poor Christo- 
 pher! how ill you have been served poor fellow, 
 many's the good jest we have had together. He must 
 have owed you a powerful grudge who could serve 
 you so." He likewise called to him repeatedly,
 
 120 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 " Christopher ! Christopher ! your Hans is here," &c. 
 Abraham Schmidt behaved far differently : when 
 asked whether he knew the man in bed, he at first 
 answered " I do not know him," but immediately 
 added, " That is Mr. Rupprecht, I know him well ; 
 what is the matter with him ?" When asked why he 
 at first said he did not know him, he answered, " Be- 
 cause that is Mr. Rupprecht." He was then desired 
 to give a proper answer, but only exclaimed, " I can 
 give no answer ; I did not do it ; ah ! good Lord ! I 
 did not do it ; I am not the man ; as I hope for 
 mercy, I am innocent. I am a poor woodcutter. 
 You may ask my neighbours, my wife, and my 
 mother. On Friday night I was cutting pegs at the 
 house of my mother-in-law till eleven o'clock, and 
 on Saturday and Sunday I was at home." On being 
 asked at what hour he had gone home on Friday 
 night, he said, " I stayed until past nine with my 
 mother-in-law." When the manifest contradiction in 
 his statement was pointed out to him, he only repeated 
 " From nine to eleven." These strange contradictory 
 answers and the agitation and confusion exhibited by 
 the prisoner, together with the circumstance that 
 Rupprecht had that morning mentioned Schmidt on 
 the Hohes Pflaster, seemed to point suspicion towards 
 Abraham Schmidt, who was accordingly placed in 
 arrest. 
 
 The following morning, at about five o'clock (the 
 llth February), Rupprecht died, without having reco- 
 vered his speech or consciousness. 
 
 Meanwhile suspicion strengthened against Abra- 
 ham Schmidt. The police handed the hatchets be-
 
 THE UNKNOWN MURDERER. 121 
 
 longing to the three suspected men "into court, and 
 that of Abraham Schmidt was spotted apparently 
 with blood. 
 
 On his examination he stated that he was about 
 six-and-thirty, a Lutheran, and the son of a nail- 
 maker, and that he had at first learnt the trade of 
 pinmaking, but that finding it insufficient for his sup- 
 port, he had become a woodcutter. He had been 
 married five years, and had had two children, of which 
 one, a boy a year and a half old, was living. He had 
 once been in prison, about twelve or fifteen years 
 before, for carting some stolen vegetables into the 
 town for other people. He asserted that he was per- 
 fectly innocent of the murder of Rupprecht, whom he 
 had neither known nor seen. Hereupon he was re- 
 minded that when the wounded man was shown to 
 him, he had at first said that he did not know him, but 
 had immediately after recognised him as Rupprecht : 
 how was this ? He then replied, " I do not know why 
 I said that, and I said it was Rupprecht directly, but 
 I never saw him in my life before." He was asked 
 how then he had recognised him, and answered that 
 " every one was talking of the murder, and that he 
 had heard of it at the public-house." Whenever he 
 was questioned as to where he was on Friday evening 
 at the time of the murder, he invariably involved 
 himself in contradictions. The judge questioned 
 him as follows : " Where were you last Friday ?" 
 " I went to the house of my mother-in-law at nine 
 o'clock in the morning, to help her to cut pegs. I 
 dined with her, and did not leave her house till nine 
 o'clock at night, when I took my little boy home,
 
 122 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 went to bed directly, and did not get up again until 
 seven o'clock on Saturday morning." "When did 
 your wife leave her mother's house?" "At ten 
 o'clock." "Why did you not go together?" " Because 
 she was still at work, and as the boy would not go to 
 sleep, she asked me to take him home, which I did." 
 " At what o'clock then did you go home on Friday ?" 
 " At nine o'clock." " Yesterday you said it was at 
 eleven; how is that?" After some hesitation, "I don't 
 know what you want of me ; I went home with my 
 wife at eleven." "Just now you asserted that you 
 went home at nine ?" " All my neighbours can testify 
 that I always come home at nine." "That answer 
 will not suffice ; first you say nine, and then eleven : 
 which is the truth ?" " At nine o'clock, with my wife 
 and my child. No, my wife stayed a little longer with 
 her mother." " Who took the child home ?" " I took 
 him home with me at nine o'clock." " When did your 
 wife come home?" "After ten o'clock." "How do 
 you know that?" " Because she always comes home 
 at that time ; I was asleep when she came, and can't 
 tell exactly when it was. I did not wake, though 
 I sleep in the same bed with her and the child." 
 " Have you a key of the house ?" " Yes, but my mother 
 has got it." " How then did your wife get in ?" " My 
 wife took the key with her." " You said at first that 
 your mother had the key the whole night through ?" 
 " Yes, it lay upon the table." " Then your wife could 
 not have used it to let herself into the house ?" " So 
 I said, for my wife went home with me and put the 
 boy to bed, and then she took the house-door key and 
 went back to her mother." " How long did she stay
 
 THE UNKNOWN MURDERER. 123 
 
 there?" "Till eleven." "You said before that she 
 came home at ten ?" "I was asleep, I can't tell whe- 
 ther it was ten or eleven when she came home." 
 
 At first the accused did not seem embarrassed, and 
 answered readily, but appeared anxious to avoid 
 entering into details ; and on being told that he 
 contradicted himself, he grew impatient, hesitated, 
 coughed, and stamped. He did not encounter the 
 searching gaze of the judge, but looked down or on 
 one side. 
 
 The same evening Rupprecht's dead body was 
 shown to him, and he was asked whether he recog- 
 nised it. " This," he answered, " is Mr. Rupprecht. 
 I can swear to you by my conscience and my honour, 
 and to Almighty God by my hope of salvation, that 
 I never injured this man ; for I never saw him before 
 in all my life." " You say you never saw him before 
 now ; how then do you know him ?" " I heard of 
 him from the people here and in the public-house, 
 besides I saw him yesterday. My heart and my soul 
 are free from guilt : I never harmed this man. I am 
 in your power, and you may do with me what you 
 will, I am a child of innocence." When the accused 
 first entered the room, he appeared much oppressed 
 and overcome, but while asserting his innocence his 
 firmness soon returned. 
 
 The person of the prisoner had been carefully 
 examined when he was first taken to prison, but no 
 stain of blood was found upon his body or his clothes. 
 His house, and that of his step-mother, were rigidly 
 searched, and in them were found tokens of great 
 poverty, but not of crime. 
 
 He accounted for the blood on his hatchet by
 
 124 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 saying that his hand was chapped with the cold, 
 and had bled the day before, and that this might 
 have caused the stains. But these stains were close 
 to the blade, and it was his right hand which was 
 chapped, whereas in chopping wood the left hand 
 would naturally be nearest to the blade of the axe, 
 while the right hand grasped the handle. On further 
 inquiry, however, the accused was found to be left- 
 handed, which solved the difficulty. 
 
 A comparison of the axe with the wound and the 
 cut in the leathern cap rendered it, to say the least, 
 very doubtful whether such a weapon could have been 
 the one employed : the edge of the axe was only 
 three inches and one-third in length, while the wound 
 measured four inches, and the cut in the cap nearly 
 four inches and a half; and an axe cannot be drawn 
 in striking. 
 
 As the murderer had called to the landlord of the 
 tavern to send Rupprecht down to him, the trial was 
 made whether Abraham Schmidt could be recognised 
 by his voice as the assassin. The landlord at first 
 doubted the possibility of such a recognition, as he 
 had paid no particular attention to the voice at the 
 time, and the subsequent fright had driven all recol- 
 lection of it out of his head the experiment could, 
 however, do no harm. The judge sent for Schmidt 
 into the audience-chamber, while the landlord was 
 placed in an adjoining room, where he could hear, 
 but not see, the prisoner. He declared without 
 hesitation that Schmidt's voice was much rougher 
 than that of the person who came to his house on the 
 night of the 7th February, which was like the voice 
 of a woman.
 
 THE UNKNOWN MURDERER. 125 
 
 The witnesses who were examined as to where the 
 prisoner was when the murder took place, in great 
 part removed the suspicion which he had raised 
 against himself by his confused and contradictory 
 statements. His mother-in-law, Barbara Lang, said 
 that " Schmidt, with his wife and child, had come to 
 her at half-past seven in the morning, as they usually 
 did when he had no chopping to do, in order to save 
 fuel and candles. They stayed all day, and at half- 
 past nine or a quarter to ten he went away with his 
 little child and his wife, who lighted him home. The 
 latter returned and stayed with her another hour or 
 hour and a half, making pegs." The wife's account 
 did not exactly tally with this in point of time, as she 
 said that they left Barbara Lang's house at a quarter 
 to nine ; but in other respects her statement agreed 
 with her mother's, with the further addition that 
 " when they got home she waited while her husband 
 undressed and went to bed with the child, as she 
 wanted the lantern to light her to her mother's house 
 and back again home. When she returned, at about 
 ten, she found her husband asleep, and woke him, as 
 he took up too much room in the bed. He asked 
 what o'clock it was, and she told him it was ten. 
 He certainly did not leave her side after that." She 
 added, " This is as true as that my poor child is now 
 at my breast" she had brought the child into court 
 with her. The woman in whose house the Schmidts 
 lodged confirmed this statement in every particular. 
 
 The discrepancy between the assertions of the 
 several witnesses as to the time when Schmidt and 
 his wife returned to their lodgings is easily accounted 
 for, when we consider that they were poor people
 
 126 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 who had no clocks or watches, and that it was in 
 the month of February. It is true that there was 
 an interval of about an hour between the time of 
 Schmidt's coming home and his wife's return. But 
 the distance from the Hohes Pflaster to the Hell Tavern 
 is above a mile, and a murder requires some pre- 
 paration. Here, however, was a commonplace, good 
 sort of man, who passed the whole evening with 
 his old mother-in-law, employed with his wife in 
 cutting pegs to earn a crust of bread returned 
 home with his child in his arms, his wife carrying 
 a lantern, and went to bed with his child whom 
 we must then suppose to have jumped out of bed the 
 moment his wife's back was turned, to have seized an 
 axe, and leaving his child, to have hastened to the 
 spot where he committed a murder remarkable for 
 cunning and cruelty, hurried back into bed, where he 
 was found shortly afterwards by his wife, fast asleep. 
 All this, too, without any one in the house hearing any 
 noise, and without leaving a trace of the murder on 
 his person. The only way to account for this would 
 be to suppose the wife to be an accomplice, a suppo- 
 sition for which there was not the slightest foundation. 
 The evidence of one Anna Keinitz, an old woman 
 of seventy-eight, proved that on the 8th of February 
 Abraham Schmidt was in all probability ignorant 
 of the murder committed on the previous evening. 
 Returning from market she passed Rupprecht's house, 
 where she heard the news. On her way home she 
 stepped in at neighbour Barbara Lang's to warm 
 herself, and found Schmidt and his wife were 
 cutting pegs, as he had no chopping to do. Anna 
 Keinitz related what she had heard. Schmidt asked
 
 THE UNKNOWN MURDERER. 127 
 
 her who this Rupprecht was ? She answered that he 
 lived near the butchers' stalls ; and the mother-in-law 
 added, " It is Rupprecht who so often comes to the 
 tavern do not you know him?" Schmidt replied 
 carelessly, " I do not." 
 
 On the 9th February, Schmidt was at a tavern 
 called the Sow, where several guests were discussing 
 the murder. Schmidt said nothing, and showed no 
 embarrassment; his manner was, as usual, quiet and 
 reserved. 
 
 The evidence of the two men who by turns watched 
 the dying man, completely overthrew one of the chief 
 causes of suspicion against Schmidt. They stated 
 that when the maid or Rupprecht's daughter asked 
 the wounded man where Schmidt lived, he answered 
 indifferently, " On the Hohes Pflaster," or " In the 
 Walch." 
 
 Schmidt's bad repute, owing to a vague recollection 
 of some former transgression which vulgar exaggera- 
 tion had magnified into a great crime, disappeared 
 on further inquiry. All who were questioned about 
 Abraham Schmidt's conduct his landlord, his neigh- 
 bours, and the superintendent of police of the district 
 described him as a very poor, hard-working, peace- 
 able, good-natured man, and a good husband and 
 father. 
 
 His strange conduct in the presence of the dying- 
 man, and his contradictory statements, were thus 
 accounted for. According to his mother's testimony, 
 he was hard of hearing, timid, and awkward. The 
 smallest trifle made him lose all presence of mind, 
 and he was often so confused as to say the very 
 opposite of what he meant about things the most
 
 128 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 familiar to him. "I believe," said the magistrate of 
 his district, " that there is not any one in my whole 
 district who is so blundering. For instance, he seldom 
 calls any one by his right name ; and when he does 
 not understand what is said to him, or cannot express 
 his meaning, he is apt to be angry." And this poor 
 blockhead he knew not why or wherefore was sud- 
 denly dragged into the presence of a dying man, 
 whom he found himself accused of having murdered, 
 and, while agitated and dismayed by a scene so strange, 
 solemn and terrible, questions were put to him about 
 the most minute and trifling circumstances questions 
 the drift of which he was too stupid and confused to 
 understand. 
 
 The contradictory statements which he made con- 
 cerning many important details, were manifestly the 
 result of the prisoner's habitual confusion of ideas and 
 defective memory. His recognition of Rupprecht, 
 joined to his declaration that he did not know him, 
 would have appeared perfectly consistent had he pos- 
 sessed the power of expressing himself intelligibly. 
 Without having ever seen Rupprecht he must have 
 guessed that the wounded man lying before him could 
 have been none other than the Rupprecht whose acci- 
 dent was in every one's mouth. 
 
 Nothing now remained which could throw any sus- 
 picion on Abraham Schmidt, and the court endeavoured 
 to follow out the slight traces of suspicion against John 
 Gabriel Schmidt and his half-brother Erhard Diiringer. 
 The former, commonly called big Schmidt, was a mar- 
 ried man of forty, with one child ; the latter, generally 
 known as little Schmidt, was twenty-seven, also mar- 
 ried and had two children. Both were woodcutters,
 
 THE UNKNOWN MURDERER. 129 
 
 and lived together on excellent terms in the same 
 house. Both were boon companions of Rupprecht's, 
 who was much in their company, particularly in that of 
 John Gabriel, whom he familiarly called his Hans, and 
 with whom he amused himself with all sorts of vulgar 
 pranks and coarse jokes. This intercourse had, how- 
 ever, been interrupted a few months before Rupprecht's 
 death by a dispute between the quarrelsome jeweller 
 and the overseers of the district, Friedmann and 
 Gotz. The last-named men were accordingly arrested 
 on the suspicion that if they did not actually murder 
 him themselves, they might have induced one of these 
 woodcutters to become the instrument of their ven- 
 geance. The quarrel had arisen one evening when 
 Friedmann, the two Schmidts, and several other per- 
 sons were sitting together in a tavern, on which occa- 
 sion Rupprecht used some very offensive expressions 
 with regard to the other overseer Gotz, accusing 
 him of gross partiality and injustice in the adminis- 
 tration of his office. Friedmann and Gotz complained 
 to the police, and the two Schmidts were summoned 
 as witnesses. Rupprecht was condemned to an im- 
 prisonment of eight and forty hours on bread and 
 water, and to make an apology to Gotz. He en- 
 deavoured to revenge himself by bringing an action 
 for defamation against Friedmann and Gotz, which 
 was still pending when Rupprecht was murdered. 
 
 But on examination these suspicious melted away, 
 and Rupprecht appeared to have acted the part of a 
 revengeful, angry, insulting foe, and the others that 
 of quiet peaceable citizens. No one had perceived 
 any bitter feeling in either Friedmann or Gotz ; on 
 the contrary, they both expressed regret and in- 
 
 K
 
 130 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 dignation when they heard the manner of his death. 
 Gb'tz had been from eight till eleven on the evening 
 of the murder at a tavern, where his manner was grave 
 and quiet as usual ; and both he and Friedmann were 
 well known as just and upright men, incapable of 
 committing any bad action, much less a crime of this 
 magnitude. Finally, Rupprecht himself, when asked 
 on the morning after his accident whether he did not 
 suspect one of the district overseers of the deed, had 
 distinctly answered " No." 
 
 John Gabriel Schmidt and his half-brother Erhard 
 Duringer had the reputation of well-conducted, hard- 
 working men, of spotless integrity, who only visited 
 the tavern on certain days in the week, and then 
 only for a few hours. Kunigunda Pfann gave evi- 
 dence on oath that Erhard Duringer could not have 
 been at the Hell Tavern on the evening of the 7th 
 February, as she had stayed with him and his wife 
 from half-past eight till ten, and had only left their 
 room as they were preparing to go to bed. This 
 evidence was confirmed by the mistress of the house 
 in which they lived, who inhabited the rooms above 
 them. She stated that although she had not been 
 in Diiringer's room she was satisfied that he had 
 remained at home, as Friday was not the day on 
 which he and his half-brother went to the tavern. 
 With regard to John Gabriel Schmidt she said, " As 
 I live up one pair of stairs, and he just above me, and 
 I heard no one come down stairs after eight o'clock, 
 and all was quiet in their room, I feel convinced that 
 after that hour they were in bed. Besides, she was 
 stirring till eleven, and even later, and she heard no 
 suspicious knocking or ringing at the door." Ku-
 
 THE UNKNOWN MURDERER. 131 
 
 nigunda Pfann, whose room was near the Schmidts', 
 said that as she was returning home at about half- 
 past eight, she looked up at their window and saw no 
 light ; moreover the key had been taken out of the 
 door, as was their custom when they went to bed ; 
 neither had she heard any noise during the night. 
 Martin Haas, the landlord, confirmed these statements, 
 adding, " I take it for granted that the Schmidts were 
 at home on Friday, as they never go out on that 
 day." 
 
 In order to leave nothing untried, two other wood- 
 cutters, whose names were Schmidt, were examined : 
 they did not live in either of the streets mentioned by 
 Rupprecht, nor even in the town, but in the suburbs. 
 These two men, John and Godfrey, were nearly con- 
 nected, and generally came to Niirnberg for work : 
 and one of them was usually employed by Rup- 
 precht's son-in-law. But in this case also the inquiry 
 led to the same result. 
 
 Thus, when every woodcutter of the name of 
 Schmidt in the town and neighbourhood had been 
 examined, it became evident that the court, by trust- 
 ing to the unconnected words of the dying man, had 
 suffered itself to be led in a totally false direction. 
 His disjointed exclamations were but the expression 
 of his vague, confused suspicions, or perhaps even mere 
 (Egri somnia, engendered in his shattered brain by 
 delirium. A man so severely wounded in the head as 
 almost entirely to lose the power of speech cannot be 
 supposed to be in the true possession of his faculties 
 even when consciousness appears for a moment to re- 
 turn. It is not difficult to explain how his fancied 
 suspicions were directed against the Schmidts, when 
 
 K2
 
 132 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 we consider that so deep a gash, even if inflicted with 
 a sabre, would feel as if it were made with an axe. 
 The mere association of ideas would naturally connect 
 a woodcutter with the axe, and every throb of the 
 wound would recall to Rupprecht's disordered imagi- 
 nation the image of the Schmidts, with whom he had 
 lately quarrelled. 
 
 The judge, while carrying on the inquiry with the 
 utmost zeal in a direction which eventually proved to 
 be a wrong one, had not in the mean time neglected 
 to follow up all other indications. He had from the 
 first kept his eye upon John Bieringer and his wife, 
 who was Rupprecht's own daughter. 
 
 Rupprecht, soon after he was wounded, had ex- 
 claimed, " My daughter ! my daughter !" which those 
 who were present had interpreted as the expression of 
 a natural desire on his part to see her; but which 
 might have referred to the same event as the words 
 he used shortly before " The wicked rogue ! with 
 the axe !" This supposition received weight from the 
 circumstance that Rupprecht usually called his son- 
 in-law " the wicked rogue." 
 
 One of those who were present went, after fetching 
 a surgeon, to Bieringer's house and informed him of 
 what had happened, and of Rupprecht's wish to see 
 his daughter. Hereupon Bieringer, with extraordi- 
 nary coolness, said to his wife, " You must go to the 
 Hell Tavern directly ; something has happened to 
 your father; one really has nothing but trouble with 
 him." 
 
 When Rupprecht's daughter saw him lying wound- 
 ed, she wept, and lamented : but several witnesses 
 thought that she did not show so much interest and
 
 THE UNKNOWN MURDERER. 133 
 
 sympathy for him as might have been expected from 
 a daughter on such an occasion. 
 
 One witness asserted that soon after she had seen 
 her father, disfigured as he was with blood and wounds, 
 she asked for his keys, and said " she would look whe- 
 ther they were in his pocket, or whether the murderer 
 had taken them to open her father's lodging and rob 
 it." As soon as she recovered his keys, she went on 
 before to his lodging. 
 
 The same witness further said, " When her wounded 
 father lay in his own house, the daughter appeared 
 not only composed, but even careless. When I went 
 to see him on the following day, I observed that 
 she showed great indifference to her father's fate ; she 
 ate up, in my presence, a whole basin of soup which 
 would have more than satisfied most people." 
 
 Meanwhile she manifested the greatest anxiety to 
 fix suspicion on John Gabriel Schmidt, and on the 
 district overseer Gotz. On the 8th February she 
 suddenly exclaimed, that her father had named 
 Schmidt as the murderer ; adding, that it was likely 
 enough, as this man was an intimate friend of Gotz's, 
 who had been involved in a lawsuit with her father. 
 This she repeated so often and so loudly, that the 
 officer appointed to note down every expression that 
 fell from the dying man, was forced to order her to be 
 silent. 
 
 She further stated, at her examination on the 9th 
 February, that her father, on coming to himself, had 
 accused the woodcutter Schmidt of the deed ; and 
 added that, on her repeatedly asking who had struck 
 him, her father had answered, " He was a big fellow." 
 As no one else had heard Rupprecht say this, it
 
 134 REMARKABLE .GERM AN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 looked as if she had invented it in order to avert sus- 
 picion from her husband, who was of small stature. 
 
 On the following day, the 10th February, when the 
 three woodcutters of the name of Schmidt were 
 brought into the presence of the wounded man, she 
 pressed the judge, when it came to John Gabriel's 
 turn, to allow her to be present, and to speak to him ; 
 saying, " This John Gabriel Schmidt was the man 
 whom she alluded to in her yesterday's examination ; 
 and that she wished to speak to him, and to remind 
 him of the omniscience of God, as he might then, 
 perhaps, confess. The others, she was sure, were in- 
 nocent. 
 
 Bieringer, a well-bred and well educated man, of 
 about five-and-thirty, was perfectly composed and 
 unconstrained during examination ; only once he 
 started from his seat, complained of illness, and 
 walked up and down; he then sat down again and 
 quietly continued to answer the questions put to him. 
 
 The principal ground for suspicion against him 
 was, the terms on which he lived with his wife and 
 his father-in-law. 
 
 Bieringer's domestic quarrels had occasionally been 
 so violent as to draw together a crowd before his 
 house; and his wife had once been sent to prison 
 for eight and forty hours, in consequence of a com- 
 plaint laid by her husband before the police. Bierin- 
 ger accused her of violence of temper and love of 
 finery ; and her father of always supporting her 
 against her husband. The imprisonment, it is true, 
 had produced a wholesome effect, and Bieringer's 
 domestic peace had remained unbroken for some time. 
 But the quarrel between Rupprecht and his son in-law
 
 THE UNKNOWN MURDERER. 135 
 
 was irreconcilable. Rupprecht would not see him ; 
 and on the very day before his death he had said to 
 his maid, " Bieringer is a cursed rogue, who shall 
 never come into my presence." Rupprecht thought 
 him a careless fellow, who worked less and spent more 
 than he ought ; and who, moreover, did not show him 
 sufficient respect. He had long intended to make a 
 will leaving his whole property to his daughter, and 
 placing it entirely out of the reach of her husband. 
 He had mentioned this plan to his daughter some 
 months before. He had also told his fellow-lodger 
 Hb'gner, who was more in his confidence than any one 
 else, that " he would make a will, in which he would 
 not forget his good friends, and would settle his money 
 in such manner upon his daughter that his rascally 
 son-in-law should not be able to touch it, so that his 
 daughter might have something to live upon in case 
 of a separation." On Friday the 7th February, at 
 about 3 P.M., only a few hours before he was mur- 
 dered, he sent to his familiar friend Hb'gner, and 
 requested him to " look out from among his papers 
 some acknowledgments of debts, amounting to 1 200 
 florins, as he must take them directly to the magistrate's 
 office. The search took up some time, as his papers 
 were in disorder, and he requested me to come on the 
 following Sunday, and sort them for him, as he 
 wished to alter and arrange several matters, and to 
 make a will. His maid was in the room at the time." 
 Had Bieringer been aware of this, he would undoubt- 
 edly have had the greatest interest in preventing 
 Rupprecht from executing his intentions; and the 
 circumstance that Rupprecht was murdered at ten 
 o'clock at night of the same day on which he had
 
 136 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 talked about making his will, would no longer appeal- 
 merely as a strange coincidence. 
 
 But here again everything which at first appeared 
 suspicious was explained away. 
 
 The hostess of the tavern proved that Rupprecht's 
 words, "My daughter, my daughter," undoubtedly ex- 
 pressed his desire to see her. She stated that on see- 
 ing his dangerous condition, she cried out " Fetch his 
 daughter," whereupon Rupprecht repeated the words 
 " My daughter." Furthermore his sister Clara and 
 his familiar friend Hogner testified that it was Rup- 
 precht's custom to send for his daughter every time he 
 had even a pain in his finger. 
 
 This habit again accounted for Bieringer's cool im- 
 patience when he told his wife to go to her father : 
 he very naturally thought that matters were not so 
 bad as they afterwards turned out. 
 
 The small sympathy which the daughter apparently 
 felt with the fate of her father proves but little ; not 
 to mention that several other witnesses who had ample 
 opportunity of observing her conduct stated the very 
 reverse, and asserted that she showed great feeling. 
 
 The taking possession of her father's keys was no 
 more than what any other daughter would have done 
 under the circumstances. They were essential to pre- 
 pare for his reception in his own house. Moreover it 
 afterwards appeared that she only took the keys at the 
 suggestion of the physician, who suspected that some 
 one might attempt to rob the house, in consequence 
 of which suspicion, and at her request, two police 
 officers accompanied her to her father's house. 
 
 Her loud and eager announcement that her father 
 had named the woodcutter Schmidt as his murderer,
 
 THE UNKNOWN MURDERER. 137 
 
 and her endeavours to fix the guilt on the so-called 
 big Schmidt, would certainly have been suspicious, 
 had not old Rupprecht realty named him. But her 
 anxiety to force the man whom her imagination re- 
 presented to her as the only possible murderer to 
 confess his guilt, cannot surely be construed as evi- 
 dence of her participation in the murder. Nor need 
 we conclude that she put expressions into her father's 
 mouth about the murderer being a tall fellow in order 
 to shield her husband ; it is very possible that her 
 father may have used them during the absence of 
 other witnesses. 
 
 It is quite obvious that it was not her interest, while 
 living on bad terms with her husband, to get rid of 
 her father, who hated his son-in-law, and was her 
 constant refuge and support against him, at the very 
 moment, too, when she knew that her father was about 
 to make a will which should secure her independence 
 of her husband. Rupprecht's dying intestate was as 
 great a loss to his daughter as it was a gain to his son- 
 in-law. 
 
 On further examination, everything was cleared up 
 in Bieringer's favour also. 
 
 Bieringer's comparatively polished manners ren- 
 dered him most unsuitable to his coarse father-in-law, 
 whose avarice and meanness were shocked by his son- 
 in-law's more generous manner of living. Bieringer 
 was considered by his fellow-citizens as a well-con- 
 ducted and upright man, who loved society, without 
 neglecting his business, and was not addicted to drink- 
 ing or gaming. The chief cause of dissension between 
 him and his wife was rather her love of dress and 
 quarrelsome disposition than any fault of his. All
 
 138 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 who were acquainted with him said that they knew of 
 no stain upon his honour or good name. 
 
 Even if Rupprecht's intention to deprive Bieringer 
 of all power over his daughter's fortune appeared 
 a sufficient motive for the murder of his father- 
 in-law, it remained to be proved that Bieringer was 
 aware of the project. But on examination it appeared 
 the old man confided his thoughts to none but his 
 friend and his daughter, who certainly could have no 
 interest in betraying the secret to her husband. Nei- 
 ther his brother nor his sisters knew anything what- 
 ever of the matter. It is true that on the day he was 
 murdered his maid was present when he talked of 
 making his will, but he mentioned it quite vaguely 
 without entering into any particulars. 
 
 It was proved beyond doubt that Bieringer could 
 not have committed the murder himself. On the 
 evening of the 7th February he was at a tavern 
 called the Golden Fish, distant full ten minutes' walk 
 from that frequented by Rupprecht. He was dressed 
 as usual, and carried no weapon, not even a stick. 
 Here he remained till a quarter past ten o'clock at 
 night, and at half-past ten he came home and took off 
 his clothes. He was found undressed by the man who 
 went to his house in order to fetch his wife to her 
 father. It was therefore impossible that he could have 
 stayed at the Golden Fish until a quarter past ten 
 o'clock, have murdered his father-in-law at a tavern 
 some distance off, and be back in his own house, 
 which was distant at least a mile from the scene of 
 the murder, by half-past ten. 
 
 At the commencement of the inquiry the judge had 
 endeavoured to discover with whom Rupprecht had
 
 THE UNKNOWN MURDERER. 139 
 
 dealings, and more especially who had been with him 
 on the 7th February. The evidence given by Rup- 
 precht's maid seemed important. She stated that 
 among others three trumpeters belonging to the regi- 
 ment quartered in the town had been with Rupprecht 
 on business on the very day of the murder, and had 
 been told by him to call again on the following day : 
 they did not return, having probably heard what had 
 occurred. These three men were immediately arrested 
 and examined. Although their depositions agreed on 
 every point, and each one separately stated where they 
 had been at the time of the murder, it nevertheless ap- 
 peared as if one of these three trumpeters must be the 
 murderer. One of them owed Rupprecht money, 
 which he had no means of paying, and his two com- 
 rades had accompanied him to Rupprecht's house, 
 nobody exactly knew why. On the same evening 
 Rupprecht received a deadly blow, and the wound 
 presented the appearance of a sabre-cut inflicted by a 
 practised hand. 
 
 But this was " like the lightning, which doth cease 
 to be ere you can say it lightens." Alibis were most 
 clearly proved : two of them had been at their bar- 
 racks, and the third had been sitting from eight till 
 eleven in some tavern, whence he went straight to the 
 hospital. 
 
 One means of detection, however, seems to have been 
 forgotten. The physicians stated that the wound was 
 to all appearance inflicted by a sabre, and it is pro- 
 bable that some discovery might have been made, had 
 the arms of the garrison, and of the burgher guard, been 
 examined on the morning after the murder. But when 
 the court began the inquiry, it was already too late to
 
 1 10 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 hope for any results, even had this suggestion, made 
 by the judge, been attended to. His colleagues were 
 so completely possessed by the idea that the murderous 
 blow had been inflicted by an axe wielded by a wood- 
 cutter, that they negatived a proposal founded on the 
 supposition that Rupprecht had been killed by a sabre- 
 cut. 
 
 Meanwhile two men, whose names were unknown, 
 became the subject of inquiry. On the day after the 
 murder, Rupprecht's confidant and fellow-lodger, 
 Hogner, laid information before the court as follows : 
 " At about half-past five in the afternoon of the fatal 
 Friday, Rupprecht came to me and requested me to 
 allow his maid to spend the evening in my rooms, as 
 two gentlemen were coming to him, with whom he 
 wished to be alone. The maid came and stayed 
 about an hour and a half, when Rupprecht returned 
 and gave her the key of his rooms, saying that 
 he was going to the tavern." The maid confirmed 
 this statement, adding that as she went down stairs to 
 fetch her supper she had seen through the window 
 which looks from the kitchen into Rupprecht's room 
 two young men, who were busied with something on 
 the table. But this mysterious affair was soon cleared 
 up : the two gentlemen were the regimental tailor 
 and a shoemaker, the former of whom borrowed of 
 Rupprecht the sum of 600 florins for three months, 
 giving a bill for 650 florins, and leaving a large 
 quantity of cloth as a pledge in Rupprecht's hands. 
 His friend the shoemaker merely acted as a witness in 
 the transaction. 
 
 Several other men were arrested on divers suspi- 
 cions, but all brought forward witnesses who com-
 
 THE UNKNOWN MURDERER. 141 
 
 pletely disculpated them. The court was therefore 
 forced to rest content after releasing Abraham Schmidt 
 from his provisory arrest, and to close the proceedings 
 until fresh suspicions should arise. 
 
 Ten years, writes Feuerbach in 1828, have since 
 passed, and the manner of Rupprecht's death is still 
 involved in mystery. 
 
 Most likely the old usurer was murdered out of 
 revenge or hatred by some disappointed suitor for a 
 loan, or by a debtor who thought this the easiest way 
 of paying his debt, and whose name was never known 
 owing to Rupprecht's habit of keeping no regular ac- 
 counts and trusting chiefly to his memory. Not one 
 even of his nearest relations knew the exact state of 
 the old man's affairs ; even Hogner was only admitted 
 to his confidence in cases of absolute necessity, when 
 he wanted to have a note of hand looked out from 
 among his papers, or to get them put in order. Thus 
 probably the only clue to the discovery of Rupprecht's 
 murderer was buried with him.
 
 ANNA MARIA ZWANZIGER, 
 
 THE GERMAN BRINVILLIERS. 
 
 IN the year 1807 a widow, nearly fifty years of age, 
 calling herself Nanette Schb'nleben, lived at Pegnitz 
 in the territory of Baireuth, supporting herself by 
 knitting. Her conduct gained her a reputation which 
 induced Justice Wolfgang Glaser, who was then living 
 at Rosendorf separated from his wife, to take her as 
 his housekeeper, on the 5th March, 1808. On the 
 22nd of the following July Glaser was reconciled to 
 his wife, who had been living with her relations at 
 Grieshaber near Augsburg. Soon after her return 
 to her husband's house, though a strong healthy 
 woman, she was suddenly seized with violent vomit- 
 ing, diarrhoea, &c., and on the 26th August, a month 
 after the reconciliation, she died. 
 
 Anna Schb'nleben now left Glaser's service, and on 
 the 25th September she went to live as housekeeper 
 with Justice Grohmann at Sanspareil. Her new 
 master, who was unmarried, was thirty-eight years 
 of age, and though a large and powerful man, had 
 suffered from gout for several years, and was often 
 confined to his bed. On these occasions Anna 
 Schb'nleben always nursed him with the utmost care. 
 In the spring of 1809 he was seized with an illness 
 more violent than any he had had before, and accom-
 
 ANNA MARIA ZWANZIGER. 143 
 
 panied by entirely new symptoms, violent vomiting, 
 pains in the stomach, diarrhoea, heat and dryness of 
 the skin, inflammation of the mouth and throat, in- 
 satiable thirst, and excessive weakness and pains in 
 the limbs. He died on the 8th May, after an illness 
 of eleven days, and his housekeeper appeared incon- 
 solable for his loss. Every one, the medical men 
 included, took it for granted that Grohmann, who had 
 long been ailing, had died a natural death. 
 
 Anna Schonleben was once more out of place, but 
 her reputation for kindness, activity, attention and skill 
 as a sick-nurse soon procured her a new home. At 
 the time of Grohmann's death the wife of the ma- 
 gistrate Gebhard was just expecting to be brought to 
 bed, and asked Anna Schonleben to attend her as 
 nurse and housekeeper during her lying-in. Anna 
 Schonleben, always willing to oblige, readily agreed, 
 and from the day of the confinement she resided in 
 Gebhard's house, dividing her time between the care 
 of the household and of the child. Madame Gebhard 
 was confined on the 13th May, 1809, and both the 
 mother and the child were doing very well until the 
 third day, which the mother fell ill. Her illness be- 
 came more alarming every day ; she was seized with 
 violent vomiting, nervous agitation, distressing heat 
 in the intestines, inflammation in the throat, &c. ; and 
 on the 20th May, seven days after her confinement, 
 she died, exclaiming in her agony, " Merciful Heaven ! 
 you have given me poison ! " As Madame Gebhard 
 had always been sickly, and moreover had died in 
 childbirth, her death excited no suspicion, and, like 
 Madame Glaser and Grohmann, she was buried with- 
 out more ado. The widower, embarrassed by his
 
 144 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 household and the infant which was left upon his 
 hands, thought that he could do nothing better than 
 to keep Anna Schonleben as his housekeeper. Several 
 persons endeavoured to change his resolution. They 
 said that this woman carried death with her wherever 
 she went ; that three young persons whom she had 
 served, had died one after the other within a very 
 short time. No one made the smallest accusation 
 against her ; their warnings arose from a mere super- 
 stitious dread of an unfortunate sympathetic influence 
 exercised by her upon those with whom she lived : 
 her obliging deportment, her piety, and her air of 
 honesty, humility and kindness, protected her from 
 every breath of suspicion. Thus she remained for 
 several months in Gebhard's service unsuspected and 
 unaccused. 
 
 During her residence in Gebhard's house various 
 suspicious events occurred, without, however, exciting 
 attention. On the 25th August, 1809, a certain 
 Beck, and the widow Alberti, dined with Gebhard. 
 Soon after dinner they were both seized with violent 
 vomiting, colic, spasms, &c., which lasted until late 
 at night. About the same time she gave the messen- 
 ger Rosenhauer a glass of white wine, and not long 
 after he had swallowed it he was attacked in precisely 
 the same manner, and was so ill as to be forced to go to 
 bed. On the very same day she took Rosenhauer's 
 porter, a lad of nineteen named Johann Kraus, into 
 the cellar and gave him a glass of brandy. After 
 drinking a small quantity he perceived a sort of white 
 sediment in it, and therefore left the rest, but in a 
 short time he felt very sick. During the last week 
 of August, one of Gebhard's maid-servants, Barbara
 
 ANNA MARIA ZWANZIGER. 145 
 
 Waldmann, with whom Anna Schonleben had had 
 several trifling disputes, was taken ill after drinking 
 a cup of coffee, and vomited every half-hour during 
 the whole day. The most remarkable occurrence, 
 however, took place on the 1st September. Gebhard, 
 while playing at skittles with a party of his friends, 
 sent for a few pitchers of beer from his own cellar. 
 He and five other persons drank some of the beer, and 
 were seized soon after with sickness and internal 
 pains ; some of the party, among whom was Gebhard, 
 were so ill as to require medical aid. 
 
 This first inspired distrust and dislike of Anna 
 Schonleben. On the following day, chiefly at the 
 instigation of one of his fellow-sufferers at the skittle- 
 ground, Gebhard dismissed her from his service, but 
 gave her a written character for honesty and fidelity. 
 
 She was to leave Sanspareil for Baireuth on the 
 next day 3rd September. She expressed her sur- 
 prise at so sudden a dismissal, but was civil and 
 obliging as usual, and busied herself during the whole 
 evening in various domestic arrangements. Among 
 other things she took the salt-box out of the kitchen 
 (which was no part of her usual duty), and filled it 
 from a barrel of salt which stood in Gebhard's bed- 
 room. When the maid-servant Waldmann commented 
 upon this, Anna Schonleben said, in a jesting manner, 
 that she must do so, for that if those who were going 
 away filled the salt-box, the other servants would 
 keep their places the longer. On the morning of 
 her departure she affected the greatest friendship for 
 the two maid -servants, Hazin and Waldmann, and 
 gave each of them a cup of coffee sweetened with 
 
 L
 
 146 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 sugar which she took out of a piece of paper. While 
 the carriage was waiting for her at the door she took 
 Gebhard's child, ail infant five months old, in her 
 arms, gave it a biscuit soaked in milk to eat, then let 
 it drink the milk, and finally parted from it with 
 the most tender caresses, and got into the carriage 
 which was to convey her to Baireuth, and which 
 Gebhard paid for, besides giving her a crown dollar 
 and some chocolate. 
 
 She had been gone scarce half an hour when the 
 child became alarmingly ill and vomited terribly, and 
 in a few hours more the two maid-servants were 
 attacked in the same manner ; and now, for the first 
 time, suspicion was excited. On hearing from his 
 servants how Anna Schonleben had busied herself, 
 Gebhard had the contents of the kitchen salt-box ana- 
 lyzed by a chemist, and a large quantity of arsenic 
 was found among it. The salt-barrel was likewise 
 found at the trial to contain thirty grains of arsenic 
 to every three pounds of salt. 
 
 To these facts were now added a number of hitherto 
 unnoticed reports of persons who had been taken ill 
 immediately after eating or drinking at Glaser's and 
 Grohmann's houses, whilst Anna Schonleben was in 
 their service. Moreover it came out that Schonleben 
 was only her maiden name, and that she was in fact 
 the widow of a notary called Zwanziger, who had 
 lived at Niirnberg. 
 
 It is strange that after all these discoveries it was 
 not till the 29th September that Gebhard laid informa- 
 tion against her at the criminal court of Baireuth, 
 which immediately appointed chief magistrate Brater
 
 ANNA MARIA ZWANZIGER. 147 
 
 to conduct the inquiry. He went at once to the spot, 
 where the charges against her of various cases of 
 poisoning were confirmed, and increased in number. 
 
 The most important point was to discover the causes 
 of the sudden and unexpected deaths of those three 
 persons whom Anna Schonleben had served in suc- 
 cession since 1808. The body of Madame Glaser 
 was dug up on the 23rd October, in the churchyard 
 at Rasendorf. It presented in a very remarkable 
 manner all those appearances which the discoveries of 
 modern science have taught us to regard as the pecu- 
 liar symptoms of death from arsenic. Although the 
 body had been buried for fourteen months, it was 
 very little decomposed, dried up and hardened like a 
 mummy, and the skin was the colour of mahogany. 
 The abdomen was rather swollen and gave a peculiar 
 hollow sound when struck. The coats and muscles of 
 the stomach were converted into a substance resem- 
 bling cheese in appearance and smell, and the whole 
 body emitted the same peculiar odour. On the follow- 
 ing day the body of Madame Gebhard and that of 
 Grohmann, which had lain in the earth for nearly six 
 months, were disinterred in the churchyard at Won- 
 sers, and presented exactly the same appearances as 
 that of Glaser's wife. On investigation the intestines 
 of the two female corpses were found to contain 
 arsenic. In those of Grohmann the presence of the 
 poison was not discovered, although his body ex- 
 hibited every symptom of it. 
 
 Meanwhile, Anna Schonleben, or, as we will hence- 
 forth call her, Zwanziger, felt perfectly secure. On 
 quitting Gebhard's service she had left a letter for him 
 in which she reproached him with exaggerated sensi- 
 
 L2
 
 148 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 bility for the ingratitude with which he had repaid 
 her care of him, and her devotion to his child. 
 " If," says she, " the child should he restless and 
 unhappy, my guardian angel will say to you, ' Why 
 didst thou take from her that which she held most 
 dear ?' If, six weeks hence, you should ask for me, 
 you will hear 'She is no more,' and then woe to your 
 heart, for it will break; woe to those who have calum- 
 niated me to you." She then prays God to reward 
 him for his kindness, begs him to continue his friend- 
 ship to her, and promises to write to him every fort- 
 night. This promise she faithfully kept ; and both 
 from Baireuth, where she actually quartered herself 
 for a month upon the mother of Gebhard's dead wife, 
 and afterwards from Niirnberg, she sent him several 
 letters, in which she tells him the state of her health, 
 how well she was received, and how soon she hoped 
 to get a place, and then recommends herself to the 
 "kind recollection of her revered master;" or talks 
 about " her darling child," sends it kisses, and asks 
 after its health. It is clear that she hoped no less 
 than to be recalled by Gebhard, and that the true 
 purpose of her letters was to put this into his head 
 by every means in her power as frequently as pos- 
 sible. She was equally lavish of her letters to 
 several other persons. Among others she wrote to 
 Glaser and offered him her services again as house- 
 keeper. After waiting in vain both at Baireuth and 
 at Niirnberg for a recall, she went to Mainbernheirn 
 in Franconia, where she hoped to be received by her 
 son-in-law, a bookbinder called Sauer. But he had 
 meanwhile divorced her daughter, who was in the 
 house of correction for stealing and swindling, and
 
 AXXA MARIA ZWANZIGER. 149 
 
 was celebrating his second marriage on the very 
 dav on which his former mother-in-law arrived at his 
 
 / 
 
 house. This disagreeable coincidence soon caused 
 her to leave Mainbernheim, and return to Niirnberg, 
 where she was immediately arrested on the 18th 
 October, 1809. On searching her person two packets 
 of tartar emetic and one of arsenic were found in her 
 pocket. 
 
 We will postpone for the present the history of her 
 life, which came out on her examination at Culmbach 
 and at Niirnberg, though only piecemeal and in very 
 general terms. Neither would it answer our purpose 
 to follow the long course of examination, as it would 
 be impossible to describe the cunning and adroitness 
 with which the criminal contrived to evade all ques- 
 tions and remonstrances, or the patience, prudence, 
 and skill with which the judge enclosed her within 
 narrow and narrower circles, until she was no longer 
 able to resist the truth. From the 19th October, 1809, 
 till the 16th April, 1810, she resolutely denied every 
 accusation connected with the charge of poisoning. 
 On the last-named day she appeared before her judge 
 with perfect composure, believing that all the evidence 
 against her was exhausted, when he opened the pro- 
 ceedings with the unexpected announcement that 
 the body of Glaser's wife had been dug up ; that upon 
 minute investigation she was found to have been 
 poisoned with arsenic, and that there was the strongest 
 ground for suspicion that the poison had been admi- 
 nistered by the prisoner. After the judge had repre- 
 sented this to her in various forms during two whole 
 hours, her courage at length gave way. She wept, 
 wrung her hands, protested her innocence, and >en-
 
 150 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 deavoured to mislead the judge in broken and uncon- 
 nected sentences which she uttered with great rapidity 
 and in evident terror, and at length confessed 
 that she had twice given poison to Glaser's wife, at 
 the same time interweaving with her confession an 
 atrocious calumny. The words had scarcely passed 
 her lips when she fell as if struck by lightning, rolled 
 upon the floor in strong convulsions, and had to be 
 carried out of court. 
 
 The poisonings which Anna Zwanziger partly con- 
 fessed and partly was proved to have committed, were 
 as follows : 
 
 Justice Glaser, a man upwards of fifty, had lived 
 for several years separate from his wife, from no fault 
 of his own, when, on the 25th March, 1808, he took 
 Anna Zwanziger into his service, at the recommenda- 
 tion of his son. She soon contrived to ingratiate her- 
 self with her master, and to place herself upon a foot- 
 ing almost of equality with him. She had not been 
 long in his service before she began to be very 
 officious in endeavouring to effect a reconciliation 
 between him and his wife, partly indeed without 
 Glaser's knowledge or consent. Not satisfied with 
 using all her powers of persuasion to induce Glaser 
 to take back his wife, she opened a secret corre- 
 spondence with the latter, who was living with her 
 brother at Grieshaber, wrote to several friends of the 
 family in order to induce them to assist in the work 
 of reconciliation, among others to the neighbouring 
 Catholic priest at Holfeld, enclosing a piece of money, 
 with the request, Protestant as she was, that a mass 
 might be read for the success of her undertaking. 
 
 She at length succeeded in persuading the wife to
 
 ANNA MARIA ZWANZIGER. 151 
 
 return, and the husband to receive her. Madame 
 Glaser left Grieshaber, and, a few days before her 
 arrival in Kasendorf, she wrote to one of her relations 
 to announce that on the following Wednesday a formal 
 reconciliation would take place between her husband 
 and herself. 
 
 On the 22nd July, 1808, Glaser went to meet his 
 wife at Holfeld, and on returning with her to Kasen- 
 dorf he was met by a brilliant reception which had 
 been prepared by Anna Zwanziger to celebrate the 
 reconciliation. All Kasendorf was in commotion : the 
 floors of the house were strewn with flowers, and the 
 doorposts and walls hung with garlands ; the bed was 
 decorated with wreaths, and on it was pinned an orna- 
 mental sheet of paper with the words 
 
 The widow's hand 
 Hath joined this band. 
 
 The poetry and the writing were Anna Zwanziger's. 
 
 The real motive for her uncalled-for interference in 
 this affair is obvious. In spite of her age and ugli- 
 ness, she expected no less than that Glaser would 
 marry her in the event of his wife's death, and she 
 herself confessed that she hoped by this murder to 
 secure a provision for her old age. 
 
 Thus she acted the pious part of a peacemaker 
 merely with the view of getting Glaser's wife into her 
 power, and welcomed and caressed her victim in order 
 the more quickly and safely to sacrifice her. 
 
 Madame Glaser had been only a few weeks in the 
 house of her husband, who treated her with the 
 greatest kindness and affection, when Anna Zwanziger 
 began to put her scheme into execution. On the 
 13th or 14th August, she put, as she declared, half a
 
 152 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 teaspoonful of arsenic into some tea which stood at the 
 fire, and gave it to Madame Glaser, who drank it, 
 and soon after was seized with vomiting. " When I 
 gave her the arsenic in the tea," said Zwanziger, " I 
 said to myself, I must make my old age comfortable, 
 and if the poison does not do her business this time, 
 why I will give it her again till it does." And accord- 
 ingly a few days afterwards, on the 15th August, be- 
 tween four and five in the afternoon, she dissolved a 
 large dessert spoonful of tartar emetic in a cup of 
 coffee, and invited Madame Glaser into her room to 
 drink it. She did so, and drank her death. That 
 night she was seized with vomiting and pains in the 
 intestines, which increased in violence, and in ten days 
 she was a corpse. " When/' said Zwanziger, " I had 
 mixed the poison in the cup, and saw how thick it was, 
 I said to myself, Lord Jesus ! this time she must surely 
 die." 
 
 It is highly characteristic of Zwanziger that in her 
 confession she endeavoured to implicate Justice Glaser 
 in crime; she accused him of having instigated her 
 to murder his wife, of being privy to the attempt with 
 the tea, and of having given her the tartar emetic to 
 put in the coffee, with the words " There, do you 
 give it to her ; such carrion is no loss." In conse- 
 quence of this statement, Justice Glaser was arrested 
 and involved in the examination, which, however, 
 terminated in his complete acquittal. 
 
 About a week before the first attempt on Glaser's 
 wife, a certain Wagenholz, with his wife and son, came 
 to call on the Glasers, and stopped to supper. Soon 
 after, the whole party were taken ill with sickness and 
 vomiting. Next day Zwanziger gave the remains of
 
 ANNA MARIA ZWANZIGER. 153 
 
 the food to the son of Harbach, the watchman, and he 
 too was so sick as to be confined to his bed for some 
 time. It is uncertain whether her object was merely 
 to try the effect of her poison preparatory to her more 
 important scheme, or whether the guests were unwel- 
 come to her and she wished to punish them for coming 
 uninvited, and her master and mistress for receiving 
 them too graciously. However this may be, she de- 
 nied the charge altogether, at the same time taking 
 the opportunity of throwing fresh suspicion upon 
 Glaser. " He was," said she, " as savage as Satan 
 himself against Wagenholz and his wife, and I thought 
 at the time that he must have put something into the 
 food, for I was very sick and ill myself." 
 
 After Madame Glaser's death, on the 25th Sep- 
 tember of the same year, 1808, she was taken into 
 Justice Grohmann's service. Here her envy and jea- 
 lousy were immediately excited by the two messengers 
 Lawrence and Johann Dorsch, who, besides their 
 official duties, rendered various domestic services to 
 Grohmann. Moreover she asserted that they con- 
 stantly teazed and laughed at her, and it vexed her 
 that they drank too much beer. " I determined," said 
 the prisoner, " to spoil their appetite, and took four 
 pitchers of beer, two of which I mixed with tartar 
 emetic, and the other two with a larger dose of ar- 
 senic ; my intention was to give them the contents of 
 these pitchers by degrees, not in order to kill them, 
 but only to make them sick. I once set one of 
 these poisoned pitchers before them, but they did not 
 like the taste of the beer, and drank very little of it, 
 after which they emptied another pitcher, which con- 
 tained no poison."
 
 154 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 The two Dorschs felt no bad effect whatever, and 
 Zwanziger never repeated the attempt, probably be- 
 cause her attention was speedily directed to a more 
 important object. 
 
 In the spring of 1809 Justice Christopher Hoffmann, 
 of Wiesenfels, visited Grohmann, who was then ill in 
 bed. A few glasses of beer, which tasted flat 
 and unpleasant, were given to him, but he cannot 
 remember by whom, and immediately after he went 
 to see Gebhard. Scarce had he arrived at Gebhard's 
 house, when he felt very sick and went out into the 
 air, whereupon he was seized with violent vomiting. 
 The prisoner denied having poisoned him intentionally, 
 but said that she put the pitchers which she had 
 mixed with poison for the Dorschs into the cellar 
 with the rest of the beer without marking them, and 
 that she was unable to distinguish the poisoned from 
 the unpoisoned beer. " Thus then," said she, " it is 
 possible that he may have drunk some of the poisoned 
 beer by accident, but it certainly was never my in- 
 tention even to make him sick, for he was a very 
 respectable and excellent man, for whom I had a great 
 regard, arid who had always shown me every respect, 
 as also had his wife." 
 
 One day Madame Schell and her husband went to 
 see Grohmann, and she drank a cup of coffee. During 
 the course of her visit at Grohmann's she fainted and 
 vomited the prisoner denied having given her any 
 poison, and there was room for doubt, as Madame 
 Schell did not remember distinctly whether she was 
 taken ill before drinking the coffee or after. 
 
 It was not juridically proved that Grohmann died 
 by poison, but the unusual symptoms that appeared
 
 ANNA MAMA ZWANZIGER. 155 
 
 during his last illness, the traces of arsenic found in 
 the exhumed corpse, and the opinion of the physicians 
 attached to the court, rendered it not only possible, 
 but highly probable. A probability, amounting al- 
 most to certainty, pointed out Anna Zwanziger as the 
 poisoner. A person who had already poisoned one 
 woman, who was in the constant habit of dealing with 
 poisons, and who kept a large store of poisoned drink 
 ready in Grohmann's house, which she had, accord- 
 ing to her own confession, already used to the injury 
 of two persons on the very slightest provocation, 
 such a person would look upon such a deed as a com- 
 monplace occurrence. Moreover she was constantly 
 about her master while suffering from gout; sought 
 to keep away those who wished to wait upon him, and 
 was angry when others gave him his medicines. These 
 suspicions were strengthened by her violent demon- 
 stration of grief at Grohmann's death, and the cries and 
 lamentations with which she made the whole house 
 resound, more especially whenever any stranger came 
 into the room. Nor are her motives for murdering 
 him difficult to guess. Ill as he was, Grohmann 
 intended to marry the daughter of the neighbouring 
 Justice Herrgott, at Dachsbach. Grohmann's court- 
 ship and the prospect of his marriage were highly dis- 
 tasteful to Anna Zwanziger, and she showed this in 
 various ways. Every letter that went to or came 
 from Dachsbach was watched, waylaid, and ex- 
 amined. Grohmann once told Madame Schell that 
 he was by no means satisfied with his housekeeper ; 
 that " she imagined every letter he received contained 
 some offer of marriage, and that, old as she was, she 
 had actually taken it into her head that he would
 
 156 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 marry her." John Dorsch also said, " Whenever I 
 went to the house, and asked after the health of her 
 master, her constant answer was, * Why, he is always 
 ill, and yet, to be sure, he wants to marry." She 
 talked in the same strain to Grohmann's sister : " Your 
 brother's intended is accustomed to a merry life, and 
 will never be happy in such a quiet place as Sans- 
 pariel, with nothing to do but to be always mixing 
 draughts." At length there was a report in Groh- 
 mann's house that the banns had actually been pub- 
 lished, and that the bride was expected in eight days ; 
 this threw Zwanziger's tongue and temper into a state 
 of extraordinary excitement. Just at this time Groh- 
 mann was taken ill, and in a few days he died. If 
 we consider these circumstances and the woman's cha- 
 racter, the following explanation appears extremely 
 probable : That she, who never entered any man's 
 service without reckoning upon him as her future hus- 
 band, indulged like hopes of Grohmann. But when, 
 spite of all the flattery and subservience by which she 
 had hoped to worm herself into his good graces, she 
 found herself disappointed, anger against her master, 
 envy of the young girl whose good fortune she envied, 
 hatred of them both, and of the marriage which she 
 foresaw would cost her her place these were sufficient 
 to induce a person of her disposition to resolve upon 
 punishing Grohmann by death, and his intended bride 
 by depriving her of her bridegroom and thus to 
 avenge her jealous fury upon them both. The most 
 charitable interpretation of which her conduct admits, 
 is, that she administered the poison to him with the 
 object of keeping him continually so ill as to prevent 
 the marriage, and by making herself necessary to him
 
 ANNA MARIA ZWANZIGER. 157 
 
 as a nurse, of securing the permanence of her situation. 
 She denied having poisoned Grohmann intentionally, 
 but admitted that he accidentally drank some of the 
 poisoned beer which she kept ready for the Dorschs. 
 When she set the poisoned pitcher before them, they 
 refused to touch it, and placed it on a table with the 
 other pitchers intended for Grohmann and his visitors. 
 " The three remaining poisoned pitchers," she con- 
 tinued, " I placed in the cellar with those containing 
 the sound beer, and, as I had not marked them dis- 
 tinctly, the pitchers got mixed, so that I could no 
 longer distinguish between those which were poisoned 
 and those which were not. It is therefore very possible 
 that Grohmann may have drunk some of the poisoned 
 beer, in the same manner as Hoffmann also did. I 
 cannot deny that he vomited very often. But Groh- 
 mann was much too valuable to me that I should 
 injure him purposely; he was all in all to me; and 
 what he ate, that 1 ate too. He was my best friend, 
 and never offended me, so that I had nothing to re- 
 venge upon him." 
 
 According to the strict letter of the law, the inten- 
 tional poisoning was not clearly proved, but no un- 
 prejudiced person could entertain any doubt of it. 
 How improbable is the statement by which she at- 
 tempted to explain away her crime ! Grohmann is 
 " her all in all ; her best friend ;" and yet she leaves 
 a pitcher of poisoned beer in his way ; she knows that 
 the pitchers of poisoned and sound beer are mixed to- 
 gether in the cellar, and yet, regardless of the conse- 
 quences, she places those which may possibly be 
 poisoned before her sick and " highly treasured best 
 friend !"
 
 158 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 On the 24th May, 1810, the body of Madame Geb- 
 hard was again disinterred and shown to Zwanziger, 
 in the churchyard at Wonsers. She touched the right 
 hand, saying, * Peace be with your ashes ! I wish I 
 lay in the grave by your side; I should there be 
 freed from my woes !" She was then led to Groh- 
 mann's grave. " Yes," said she, " this is the grave of 
 Justice Grohmann ! With his death, as with Ma- 
 dame Gebhard's, I had nothing to do." Madame 
 Gebhard, however, was, as she afterwards confessed, 
 actually poisoned by her. She therefore probably had 
 as much to do with Grohmann's death as with Ma- 
 dame Gebhard's; and her asseverations at his grave 
 may be considered as a sort of veiled and half ironical 
 admission that she was as innocent of his murder as 
 of Madame Gebhard's. In Gebhard's house, which 
 she entered on the 13th May, 1809, as housekeeper 
 and monthly nurse, her career of guilt was still more 
 rapid. 
 
 Scarce had she been in the house four days before 
 she selected the lying-in woman as her victim. " Be- 
 cause," said the prisoner, " Madame Gebhard was 
 very cross, treated me roughly, and scolded me for 
 having, as she said, neglected the housekeeping, 
 I resolved to poison her." On Wednesday the 17th 
 May, Zwanziger accordingly went into the cellar, 
 where she poisoned two pitchers of beer, one with 
 as much tartar emetic as she could take up between 
 the fingers of her right hand, and the other with 
 a still stronger dose of arsenic. On the same day a 
 glass jug was filled out of the first pitcher for the 
 lying-in woman; and Gebhard himself, unconscious 
 of what he was doing, repeatedly handed the poisonous
 
 ANNA MARIA ZWANZTGER. 159 
 
 draught to his wife. On Friday the 19th May, the day 
 before her death, the contents of the second pitcher 
 were placed before the sick woman, who drank but 
 little. " I did not give her the poison to kill her," 
 said Zwanziger, " but only to plague her by making 
 her sick, because she had plagued me. I knew very 
 well that the beer could do her no harm. Had I 
 thought that Madame Gebhard died by my fault, I 
 would have laid myself in the grave beside her ; for 
 she had always been fond of me ; she was my best 
 friend, and always helped me byword and deed; she 
 praised me wherever she went, and was invariably kind 
 to me. We were like two sisters ; we constantly met 
 and talked about economical matters." The malice 
 and duplicity exhibited in this statement surpass all 
 one can believe of human depravity, and it presents a 
 very remarkable parallel to her declarations about 
 Grohmann. She confessed that she intentionally gave 
 poison to her " best friend her sister her friend in 
 word and deed," Madame Gebhard ; and on the 
 other hand she asked, how could she have wished to 
 poison Grohmann, who was her " best friend her all 
 in all." 
 
 No one can doubt that her assertion that she did not 
 give Madame Gebhard poison with the intention of 
 causing her death, was a mere lie. Why, if she did not 
 want to destroy her, did she, after the first pitcher was 
 exhausted, give to her mistress already dangerously 
 ill the beer containing a still larger dose of poison ? 
 Nor does her assertion that she did it to revenge insult 
 and unkindness at all agree with any other part of the 
 evidence. It was completely proved by the evidence of 
 a number of witnesses, and by several passages in
 
 160 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 letters found in her commode, that she had conceived 
 the same wishes and formed the same scheme with 
 regard to Gebhard as she had already done with 
 regard to Glaser and Grohmann ; and although she 
 had no ground for hope that Gebhard would marry 
 her, still there was always the possibility that if left a 
 widower he might be induced to do so ; and to a per- 
 son of her character this was sufficient reason for 
 putting his wife out of the way. 
 
 Towards the end of August, as we have already 
 stated, Beck, a shopman, and the widow of the secre- 
 tary Alberti, dined with Gebhard, and were poisoned. 
 The prisoner confessed this charge. She said that 
 Beck had occasionally teased and laughed at her, and 
 that she gave him some beer mixed with arsenic out 
 of the same pitcher from which Madame Gebhard had 
 been poisoned, and which, when half empty, she had 
 merely filled up with fresh beer. She declared that 
 it was never her intention to kill^ him, but only to 
 punish him for laughing at her. "I must confess," 
 said she, " that it was good fun to see people who had 
 teased me made very sick." She also acknowledged 
 that Madame Alberti drank out of the same pitcher, 
 but added, that it was not her intention that she 
 should do so, for that she dissuaded her from it, and 
 gave her a cordial and some coffee after she had been 
 made sick by the poisoned beer. 
 
 She denied having poisoned the messenger Rosen- 
 hauer with wine, but confessed having done so with 
 beer. She said that she had an antipathy to Rosen- 
 hauer because he told tales against her, and that she 
 gave him some of the same beer that she gave to Beck 
 a few days later, in order to punish him ; adding that
 
 ANNA MARIA ZWANZIGER. 16 1 
 
 on both occasions she did no more than fill up 
 the pitcher from which Madame Gebhard had been 
 poisoned. 
 
 With regard to the charge of poisoning Rosen- 
 hauer's lad, she did not deny the deed, but only the 
 means alleged. She said that " it was contrary to 
 common sense to suppose that any one could be 
 poisoned in brandy, which is so clear that the least 
 grain of dust could be seen in it ; but that as Kraus 
 had always been very rude to her, she gave him a 
 glass of the poisoned beer to make him sick." Her 
 statement is in direct contradiction to the fact that 
 Kraus was taken ill after drinking some muddy- 
 looking brandy given him by Zwanziger; whereas 
 he affirmed that she had frequently given him beer, 
 from which he had never perceived any ill effects. 
 
 It is likewise proved that on the 1st September, 
 Gebhard, Beck, his brother, who had been poisoned by 
 Zwanziger only a few days before, the burghermaster 
 Petz and the clerk Scherber, who were assembled on 
 the skittle-ground, were all taken ill after drinking 
 some beer which was sent by Zwanziger, at her 
 master's desire, and out of his cellar. Zwanziger 
 resolutely denied any criminal intention ; she asserted 
 that she did not know how it happened ; " that perhaps 
 some sediment might have remained in the bottom of 
 the two pitchers originally prepared for Madame 
 Gebhard, that they may have been filled up afresh, 
 and that she may have sent them by accident." 
 Nothing can be more improbable than this statement 
 and nothing more certain than her guilt, according to 
 all the rules of experience and common sense. She, 
 to whom, according to her own confession, it was 
 
 M
 
 162 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 " great fun " to watch the torments of the people 
 whom she had poisoned, might think it vastly droll to 
 spoil the sport of a whole party and be entertained by 
 the mere thought of their pains, contortions, and wry 
 faces; not to mention that among them was Beck, 
 whom she hated, and on whom she had played the 
 same trick only a few days before. 
 
 Nor is her statement that she did all this with the 
 same two pitchers, into which she had put poison on 
 the 17th May, without adding any fresh arsenic to 
 the old sediment, at all more credible ; if it were true, 
 they must have strangely resembled the widow's cruse 
 of oil. First, Madame Gebhard was. destroyed by their 
 contents ; next Beck and Madame Alberti each drank 
 several glasses, after which they were both violently 
 ill ; then Rosenhauer and Kraus ; and finally a party 
 of five persons, who were all -taken ill, and most of 
 whom felt the effects of the poison for months. The 
 following circumstance gives the key to a far more 
 probable explanation: On the evening before her 
 departure from Gebhard's house, after he had taken 
 the keys from her, she went into the cellar with 
 Scherber, the clerk, in order to show him, what he 
 could easily have found without her, the place where 
 the candles were kept. As Scherber was going out 
 again with the candles, she took up a little earthen 
 jar, saying that she would take it with her, for that it 
 had stood there for a long time past. She then gave 
 it to the housemaid, and told her to wash it ; and in 
 doing so the latter perceived a hard white deposit, 
 about one-eighth of an inch thick, in the bottom of 
 the jar. This was in all probability the vessel in which 
 she prepared the poison for the beer as often as she
 
 ANNA MARIA ZWANZIGER. 163 
 
 wanted it. She denied any concern with the sickness 
 which attacked the two maid-servants, Hazin and 
 Waldman, after drinking the coffee. On the other 
 hand, she confessed that she put poison into the salt- 
 box in the kitchen on the evening before she left Geb- 
 hard's house. " I must confess," these are her own 
 words, " that on the evening before my departure I 
 mixed the contents of the salt-box which is used in the 
 kitchen with arsenic, in order that after I was gone 
 everybody who stayed in the house might get some 
 of it, and also in order to get the maid into trouble. 
 I took a pinch of arsenic out of my pocket, went with 
 it from my bed-room into the kitchen, whence I carried 
 the salt-box into the servants' hall, and dropped the 
 arsenic into it while I stirred the salt three times, and 
 made some joke about it." 
 
 Now the store of salt in the barrel was likewise 
 found to contain a considerable admixture of arsenic, 
 and out of this very barrel Zwanziger had with her 
 own hands filled the kitchen salt-box. There is 
 scarce room for doubt that she who put poison into the 
 one put it into the other ; and yet she asserted her 
 innocence in the face of all this evidence. " I can 
 only suppose," said she, " that several persons have 
 conspired to destroy me." 
 
 With regard to Gebhard's child, an infant six 
 months old, " her darling," as she called it, to which 
 she was accused of having administered arsenic in a 
 biscuit and some milk, under pretence of affection, 
 she stated that she did not give it anything in the 
 biscuit, but that she put " just the least bit of tartar 
 emetic" into a coffee-cup full of milk, of which 
 she gave the child a few spoonfuls, a,nd then threw 
 
 M2
 
 164 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 away the rest, on perceiving that the tartar was not 
 entirely dissolved. She says that she had no design 
 upon the child's life, but only wanted to make it feel 
 sick, so that it might cry and be uneasy, and thus 
 induce Gebhard to send for her back from Baireuth 
 to quiet it : she then adds, that she waited in this 
 hope at Baireuth for four weeks. That her account 
 of the motives which led her to commit this crime is 
 in the main true, is proved by various passages in 
 several of her letters to Gebhard ; but her endeavour 
 to extenuate her guilt is as evident in this instance 
 as in all the preceding ones ; for the maid-servant 
 Hazin states that Zwanziger gave the child a biscuit 
 soaked in the poisoned milk, which filled not quite 
 half a coffee-cup, instead of a whole one, and which 
 she let the child drink right off, instead of, as she 
 said, giving a few teaspoonfuls. 
 
 It appears strange that this woman, after confessing, 
 as she well knew, more than enough to ensure her sen- 
 tence of death, should have endeavoured till the very 
 last to explain away and gloss over her chief crimes, 
 and, in the face of the most complete evidence, have 
 altogether denied her lesser offences. It seemed impos- 
 sible to her false and distorted nature to be quite sincere, 
 or to utter a truth without associating with it a lie. 
 
 When Anna Zwanziger fell into the hands of jus- 
 tice, she had already reached her fiftieth year ; she 
 was of small stature, thin and deformed, her sallow 
 and meagre face was deeply furrowed by passion as 
 well as by age, and bore no trace of former beauty. 
 Her eyes were expressive of envy and malice, and her 
 brow was perpetually clouded, even when her lips 
 moved to smi]^. Her manner was cringing, servile,
 
 ANNA MARIA ZWANZIGER. 165 
 
 and affected, and age and ugliness had not diminished 
 her craving for admiration. Even in prison and under 
 sentence of death, her imagination was still occupied 
 with the pleasures of her youth. One day when her 
 judge visited her in prison, she begged him not to infer 
 what she had been from what she then was, for " that 
 she was once beautiful, exceedingly beautiful." 
 
 The following story of her life is founded partly on 
 the testimony of witnesses, and partly on her autobio- 
 graphy, which filled eighteen closely-written folio 
 sheets. 
 
 Anna Schonleben was born at Nurnberg, on the 7th 
 August, 1760, at the sign of the Black Cross, an inn 
 belonging to her father, whose name was Schonleben. 
 He died only a year and a half after her birth, and be- 
 fore she was five years old she lost her mother and her 
 only brother. After her mother's death she was put to 
 board with an old maid at Niirnberg, and two or three 
 years later she went to live with an aunt at Feucht, 
 who, she says, was a second mother to her ; at the end 
 of two years more she was sent back to Niirnberg to 
 live with the widow of a clergyman. At last, when 
 she was about ten years old, her guardian, a rich mer- 
 chant, took her into his house, where she received a 
 very good religious education, and learnt writing, 
 reading, arithmetic, and the rudiments of the French 
 language, besides all kinds of needlework, in which 
 she acquired extraordinary skill. 
 
 She had scarcely completed her fifteenth year when 
 her guardian determined to marry her to a notary 
 named Zwanziger. She did not like her future hus- 
 band, who was already past thirty, and for a long time 
 she avoided him and rejected all his offers. At length,
 
 166 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 however, her guardian's persuasions subdued her re- 
 sistance, and in the nineteenth year of her age she 
 became Zwanziger's wife. 
 
 Married to a man whom she feared and disliked, and 
 who moreover was always engaged either in busi- 
 ness or in drinking, leaving her to lead a life of 
 solitude and monotony, which contrasted most dis- 
 agreeably with the gaiety of her guardian's house, 
 she endeavoured to divert her melancholy by reading 
 novels. " My first novel," said she, " was the * Sor- 
 rows of Werther,' and it affected me so much that I 
 did nothing but weep ; if I had had a pistol, I should 
 have shot myself too. After this I read ' Pamela' and 
 ' Emilia Galeotti.' ' Thus uncultivated and frigid 
 natures excite their imaginations to represent as really 
 felt emotions they are incapable of feeling. Such 
 natures strive to deceive themselves as well as others 
 by a mere grimace of sensibility, till at last it becomes 
 so habitual to them, that they are really incapable of 
 distinguishing truth from falsehood, and end by poi- 
 soning the very source of truth, the natural feelings. 
 Hypocrisy, falsehood, and malice are fruits easily 
 produced, and fearfully soon matured in a soul 
 accustomed to disguise its real feelings under as- 
 sumed ones ; and thus it is that sentimentality is 
 perfectly consistent with total hardness of heart, and 
 even with cruelty. 
 
 The pleasures of sensibility were soon superseded 
 by enjoyments more congenial to her character ; she 
 came of age, and her property was delivered into the 
 hands of her husband, who spent it in amusements, 
 in which, as was but fair, he permitted his wife to 
 take part. They gave dinners, concerts, balls, and
 
 ANNA MARIA ZWANZIGER. 167 
 
 fetes champetres, and spent their days and nights in a 
 constant round of dissipation. 
 
 A few years of this kind of life exhausted her 
 fortune. She now had two children to support, 
 and her husband was a confirmed drunkard, who 
 often drank ten bottles of wine a day, and always 
 wanted to be at the tavern ; he was as irritable and 
 tyrannical when money for this purpose was not 
 forthcoming, as he was obliging and indulgent when 
 he got it. The admirer of ' Pamela,' she who had 
 wept over the ' Sorrows of Werther,' now offered her 
 person for hire. " But," said she, " I always had the 
 delicacy to admit none but men of rank and discretion ; 
 for from my youth upwards my principle has ever been 
 to stick to those who could advance my fortunes ; and 
 thus, I had the good luck to receive a great, deal of 
 assistance from many distinguished men." 
 
 After about two years, Zwanziger contrived a 
 scheme for a lottery of watches, which for a time 
 restored their fortunes. This improvement in their 
 circumstances immediately brought with it a return 
 to habits of dissipation ; the course of life which 
 Zwanziger had entered from want and for money, she 
 now pursued from habit and inclination. A scan- 
 dalous and expensive connection with a Lieutenant 
 
 von B gave rise to a violent domestic quarrel. 
 
 Zwanziger left her husband, and went to her lover's 
 sister at Vienna, but soon returned to Niirnberg in 
 consequence of her husband's representations, where, 
 at her lover's instigation, she commenced an action 
 for divorce against her husband, and obtained it after 
 a short suit. On the very day after the proclamation 
 of the divorce she remarried him, and, according to 
 her own statement, lived with him very contentedly
 
 168 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 till the day of his death. She says that she ended by 
 being positively attached to him, for that on several 
 occasions he had shown " a very noble way of think- 
 ing, and a susceptible heart." 
 
 On the 20th January, 1796, Anna Zwanziger was 
 left a widow, after eighteen years of marriage. Her 
 husband died after a short illness, and she was sus- 
 pected of having poisoned him, but this suspicion was 
 not confirmed on investigation. 
 
 Ever since her husband's death Zwanziger's life was 
 one tissue of misfortunes, follies, vices, and, finally, 
 crimes. Her patrimony was consumed, and every 
 other source of income dried up. She was unable 
 to collect in all more than 400 florins. With this 
 sum she went to Vienna, as she gave out, to esta- 
 blish herself as a confectioner. Failing in this, she 
 became housekeeper in several considerable families. 
 She then grew intimate with a clerk in the Hun- 
 garian exchequer, " of very fine sensibilities," by whom 
 she had an illegitimate child, which she put into the 
 foundling hospital, where it died soon after. She re- 
 turned to Niirnberg after an absence of a year and a half. 
 She had at first no intention of remaining long in 
 her paternal city. But one day a certain Freiherr von 
 
 W called upon her, and offered his protection, 
 
 his friendship, and his love. She perceived, as she 
 said, that in the Freiherr she had found a "very noble 
 man," and thereupon hired a private lodging. Here 
 she was constantly visited by her protector, who pro- 
 vided her with money ; but, according to her own 
 account, respected her virtue. She added to her 
 means by making dolls. 
 
 This connection lasted about three months, when 
 the place of housekeeper to one of the ministers re- 

 
 ANNA MARIA ZWANZIGER. 169 
 
 sident at Frankfurt was offered to her. Her noble 
 protector at Niirnberg was so generous as not to stand 
 in the way of her promotion, and she set out for 
 the place of her destination with 100 florins, which 
 he gave her. She did not, however, remain in this 
 situation above two or three months, chiefly owing 
 to her dirty habits and want of skill in cookery. 
 According to her own statement, indeed, she stayed 
 there a year and a half, and left her place for quite 
 different reasons, 
 
 She then hired an apartment over a hairdresser's 
 shop at Frankfurt, for a month : entered the service 
 of a troop of equestrian performers, whom she quitted 
 at the end of eight days, as they were going to Bam- 
 berg, and returned to the hairdresser at Frankfurt, 
 where a merchant took her for a short time into his 
 family as nursemaid all this within the space of a few 
 months. So many misfortunes in succession, added 
 to the insupportable thought of having fallen from 
 her station as mistress of a house and family to the 
 condition of a servant, worked so strongly on her 
 feelings as to cause her to behave like a mad woman. 
 She wept, laughed, and prayed by turns. She re- 
 ceived her mistress's orders with a laugh, and went 
 obediently away, but never executed them. 
 
 In her extreme need she applied by letter to her 
 noble friend the Freiherr, who accordingly again 
 offered her his protection, and on her arrival at Niirn- 
 berg received her with open arms. " But, to her 
 astonishment" so she would have it believed "she 
 now found a great alteration in his manners. He, 
 a married man, grew free in speech and conduct, 
 and at last so far forgot his dignity " as to cause her
 
 170 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 to have the prospect of becoming a mother." * As 
 soon as her protector was informed of this fact, his 
 manner became colder and his visits less frequent, and 
 she soon ascertained that he paid far greater atten- 
 tion to an actress of considerable reputation in Ger- 
 many, who was then at Nurnberg. This shock, as 
 she pretended, brought on a miscarriage; and not 
 content with this, on the following day she borrowed 
 a lancet from the people of the house and opened a 
 vein in each arm, but, as she said, "was stopped in 
 the execution of her purpose, and lost only a teacup- 
 ful of blood." The owner of the lodging called upon 
 
 Freiherr von W , told him what had happened, 
 
 and showing him the fatal lancet, induced him to visit 
 this female Werther on the following day. The Frei- 
 herr appeared, but not as a penitent. When the 
 teacupful of blood was shown to him, he laughed at 
 her folly, and after a scene of violent reproaches on 
 her side he turned his back upon her, and never saw 
 her again. Burning for revenge, she collected his 
 letters and sent them to his wife. She then went with 
 Siegwart in her pocket, and accompanied by her maid, 
 to the Pegnitz, resolved, as she asserted, to drown her- 
 self. She seated herself on the bank of the river, and 
 read Siegwart, till she carne to the song " Mein leben 
 ist so traurig," &c., whereupon she jumped into the 
 stream. Two fishermen who were near at hand res- 
 cued her, with no other injury than a thorough 
 wetting. A change of clothes was immediately 
 brought her, and the wet ones were carried to the 
 Freiherr as evidence of her second attempt at suicide. 
 
 * This was probably a mere pretext to attach her lover to her 
 more firmly.
 
 ANNA MARIA ZWANZIGER. 171 
 
 The maid who conveyed them received from the Frei- 
 herr 25 florins, with the recommendation to her 
 mistress to quit Niirnberg as soon as possible. She 
 accordingly went to Ratisbon that very night, without 
 even returning to her lodging. 
 
 It is evident that the object of these two attempts at 
 self-destruction was the same. She let herself blood 
 with no intention to bleed to death ; and jumped into 
 the water merely that she might be pulled out again. 
 Nevertheless she ascribed, and no doubt truly, her 
 hatred of mankind to the faithless and hard-hearted 
 conduct of her protector. She said in one of her 
 
 examinations, " It is all Freiherr von W 's fault 
 
 that my heart is so hard. When I opened my veins 
 and he saw my blood, he only laughed. And when I 
 reproached him with having once before ruined a poor 
 girl who drowned herself and her child by him, he 
 laughed again. My feelings were terrible, and when 
 I afterwards did anything wicked, I said to myself, 
 No one ever pitied me, and therefore I will show no 
 pity to others." 
 
 At Ratisbon she lay ill for three weeks of a fever ; 
 she then went to Vienna, thence back to Niirnberg, 
 and finally into Thuringia, where in 1804 she en- 
 tered the service of Kammerherr von S at Wei- 
 mar, as housemaid. According to her account all 
 the servants in the house were hard worked and ill 
 paid, for which reason she soon got tired of it and 
 resolved to leave it secretly without giving warning, 
 and to carry away something "to make herself 
 amends." " My plan," says she, " succeeded admir- 
 ably. One day while my master and mistress were at 
 dinner, I was told to play with the child to keep
 
 172 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 it quiet. I accordingly went with it into the drawing- 
 room, where there was a small round table with a 
 drawer, in which were a diamond ring, a number 
 of pearls, earrings, jewels, and other such trinkets. 
 Where, thought I, such things as these are left for a 
 child to play with, it is clear that they are not much 
 valued ; if they were, they would be locked up. At 
 that moment the child was playing with a ring- 
 case, and, after rolling it to and fro, put it into my 
 hand ; I opened it, and on seeing the ring I felt 
 as if some one stood beside me and said * Keep it !' 
 I obeyed the inspiration, put the child to sleep, and 
 quitted the house and the town before my master and 
 mistress had left the dinner-table." This ingenious 
 romance, in which she ascribes a deed which she had 
 unguardedly owned to be premeditated, to the sudden 
 inspiration of an evil spirit, and which is moreover 
 calculated to give an unfavourable idea of the habits 
 of order and care of her mistress, is utterly inconsistent 
 with the very prosaic account of the affair given by 
 the latter, who declares that the ring was taken out 
 of a locked escritoire, the key of which was kept in 
 her own work-basket. 
 
 Having escaped from Weimar with her booty, 
 Zwanziger took refuge with her son-in-law Sauer, 
 a bookbinder, at Mainbernheim. Scarcely, however, 
 had she been three days in his house, when a 
 newspaper fell into his hands containing an adver- 
 tisement from Weimar for the apprehension of his 
 mother-in-law on the charge of having stolen a dia- 
 mond ring. He immediately turned her out of his 
 house, and on the same day she went to Wiirzburg, 
 whence she had the audacity to write to the master
 
 ANNA MARIA ZWANZIGER. 173 
 
 whom she had robbed, reproaching him for bringing 
 her into misfortune by this public advertisement. And 
 indeed it had fallen upon her like a thunderbolt ; her 
 name was dishonoured, she was outlawed arid civilly 
 dead ; and in order to be tolerated among men she 
 was forced as it were to cease to exist in her own 
 person, and from this time forward she exchanged 
 the name of Zwanziger for her maiden name of 
 Schb'nleben. 
 
 She wandered about Franconia for some time, 
 staying now in one place and now in another, and 
 finding temporary shelter and assistance chiefly 
 among people of rank and education. At length, in 
 the year 1805, she found a provision in the little 
 town of Neumarkt, in the upper Palatinate. She 
 established herself there to teach needlework to young 
 girls, got a number of pupils, besides earning a good 
 deal by sewing, and, according to the testimony of 
 the magistrates, won universal good will by her in- 
 dustry and her decorous behaviour. But her fate, or 
 rather her restless discontented spirit, would not suffer 
 her to remain quiet. Unhappily for her, old General 
 N. came to stay a while at Neumarkt. She con- 
 trived to insinuate herself into the old gentleman's 
 favour, who descended to the closest familiarity with 
 her, and on one occasion promised to provide for her. 
 She was again filled with the memory of bygone days, 
 in which she enjoyed the protection of " distinguished 
 noblemen," and fancied that, old as she was, those 
 days were now about to return. She already dreamed 
 of going to Munich as the mistress of " his Excellency." 
 She indulged these visions with feelings of perfect 
 security, as she had " always heard that the Catholics
 
 1 74 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 nearly always kept their word." General N. left 
 Neumarkt, and soon after she wrote to him, but re- 
 ceived no answer. Some time after she wrote again, 
 and falsely told him that she was with child. But 
 instead of an answer, she received, through the hands 
 of a clergyman, a trifling sum of money to stop 
 her importunities. Not yet discouraged, she left 
 Neumarkt, where she had found peace and support 
 for a whole year, and went to Munich to present her- 
 self in person before his Excellency, but was refused 
 admission. She wrote a letter to him from the inn, 
 but received a verbal answer through a secretary or 
 servant to the effect that she was no longer to trouble 
 his Excellency with her foolish impertinence ; he 
 also sent her a small sum of money for her travelling 
 expenses. 
 
 Thus forced to leave Munich, she went to several 
 different places in succession till her destiny led her to 
 Pegnitz in 1807, and from thence to Kasendorf and 
 Sanspareil, the scene of her greater crimes. 
 
 In her youth this woman showed herself irresolute, 
 coquettish, superficially accomplished, and perverted 
 by reading sentimental novels. Always the slave of 
 circumstances, she at first gave herself up to folly 
 and dissipation, until she gradually sunk into vice, 
 and at last sold her person for money ; and thus, 
 with honour and self-respect, she lost her last social 
 restraint and support. 
 
 Her vanity, which she dignified with the name 
 of delicate sensibility, drew her towards the higher 
 classes ; she was often compelled to please and attract 
 men whom she did not like, to assume a cheerful 
 countenance among strangers by whom she was re-
 
 ANNA MARIA ZWANZIGER. 175 
 
 pulsed and humbled, and to smother the passions 
 which were raging within her. She was too rest- 
 less to live honestly by the work of her hands in 
 quiet and retirement, and too proud to be satisfied 
 as a mere domestic servant ; she therefore affected 
 great zeal in the service of her various masters, and 
 endeavoured to place herself upon such a confidential 
 footing with them as to preclude all exercise of au- 
 thority on their part. Thus, always acting a part, 
 and forced to appear different to what she really 
 was, she learnt the art of accommodating herself to 
 those with whom she lived, and lost what little truth 
 and honesty was still left in her. She became false, 
 cunning, smooth-tongued, and hypocritical. There 
 was a smile upon her lips, while within there was 
 burning hatred ; her mouth spoke of God, while her 
 heart took counsel of Satan ; she sowed hatred, while 
 she spoke the words of conciliation ; her praises were 
 calumnies, and her calumny was concealed in praise ; 
 when forced to speak the truth, she invariably coupled 
 with it a lie. But she was not yet prepared to become a 
 poisoner, and a com pounder of poisons, as she showed 
 herself at Kasendorf and Sanspareil. With no worse 
 a character she might still belong to the world ; with 
 these vices a man may command a distinguished 
 place in the best society, as they frequently form the 
 basis of what in fashionable life is called knowledge 
 of the world. 
 
 But Zwanziger thought herself unfortunate, and 
 in her this feeling severed all the ties of human 
 sympathy. Persecuted by destiny, or rather by the 
 consequences of her own faults and vices, her ever 
 ready self-love led her to ascribe every hope deceived,
 
 176 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 and every evil that befel her, to the malice or the 
 cruelty of mankind. With such dispositions as these, 
 is it surprising that her heart should soon be filled 
 with envy and mischief? 
 
 After being for twenty years a wanderer on the 
 face of the earth, nearly fifty years of age, and still 
 homeless, friendless, and only endured among men by 
 concealing her real name, she now anxiously sought 
 a resting-place and a provision, and that not as the 
 maid-servant she now was, but as the mistress of 
 a house which she had formerly been. She could 
 no longer endure to belong always to others, and 
 never to herself; continually to cringe and flatter, 
 and to affect zeal in the service of those whom in her 
 heart she hated ; to be always dependent and sub- 
 servient, while her soul was filled with the recollection 
 of bygone days, in which she was the object of atten- 
 tion and flattery. She was resolved to escape from 
 this position, or at all events to find some compen- 
 sation for it. 
 
 But no means of acquiring independence presented 
 itself to her within the pale of social order, till at 
 length she discovered the secret of a hidden power, 
 by the exercise of which she might not only eman- 
 cipate herself from restraint, but also rule unseen and 
 uncontrolled. This secret power was poison. 
 
 As Zwanziger never made a complete and sincere 
 confession, we have no means of knowing at what 
 time and on what inducement the idea first occurred 
 to her whether suddenly or by slow degrees whe- 
 ther she at once formed a systematic plan, or whether 
 it developed itself little by little and almost uncon- 
 sciously in her mind. Her confession almost always
 
 ANNA MARIA ZWANZIGER. 177 
 
 leaves us in the dark with regard to the secret springs 
 which guided her actions, but the actions themselves 
 are so numerous and so clear, that we may trace 
 them to their source with perhaps as much certainty 
 as the most open confession could do for us. 
 
 Thus much is clearly proved by her whole course 
 of action, that we cannot attribute it, as in the case 
 of ordinary criminals, to any one ruling passion, or 
 to one especial motive. Her attachment to poison 
 was based upon the proud consciousness of possessing 
 a power which enabled her to break through every 
 restraint, to attain every object, to gratify every 
 inclination, and to determine the very existence 
 of others. Poison was the magic wand with which 
 she ruled those whom she outwardly obeyed, and 
 opened the way to her fondest hopes. Poison en- 
 abled her to deal out death, sickness, and torture to 
 all who offended her or stood in her way it punished 
 every slight it prevented the return of unwelcome 
 guests it disturbed those social pleasures which it 
 galled her not to share it afforded her amusement 
 by the contortions of the victims, and an opportunity 
 of ingratiating herself by affected sympathy with 
 their sufferings it was the means of throwing sus- 
 picion upon innocent persons, and of getting fellow- 
 servants into trouble. If she flattered herself with 
 the prospect of marrying an already married man, 
 at her will wives descended into the grave, and left 
 their husbands free for her. She grudged the bride 
 her bridegroom, and the wedding-feast was held in 
 vain. In time mixing and giving poison became her 
 constant occupation ; she practised it in jest and in 
 earnest, and at last with real passion for poison itself, 
 
 N
 
 178 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 without reference to the object for which it was given. 
 She grew to love it from long habit and from 
 gratitude for its faithful services, she looked upon 
 it as her truest friend, and made it her constant 
 companion. At her apprehension arsenic was found 
 in her pocket, and when it was laid before her at 
 Culmbach to be identified, she seemed to tremble 
 with pleasure, and gazed upon the white powder 
 with eyes beaming with rapture. This love for poison 
 may perhaps in some degree explain why she, who 
 had confessed the most atrocious crimes and was under 
 sentence of death, in her written memoirs speaks of 
 her deeds as " slight errors," accuses of cruelty and 
 injustice those who could bring destruction upon her 
 for the sake of such " trifling offences," and boasts of 
 her " piety" as only " too great," and as the origin of 
 all her misfortunes. So true is it that habit recon- 
 ciles us to everything, and that we are inclined to 
 excuse the most atrocious crimes when they are com- 
 mitted by one we love. 
 
 On the 7th of July, 1811, the court at Bamberg 
 sentenced Anna Margaret Zwanziger to have her 
 head cut off by the sword, and her body to be after- 
 wards laid upon the wheel. 
 
 The sentence of death received the royal confirma- 
 tion, accompanied by the command that the exposure 
 of the body on the wheel be omitted. 
 
 Zwanziger received her sentence without any per- 
 ceptible emotion, and signed the papers presented to 
 her with a firm hand. She passed the three days 
 which remained to her of life with perfect composure. 
 She confessed to her judge that her death was fortunate 
 for mankind, for that it would have been impossible
 
 ANNA MARIA ZWANZIGER. 179 
 
 to her to discontinue her trade of poisoning. On the 
 day before her execution she wrote, in the presence of 
 the judge, a farewell letter to one of her friends at 
 Nurnberg, in which she thanks her in measured terms 
 for the friendship she had shown her, begs her for- 
 giveness and sympathy, sends her love to other persons, 
 and concludes thus : " I must now end ; the hour 
 will soon strike at which my woes will cease. Pray 
 for me. The 17th of September is the day fixed for 
 my death, on which I shall receive from God the re- 
 ward of my actions. I have already ceased to belong 
 to this world." She wished to prove to the judge her 
 sense of the kindness he had shown to her by the 
 strange request that he would allow her, if it were 
 possible, to appear to him after her death, and to give 
 him ocular demonstration of the immortality of the 
 soul. She remained constant to her character on the 
 day of her execution. She listened to her sentence 
 with the greatest composure, and without shedding a 
 tear. While it was read she held her handkerchief 
 before her face, as the crowd put her to shame ; and 
 when the wand was broken over her,* she took cour- 
 teous leave of the judge and officers of the court, as 
 of some every-day company. 
 
 A short time before her execution, the judge ap- 
 pealed to her conscience to confess the innocence of 
 Justice Glaser; but she persisted in her slanderous 
 accusation that he had participated in her first murder, 
 and with this lie upon her soul she laid her guilty 
 head upon the block. 
 
 * " Breaking the wand " in Germany answers to " putting on 
 the black cap " in England. Trans. 
 
 N2
 
 JAMES THALREUTER; 
 
 OB, 
 THE FALSE PRINCE. 
 
 JAMES THALREUTER was the illegitimate son of Lieut. - 
 Colonel von Rescher and Barbara Thalreuter, the 
 daughter of an exciseman : he was born at Landshut, on 
 the 10th September, 1809, and acknowledged by his 
 father. His mother died the same year, and before he 
 was three years old his father was forced to leave him 
 in order to join the Russian campaign. The old Baron 
 von Stromwalter, who enjoyed a retiring pension as 
 assessor of the council, was an intimate friend of the 
 Lieut.-Colonel, and with his wife's consent took the 
 deserted boy under his protection ; and although he 
 had two children of his own, a married daughter and 
 a son in the army, he always treated Thalreuter as if 
 he were his son. 
 
 The Baroness von Stromwalter bore absolute sway 
 over her family and household : her husband, who 
 was a goodnatured, weak, and foolish man, knew 
 nothing but what his wife allowed him to know, and 
 took no part in any affairs except where his signature 
 was necessary, and this he never ventured to refuse. 
 In addition to this, the whole of the property was hers 
 except her husband's pension, which was very small. 
 She possessed funded property to the amount of
 
 JAMES THALREUTER. 181 
 
 ] 1,000 florins (about 900/.), a small estate called 
 Schwaig, and some rents, tithes, &c., from which, 
 however, several debts had to be deducted. The 
 fact that letters addressed to the old Baron were 
 opened and answered by his wife, proves how little he 
 was regarded in his own house. The Baroness was 
 in the habit of treating him with cool contempt, even 
 in the presence of a third person. 
 
 The Baroness soon conceived the most extravagant 
 affection for the lively young Thalreuter; she was 
 charmed with the amusing rogueries of the mis- 
 chievous boy : with her, his rudeness passed for 
 pretty ways, his knavery for innocent childish tricks, 
 and a lying disposition for the mark of a fertile, pre- 
 cocious, and promising genius. 
 
 His foster-parents lived for a long time on their 
 estate of Schwaig, where farmers' sons and plough- 
 boys were the sole companions of the spoiled boy, who 
 thus had ever before his eyes examples of plebeian 
 coarseness, vulgar habits, and still more vulgar ways 
 of thinking. 
 
 The foster-mother sent him to the Catholic school, 
 where he is said to have been quiet and diligent. As 
 he was intended for the army, he afterwards received, 
 according to his foster-mother's account, instruction 
 in French, drawing, and mathematics. But it after- 
 wards appeared that Thalreuter had not the slightest 
 tincture of learning or accomplishments; indeed he 
 had made but little progress in the most elementary 
 parts of instruction. Rewrote a bad hand, and made 
 the grossest mistakes in spelling. But when only 
 fifteen or sixteen years of age he possessed surpris- 
 ing knowledge of commercial and pecuniary affairs,
 
 182 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 added to an inexhaustible talent for the invention 
 of the most various, specious, and complicated lies, 
 perfect in their smallest details, and worked up with 
 masterly skill. This talent was combined with and 
 assisted by a singularly comprehensive and accurate 
 memory. 
 
 The older the boy grew the more firmly did he 
 establish his ascendancy over those who lived but 
 to minister to his pleasures. He was on the most 
 familiar footing with his foster-mother, towards whom 
 he felt neither affection, respect, nor gratitude. He 
 only looked upon her as the person who was able to 
 afford him the means of gratifying his desires. The 
 Baroness on her side did everything she could to please 
 her darling. She gave her money with equal readi- 
 ness for excursions and pleasure parties, and for the 
 payment of his debts, or of any damage he might have 
 wilfully done. Nothing in the house remained closed 
 or secret from him : he had free access even to the 
 closet in which the Baroness kept her money. In 
 short, the blind love of his foster-mother rendered 
 him absolute master of her person and property. 
 " He did what he liked with the Baroness," says one 
 of the witnesses, " sometimes by fair and sometimes 
 by foul means." His conduct to the poor weak old 
 Baron, who was now seventy years of age, and who 
 had treated him like his own child, was the worst of 
 all. He never mentioned his foster-father but in terms 
 of contempt; even in the presence of others and in the 
 public streets he addressed to him the most degrading- 
 insults ; nay more, some witnesses had even seen him 
 strike the old man. 
 
 Thalreuter employed the liberty with which his
 
 JAMES THALREUTER. 183 
 
 foster-mother indulged him, not only in making con- 
 siderable debts on her account, but also in plundering 
 her to a large amount. He carried away a number 
 of things out of the house, and at short intervals of 
 time stole from her bureau, to the keys of which he 
 had free access, as much as 700 florins. When the 
 Baroness at length discovered this deficiency, she de- 
 termined to let her foster- son feel the whole weight 
 of her displeasure, but she soon relented, forgave him 
 this youthful peccadillo, and merely took the pre- 
 caution of keeping the keys of her bureau out of his 
 way for the future. This circumstance, added to the 
 reflection that he could only gain possession of trifling 
 sums by mere pilfering, led him to contrive a scheme 
 whereby he hoped to prevail upon his foster-parents 
 to place their whole property at his disposal for the 
 indulgence of his extravagance. 
 
 In the beginning of the summer of 1825, Thal- 
 reuter let fall first some mysterious hints, and then 
 some more definite expressions, with regard to his own 
 birth, by which he said that he was destined to be 
 something very different from what he now appeared. 
 The inquisitive old Baron was forced to content him- 
 self with the information that he, Thalreuter, was the 
 son of a noble Count, but in a confidential moment he 
 disclosed the wonderful secret to his foster-mother. He 
 told her, with tears of joy, that "he was the son of the 
 
 reigning Duke of B ; that his father had already 
 
 lost one son by poison, and lest this should happen to 
 him also, the Duke had had him conveyed, as soon as 
 he was born, to Colonel von Reseller, his especial fa- 
 vourite, who had undertaken to bring up his grace's 
 second son. Von Rescher had accordingly passed for his
 
 184 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 father, and had observed the most inviolable secrecy." 
 He related many other circumstances ; talked about 
 a certain Count von Rosenthal, and a General von 
 
 D , and spoke with the greatest affection of a 
 
 certain Lieut.-Colonel von Hautbing, also a favourite 
 of the reigning Duke, who had acquainted Thalreuter 
 with his real origin. 
 
 Notwithstanding the improbability of the whole of 
 this story, which stood in direct contradiction with 
 all that the Stromwalters knew of Thalreuter's real 
 origin and they even possessed his certificate of 
 birth the weak heads of the worthy couple were too 
 easily turned by the grandeur of the romance, and 
 the desire of increasing their limited means, not to 
 give implicit belief to the tale. From time to time 
 Thalreuter showed to Baron or Baroness Strom- 
 waiter letters, always brought by himself, from his 
 royal father the Duke, or from the imaginary Von 
 Hautbing. In one, the foster-parents were thanked 
 for their care of the boy ; in another, 10,000 ducats and 
 many other fine things were promised as a reward 
 for their services : the time of his grace's arrival was 
 said to draw near, by which the good foster-parents 
 would be deprived of their darling James. On one 
 occasion Von Hautbing announced the arrival of some 
 money ; on another, specious excuses were sent to 
 account for the non-arrival of this sum, which, how- 
 ever, might very shortly be expected. All these 
 letters, of which there were about twenty from his 
 grace alone, were such illegible scrawls, and so 
 wretched in composition and style, that the merest 
 schoolboy could not have failed to detect the impos- 
 ture. But the very circumstance of the letters being
 
 JAMES THALKEUTER. 185 
 
 so illegible afforded young Thalreuter the excuse for 
 always reading them himself aloud to his foster- 
 mother, and he thus had the opportunity of explain- 
 ing away any momentary doubts which might arise 
 in her mind. Before long Thalreuter appeared with 
 a costly present of six strings of fine large pearls from 
 his ducal father for his dear foster-mother, which was 
 acceptable not only as an ornament, but also on 
 account of its supposed value, to Baroness von 
 Stromwalter, who was much embarrassed for want 
 of money. Thalreuter prevented his foster-parents 
 and others from having the pearls examined by per- 
 sons competent to form an opinion of their real value, 
 by representing how offensive such a proceeding would 
 be to his grace. They were accordingly left in pledge 
 with different people for several hundred florins. 
 The fact that Thalreuter had bought mock pearls 
 at a toy-shop for one florin and thirty kreutzers 
 (about 2*.) the string, with money he had stolen 
 which was discovered when the case came before the 
 court remained carefully concealed from these sim- 
 pletons. A small jewel-case, containing a pair of 
 ear-rings, also a present from the imaginary Duke, 
 and bought with Baroness von Stromwalter's own 
 money at the same toy-shop, greatly contributed, if 
 indeed anything had still been wanting, to confirm 
 the belief of the Stromwalter family in the distin- 
 guished origin of their foster-son. Thalreuter's inex- 
 haustible fertility in lying kept the credulous old 
 people in a constant state of excitement. He one day 
 showed them a miniature of an officer covered with 
 orders as the portrait of the Duke ; on another he 
 brought them landscapes, which he said were views
 
 186 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 of the estates purchased by the Duke to reward his fos- 
 ter-parents. One day when the Baroness returned to 
 the house, Thalreuter met her, exclaiming that " it 
 really was most unlucky that neither she nor the 
 assessor had been at home ; for that he had at length 
 seen his royal father, who had driven up with four 
 horses, and had wished to speak to them, but could 
 not wait, as he was forced to continue his journey im- 
 mediately." On another occasion Thalreuter told old 
 Stromwalter that Hautbing was staying at the Swan 
 Inn, and wished to speak to him that evening. He 
 then gave him a note, in which Hautbing cordially 
 invited Von Stromwalter to crack a bottle of cham- 
 pagne with him. The old Baron hastened to dress 
 himself in his best suit, in order to pay his respects to 
 the envoy of the Duke, but, before the appointed hour 
 was come, Thalreuter, apparently fresh from the 
 Swan, brought the message, with many excuses and 
 compliments, that Hautbing had been compelled to 
 set out upon urgent business, at a moment's notice. 
 
 This extraordinary tissue of lies, transparent as it 
 was, served nevertheless completely to blind the 
 Strom waiters ; and Thalreuter, not satisfied with being- 
 treated with increased indulgence and more liberally 
 supplied with money than before, in his character of 
 a prince in disguise, was encouraged by the complete 
 success of his first stratagem, to attempt another still 
 more profitable. He accordingly communicated to the 
 Baroness as a profound secret, that the Vori Wallers, 
 a distinguished, rich, and noble family in the town 
 
 of , purposed to arrange a marriage between 
 
 their daughter and Lieutenant von Stromwalter, and 
 that the betrothal had already taken place, and every-
 
 JAMES THALREUTER. 187 
 
 thing would now be speedily concluded. Now Herr 
 von Waller had never said a word of the matter to 
 Baron or Baroness von Stromwalter, nor had the 
 Lieutenant ever mentioned it in his letters to his 
 parents. Nay, more; the Vori Wallers were almost 
 strangers to the Strom waiters, and did not now make 
 the slightest overtures towards a nearer acquaintance. 
 But Thalreuter assured his foster-parents that the 
 nature of the transaction made it indispensable to its 
 success that they should behave as if they knew 
 nothing at all about the marriage that Herr von 
 Waller was bent upon taking "papa and mamma" 
 by surprise. The foolish old people gave ready 
 belief to this most palpable lie, because the Duke 
 
 of B , Herr von Hautbing, and General D 
 
 wished them joy, in successive letters forged by 
 Thalreuter, of the highly advantageous match be- 
 tween their sorffend Fraulein von Waller. Thalreuter 
 had now brought his foster-parents to the point he 
 desired. 
 
 Ere long he informed the Baroness that her son the 
 Lieutenant must now pay, previous to his marriage, 
 into the military fund the sum of 10,000 florins (re- 
 quired in the army as a security for a man's ability to 
 support a wife) ; that his father the Duke intended to 
 pay the greater part of this sum, and that he expected 
 the parents to contribute only a few thousand florins. 
 The credulous mother, overjoyed at the prospect of 
 her son's marriage, without a moment's hesitation 
 delivered '2700 florins into the hands of this young 
 rogue, who in a very short time squandered the whole 
 sum in reckless extravagance. Not long after this 
 Thalreuter brought the intelligence that Lieutenant
 
 188 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 von Stromwalter had had the misfortune to be arrested 
 for seditious practices, and that his release from prison 
 could only be effected by depositing securities to the 
 amount of 1000 florins. The Baroness, terrified and 
 distressed, again delivered to the disguised prince 
 1000 florins for the release of her son. Soon after, 
 Thalreuter informed her that young Stromwalter was 
 involved in most pressing pecuniary difficulties, and 
 required immediate assistance. The fond mother im- 
 mediately sold a quantity of furniture in order to 
 raise the required sum, which she intrusted to Thal- 
 reuter. A second and still more serious embarrass- 
 ment of the Lieutenant, which unless instantly relieved 
 must break off his marriage, filled her with anxiety, 
 and levied a fresh contribution on her purse ; a girl, 
 according to Thalreuter's assertion, was with child by 
 the Lieutenant, and money was immediately required 
 to satisfy her, and to prevent the affaif from reaching 
 the ears of the Von Waller family. This invention 
 put several hundred florins into Thalreuter's pocket. 
 Another time he extracted money on pretence of buy- 
 ing ornaments for the bride. The supposed marriage 
 of the Lieutenant also served as an excuse for taking a 
 good deal of furniture out of the Stromwalter's house 
 to set up the young couple, which Thalreuter sold on 
 his own account. 
 
 We may well ask how it was that neither Baron 
 von Stromwalter nor his wife thought of visiting the 
 Von Wallers, so as at any rate to sound them about 
 the marriage. The old Baron did indeed once express 
 an intention of so doing; but Thalreuter employed 
 all his eloquence to prevent him, and drew such a 
 picture of the danger which his visit would bring
 
 JAMES THALREUTER. 189 
 
 upon the intended marriage, that the weak old man 
 gave up the intention, and abandoned himself with 
 blind confidence to the guidance and direction of a 
 boy of fifteen. Again, we may ask, how it was that 
 the son had so little communication with his parents 
 that the latter did not write to ask him a single ques- 
 tion concerning his marriage ? How was it that the 
 parents suspected nothing when their own son never 
 let fall a word on such important subjects as his ap- 
 proaching marriage, the money required as a deposit, 
 his imprisonment, his love affair, his embarrassments, 
 and the money which was sent to satisfy all these 
 claims? Thalreuter provided against this also. He 
 intercepted all letters from the parents to the son, and 
 from the son to the parents, or he wrote in the name 
 of the mother letters to suit his purpose, which she, 
 without even reading them, confirmed by the addition 
 of a few lines in her own handwriting. One letter 
 from the Lieutenant, in which he requested his mother 
 to inform him of the truth or falsehood of the reports 
 of Thalreuter's unheard-of extravagance which had 
 
 reached him at D , was, in spite of Thalreuter's 
 
 precautions, given to old Baroness von Stromwalter in 
 his presence. He no sooner saw the handwriting than 
 he snatched the letter out of her hand and wrote in 
 her name an answer to it, in which he disclosed to 
 the Lieutenant the secret of his high birth. Baroness 
 von Stromwalter, who was not allowed to read the 
 letter, added these words : "Thus writes your loving 
 and astonished mother, who rejoices in the prospect 
 
 of going to D with James's father to embrace 
 
 her beloved son." The son was thus deceived with 
 the aid of his own mother, and Thalreuter did not
 
 190 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 fail to nourish his hopes and expectations by letters 
 addressed to him from time to time. 
 
 Baroness von Strom waiter met the enormous ex- 
 penditure caused by Thalreuter's knavery and extra- 
 vagance by selling out of the funds, borrowing money, 
 and selling or pawning her jewels, furniture, &c. 
 Thalreuter employed other means of obtaining money 
 at his foster-parents' expense. He placed before them 
 a paper, the written contents of which he covered with 
 his hand or with a book, and requested them to oblige 
 him with their seal and signatures : this, he added, 
 was merely in jest, and he wanted their signature to 
 this paper in order secretly to prepare for them a very 
 great pleasure. Hereupon the papers were signed 
 and sealed without more ado. It appeared on exami- 
 nation that these papers were bills of exchange for 50, 
 64, 200, or 275 florins, which Thalreuter instantly 
 contrived to get exchanged. There was nothing in 
 the house which the foster-son did not steal if it suited 
 him to sell or to give it away. Chairs and tables, 
 plate, copper and tin utensils, glass, clothes, bedding, 
 pictures, clocks, watches, telescopes, snuff-boxes, and 
 every sort of article, even to a mousetrap, were men- 
 tioned among the list of things he had carried away 
 under various pretences. If he wanted to make a 
 present of the Baron's Cremona fiddle to any one, it 
 was always that convenient nobody Lieut.-Colonel von 
 Hautbing who wished to play upon it : if he cast his 
 eyes upon a hot-water bottle, Fraiulein von Waller 
 suffered from violent spasms, and it was immediately 
 sent to her. After having plundered his foster-parents 
 of all their money, he proceeded to squander the little 
 landed property which still remained to them. He
 
 JAMES THALREUTER. 191 
 
 persuaded his foster-mother to sell her small estate of 
 Schwaig, asserting that the sale would only be a 
 simulated one ; that Von Waller was the real pur- 
 chaser, and would give it as a marriage portion to his 
 daughter. The sale took place, and the few thousand 
 florins went mostly in the payment of old debts : of 
 the little that remained, Thalreuter took 650 florins 
 for himself, as he pretended to help the son out of 
 fresh difficulties. The old foster-mother still pos- 
 sessed a few tithes and rents ; these too were sold 
 soon after, and the few hundred florins which re- 
 mained to her after the payment of debts were 
 delivered into Thalreuter's hands. The old Ba- 
 roness now became anxious about the state of her 
 property. Her capital was either gone or intrusted 
 to Thalreuter, and the constantly recurring necessity 
 of borrowing money or pawning her effects, proved 
 to her how desperate her condition really was. But 
 Thalreuter was too good a chancellor of the exchequer 
 not to be able to quiet his faithful parliament by a 
 skilfully contrived budget, and he assured Baroness 
 von Stromwalter that her property had never been in 
 so flourishing a condition as it was then. He made 
 out an accurate statement of her possessions (includ- 
 ing the estate of Schwaig which had been sold, and 
 10,000 ducats promised by the Duke), according to 
 which they amounted to at least 70,000 florins : this 
 statement completely relieved all her anxieties. The 
 last and worst trick he played these unfortunate old 
 people was to make them believe that his royal father 
 had just bought them a splendid house, or rather 
 
 palace, in the town of A , in which they were to 
 
 pass the rest of their lives. Without so much as in-
 
 192 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 quiring into the existence of this palace, the childish 
 old people instantly gave notice that they should quit 
 the house they then rented, and began to look forward 
 with joyful impatience to the next Candlemas, 1826, 
 when they expected the whole mystery to be un- 
 ravelled, and their fortunes to be established. Mean- 
 while Thalreuter, who by his last lie had cheated his 
 poor foster-parents of the very roof over their heads, 
 took care that their removal should not be trouble- 
 some. Under pretence of furnishing the new palace 
 a little beforehand, he carried off most of the few 
 articles of furniture that were left, a yellow damask 
 sofa, six chairs, &c., which we need scarcely inform 
 our readers soon found their way into the pawn- 
 broker's shop. 
 
 The money thus obtained was squandered in 
 the most reckless and foolish extravagance. He 
 entertained his acquaintances, who were men of 
 the lowest class, in the most sumptuous manner 
 at different inns and taverns ; the most costly wines 
 were not alone poured out like water at the table, 
 but thrown into the adjacent ponds and dashed 
 against the carriage-wheels ; the most delicate viands 
 were thrown out of the window for boys to scramble 
 for; splendid fireworks were let off to amuse the 
 guests, among whom he distributed all kinds of ex- 
 pensive presents with the greatest profusion. One 
 witness even stated that on one occasion he moistened 
 the wheels of the carriage he had hired with eau de 
 Cologne. The toyman Stang, who was (though not 
 entirely by his own fault) the constant companion of 
 Thalreuter and partaker in his extravagant parties of 
 pleasure, sold him, in one year, goods to the amount
 
 JAMES THALREUTER. 193 
 
 of 6700 florins, among which were fifty florins' worth 
 of eau de Cologne. 
 
 This way of life could not fail to lead him into 
 other kinds of mischief, and accordingly, in April, 
 1825, he was taken up in a drunken brawl and 
 charged with assault and battery, but acquitted owing 
 to want of evidence : two months after, he and several 
 accomplices were tried for poaching. 
 
 The company which Thalreuter kept was as low as 
 his own manners, consisting chiefly of coachmen, 
 grooms, &c. ; the only man with any pretension to re- 
 spectability with whom he associated was Stang, the 
 toyman, who on first witnessing the boy's extravagance 
 thought it his duty to report it to Baroness von 
 Stromwalter, but she replied, " that the expenditure 
 of her James would not appear surprising whenever 
 the secret of his birth and rank should be revealed ; 
 that at present she could only say thus much, that he 
 was the son of very great parents and would have 
 more property than he could possibly spend :" she 
 concluded by saying " that she was very glad that 
 her James, who had hitherto associated only with 
 peasants and coachmen, should have chosen so good 
 a companion and adviser as Stang." The poor toy- 
 man was of course overjoyed at the thought of having 
 secured the friendship and custom of a prince in dis- 
 guise, and no longer felt any hesitation in accepting 
 Thalreuter's presents and joining his parties of plea- 
 sure, and from this time forward they became almost 
 daily companions. 
 
 Thalreuter's conduct naturally attracted the atten- 
 tion of the authorities of the town, but as the usual 
 explanation was given to them by his foster-parents, 
 
 o
 
 194 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 of course they could do nothing but look on and await 
 the solution of the mystery. 
 
 Nor did they wait long. Thalreuter owed 70 florins 
 for coach-hire to a man of the name of Block, whom 
 he had promised to pay at the end of the year 
 1825. On the 29th or 30th December Block went 
 in search of his debtor, whom he found in a tavern, 
 and demanded his money. Thalreuter instantly 
 pulled a cheque out of his pocket and showed it to 
 his creditor, saying that it was drawn in his favour 
 for 450 florins by the advocate Dr. Schroll, that he was 
 going to get it cashed and would then pay the debt. 
 The coachman Block conceived some suspicion, and 
 immediately informed Dr. Schroll of the whole affair. 
 The latter declared before the local authorities, on the 
 5th January, 1826, that he had never held any com- 
 munication whatever with Thalreuter, much less given 
 him an order for money, and that he demanded an 
 examination into the matter, as a draft in Thalreuter's 
 favour must be forged. 
 
 In consequence of this accusation upon oath a 
 search-warrant was issued and Thalreuter arrested on 
 the llth January. Early next morning Baroness von 
 Stromwalter hastened to the court and begged that 
 her foster-son might speedily be set free. " It was 
 indeed true," said she, " that he had robbed her at 
 various times of sums amounting to not less than 700 
 florins, but that she had forgiven him this offence 
 long ago, and did riot wish him to be called to account 
 for it." She at the same time declared herself ready 
 and willing to be answerable to the whole extent of 
 her property for any injury he might have done to a 
 third party. She said that she had already paid 700
 
 JAMES THALKEUTER. 195 
 
 florins for him, and offered, without hesitation, to pay 
 all his fresh debts, which might amount to a few hun- 
 dred florins more, and then all that had happened 
 might be as though it had never occurred. But 
 the astonishing confessions which Thalreuter made 
 at his first examination soon induced the Baron and 
 Baroness to alter their tone, and to represent them- 
 selves as unfortunate victims, who had slept securely 
 on the brink of a precipice and were only awakened 
 by their fall. They now declared that they had 
 always believed their foster-child to be the son and 
 
 heir of the reigning Duke of B , but that now he 
 
 had himself confessed that he, whom they had treated 
 like their own son, had deceived them in the most 
 shameful manner, and had cheated and plundered 
 them of all their possessions, and even of their good 
 name, and reduced them to absolute beggary ; that 
 they accordingly renounced all their parental duties 
 towards him, and left him to justice and to his well- 
 merited fate. In spite of this declaration, hopes from 
 time to time revived in them that this manifest reality 
 might after all be only an illusion, and that the Duke 
 might at last appear as a Deus ex machina to release 
 his darling son from durance vile, and them from 
 want and misery. 
 
 Thalreuter confessed with the utmost frankness, 
 but without the slightest remorse, or compassion for his 
 poor old foster-parents, not only the forgery of the draft 
 upon Dr. Schroll, but also of an order upon a bank for 
 445 florins, which, however, he said, was not in- 
 tended to be presented. He likewise recounted the 
 long series of deceits and thefts which he had prac- 
 tised upon his foster-parents ; but it was impossible, 
 
 o2
 
 196 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 accurate as Thalreuter's memory was, to ascertain the 
 precise amount of that which he had robbed from them, 
 as he very naturally had kept no accounts. The old 
 Baron von Stromwalter could give no information 
 whatever with regard to the state of his own affairs, and 
 referred everything to the superior knowledge of his 
 wife, and she, who had blindly committed everything 
 to the hands of her James, had nothing to trust to but 
 the vague and general impressions on her own weak 
 memory. Thus much, however, is certain, that during 
 little more than one year Thalreuter, by various dis- 
 honest means, got from them between 6000 and 8000 
 florins. 
 
 Such a varied and ingenious tissue of falsehoods, 
 such a complication of deceits so long and so success- 
 fully practised by a boy of fifteen upon two old people 
 of rank and education, seemed impossible without ad- 
 visers and accomplices ; and accordingly Thalreuter, 
 with the same apparent frankness with which he had 
 confessed his own crimes, now met the questions of 
 the judge by the assertion that Stang, the toyman, had 
 persuaded him to the forgery of all the false docu- 
 ments, that he had dictated the false bank order and 
 fabricated the royal seal upon it, and that he had de- 
 vised the scheme for cheating his foster-parents and 
 had assisted in the execution of it. That among other 
 things Stang had once appeared at Baron von Strom- 
 waiter's dressed in a brilliant uniform and covered 
 with orders, and had given himself out as an envoy 
 from Thalreuter's pretended father. He added that a 
 considerable part of the money thus obtained had 
 been employed by Stang in increasing his business 
 and enlarging his shop, and also that many of the
 
 JAMES THALREUTER. 197 
 
 things stolen from his foster-parents had fallen to the 
 share of Stang ; and, not content with these accusa- 
 tions, he charged Stang with being a cheat and a forger 
 by trade, with carrying on a regular fabrication of forged 
 drafts, lottery tickets, exchequer bills, and tontine 
 scrip, and with selling plated articles stamped with the 
 mark of real silver. All these charges were supported 
 by detailed statements of specific facts. Thus, for 
 instance, he enumerated a long list of bills forged by 
 Stang, specifying the persons by whom they purported 
 to be drawn, the houses on which they were drawn, 
 the persons who accepted them, and the time when 
 the bills were negotiable, accompanying his statements 
 with so many minute circumstances that it would have 
 been easier to doubt the light of the sun at noonday 
 than the truth of his assertions. At every fresh ex- 
 amination these charges were strengthened by new 
 disclosures or new accusations, which, according to 
 Thalreuter, recurred by degrees to his memory. 
 Among other things Thalreuter even asserted that, in 
 order to open a fresh supply to the failing resources of 
 the Von Strom waiters, Stang had proposed to poison 
 Baroness von Stromwalter's rich brother, and that he 
 had prepared the poison, which he kept in a bottle 
 in a place which Thalreuter described. 
 
 Stang, a married man, and the father of a family, 
 was not exactly the sort of person whom one would sus- 
 pect of such actions. He maintained himself, to all ap- 
 pearance honestly, by his business, which he had greatly 
 extended by his activity, cleverness, and economy, 
 and which was quite sufficient to support himself and 
 his family respectably. But previous to the establish- 
 ment of his toy-shop, which had happened within a few
 
 198 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 years, his life had not been altogether free from sus- 
 picion. He was originally a tailor, and then entered 
 the service of a merchant, who discharged him in 
 a short time, and gave him but a doubtful charac- 
 ter. He then wandered about the country as a con- 
 juror. It was notorious that Thalreuter and Stang 
 were continually together, and that the latter took 
 part in all Thalreuter's dissipations, and also that he 
 lorded it in the Strom waiters' house. Moreover it 
 appeared impossible for a lad of fifteen to have con- 
 ceived or executed all that has been already related, 
 without assistance ; and Thalreuter's frank confession 
 afforded sufficient ground for presuming that Stang 
 was his accomplice, and for arresting him accord- 
 ingly. 
 
 Thalreuter's accusations were not, however, confined 
 to Stang ; several other persons figured in this story 
 as accomplices in a greater or less degree. Wolositz, 
 a wealthy Jewish merchant, was pointed out by him 
 as the receiver of Stang's bills, knowing them to be 
 forged ; and the accusation was supported by a state- 
 ment of circumstances which gave it every appear- 
 ance of truth. He likewise named an innkeeper 
 called Brechtal, as one intimately associated in all 
 Stang's criminal secrets, and whose business it was 
 to travel about and pass these forgeries in the disguise 
 of an officer. Thalreuter accused both these men, 
 but more especially Brechtal, of instigating him to 
 rob and cheat his foster-parents, and stated that he 
 had bought for the latter out of the stolen money a 
 horse, a butt of wine, &c. ; and that inside of this 
 butt hung a small watertight barrel, in which Brech- 
 tal kept Stang's forged bills. Wolositz and Brechtal
 
 JAMES THALREUTER. 199 
 
 were accordingly taken into custody, and four other 
 persons were involved in the same suspicion by Thal- 
 reuter's charges. 
 
 In order to obtain proofs of the truth of the 
 various charges, and to secure the articles designated 
 by Thalreuter as belonging to the Strom waiters, the 
 houses of the suspected parties were searched ; Stang's 
 house repeatedly, for no sooner was one search ended 
 than Thalreuter prepared some new charge against 
 Stang which rendered a fresh search necessary. 
 Thalreuter, who was present on these occasions, em- 
 ployed himself in pointing out to the authorities either 
 those things which belonged to his foster-parents, or 
 had been bought with their money, or the materials, 
 proofs, and instruments of the various forgeries. Each 
 search led to fresh discoveries on Thalreuter's part, 
 until at length the rooms appropriated to the purpose 
 were crowded with effects of all sorts. In Stang's 
 private dwelling the authorities seized silver spoons, 
 tin and copper utensils, glasses, bottles and jars, nap- 
 kins and table-covers, bedding, children's toys, and even 
 articles of clothing, such as Stang's boots and trowsers. 
 Out of his shop they took all sorts of objects of the 
 supposed plated material, and other articles of value, 
 watches, lace, buckles, telescopes, eye-glasses, ladies' 
 reticules, rouge-boxes, cosmetics, scented pomatums 
 and soaps. The innkeeper Brechtal fared no better : 
 they took from him his gun and a pair of waterproof 
 boots (for Brechtal was also a shoemaker) ; his horse 
 out of the stable, and all the wine out of his cellar. 
 
 While these domiciliary visits were going on, the 
 gaoler one day discovered, while changing Thalreuter's 
 prison, seventeen florins concealed in his straw mat-
 
 200 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 tress. On examination, Thalreuter confessed that 
 he had taken the opportunity of one of these visits at 
 Stang's house, to steal this sum out of his writing- 
 desk. When asked how this was possible, as one of 
 the officers of the court constantly had his eye upon 
 him, he replied that the presence of the officer had 
 not prevented his gaining possession of the money by 
 a sleight of hand which he had learnt from Stang 
 himself. 
 
 When the charges against Stang and others came 
 to be sifted, many of them proved to be utterly false. 
 A lottery ticket found in Stang's possession, and de- 
 nounced as a forgery, was pronounced at Frankfort 
 to be genuine : several bills which he was accused of 
 having forged and put in circulation, were never pre- 
 sented. It was moreover discovered that no such 
 firms existed as those on which some of the other 
 bills were said to have been drawn. When this was 
 represented to Thalreuter on his twelfth examination, 
 he not only retracted a great part of his accusation 
 against Stang, but declared his whole statement about 
 Wolositz and the four others, who were most respect- 
 able persons, to be sheer calumny. His motives for 
 making all these false charges were various. One 
 had excited his hatred at a fight, another had abused 
 him ; a third had found fault with his conduct 
 behind his back, while a fourth had laughed at his 
 bad riding. Stang and Brechtal did not get out 
 of the scrape quite so easily, but every step in the 
 inquiry was the means of discovering some fresh 
 falsehoods, more especially with respect to Stang. 
 For example, all the articles which Thalreuter had 
 asserted to be plated were found to be real silver :
 
 JAMES THALREUTER. 201 
 
 many of the things said to have belonged to Baroness 
 von Strom waiter were not hers, but were proved to 
 have been long in the possession of Stang and his 
 family. The small secret barrel concealed in Brech- 
 tal's butt of wine never could be found, and the bottles 
 said to contain poison for Baroness von Stromwalter's 
 rich brother were filled with most innocent scent and 
 hair-oil. Thalreuter, however, retracted only so 
 much of his accusation against Stang as was proved 
 to be false, and although forced to declare one charge 
 after another to be mere inventions, he still persisted 
 through several examinations in accusing his boon 
 companion of enough to ensure him an imprisonment 
 of several years with hard labour. It was not until his 
 twenty-second examination that he declared all his 
 accusations against Stang to be pure inventions dic- 
 tated by revenge, adding that he could never forgive 
 Stang for taking advantage of his youthful inexpe- 
 rience, and encouraging him in all his debaucheries 
 and excesses. But these excuses for his false accu- 
 sations were also false. In his twenty-sixth exami- 
 nation he was compelled to retract even this, and to 
 own that he had no other reason for involving Stang 
 in this criminal prosecution, than that Stang had 
 charged him too much for his wares : neither had he 
 any cause for accusing Brechtal, beyond that he had 
 occasionally scored a double reckoning against him. 
 
 Thus it was proved beyond doubt that this young 
 villain not only had no assistance in effecting the ruin 
 of his old foster-parents beyond that of his own wit 
 and the weakness and simplicity of the old people, 
 but that he had also used the criminal court itself as
 
 202 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 a stage upon which further to display his instinctive 
 talent for stealing and lying. 
 
 Those innocent persons who had been taken into 
 custody upon Thalreuter's accusations were imme- 
 diately released. Thalreuter, in consideration of his 
 youth, was sentenced, on the 25th September, 1826, 
 to eight years* imprisonment with hard labour, for his 
 forgeries, thefts, and other deceits. He was to receive 
 twenty-five lashes on his entrance into prison as a 
 further punishment, and to have warm food only on 
 every third day. Directions were also given that this 
 young criminal should receive all necessary instruc- 
 tion, and that the greatest attention should be paid to 
 his moral and religious training. 
 
 Fortunately for the community and for himself, 
 Thalreuter did not outlive the term of his imprison- 
 ment. He died in 1828, in the Bridewell at Munich.
 
 THE KLEIMCOOT FAMILY; 
 
 OR, 
 THE PARRICIDES OF THE BLACK MILL. 
 
 UPON a streamlet called the Sittenbach, which runs 
 at the bottom of a narrow glen enclosed within steep 
 mountains, stands the lonely Schwarz Muhle, or 
 Black Mill, at about 340 paces from the last house in 
 the neighbouring village. The miller, Frederick Klein - 
 schrot, a strong, powerful man of about sixty, lived 
 there until the 9th August, 1817: he and all his 
 family were Protestants. His business was a thriving 
 one, and his property, as was subsequently proved, 
 amounted to a capital of 13,577 florins. He had 
 been married for thirty years, and had had twelve 
 children by his wife Barbara, five of whom were 
 still living. His eldest son, Leonard, was settled as a 
 master miller at a distance, but the second and third 
 sons, Conrad and Frederick, the former twenty- 
 eight and the latter twenty-three years of age, lived 
 in their father's house, the one managing the farm, 
 and the other assisting his father in the mill. The 
 two daughters, Margaret Barbara, aged twenty-three, 
 and Kunigunda, aged eighteen, supplied the place of 
 maid-servants. 
 
 In the farm-yard belonging to the mill, and not 
 above twenty paces distant from it, was a separate
 
 204 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 cottage, rented at a low rate by a day-labourer 
 of the name of John Adam Wagner. . In addition 
 to his rent, he was bound to work for the miller when 
 required to do so, for six kreutzers a-day and his 
 food. 
 
 Besides the miller's family and that of the day- 
 labourer, a stable-boy of about thirteen lived at the 
 mill. He slept in a distant stable, so that he could 
 hear nothing that took place there by night. 
 
 On the 9th August, 1817, the master miller dis- 
 appeared. It was not until the llth October of the 
 same year that his wife informed the provincial 
 magistrate that her husband had left his home nine 
 weeks ago, taking with him all the ready money, and 
 that they were without any tidings of him. She re- 
 quested that he might be publicly advertized, which 
 was accordingly done, but without success, and that 
 all outstanding claims might be called in. The pro- 
 perty of the absent man was accordingly put into the 
 hands of trustees appointed by the court. 
 
 About a year after his disappearance, it was ru- 
 moured abroad that he had been murdered in the 
 Black Mill. The report no doubt arose out of sus- 
 picious expressions uttered by Wagner to one of his 
 fellow-labourers of the name of Wiedman. One day 
 when he was angry with the Kleinschrot family, he 
 said to Wiedman, " If you did but know what I know, 
 you would be surprised : if I were to tell of the miller's 
 family, the mill would be shut up and they would 
 all go to prison. If I want money, they must give 
 it me ; and if I want the cottage, they must give me 
 that too." 
 
 On the 1st September, 1818, Metsieder, a gen-
 
 THE KLEINSCHROT FAMILY. 205 
 
 darme, informed the provincial court of this expression 
 of Wagner's. Suspicion was further increased by the 
 knowledge of the domestic quarrels which had con- 
 stantly taken place in the Black Mill, and by the 
 strangely embarrassed manner of the miller's family 
 and of Wagner and his wife towards him (the in- 
 former). 
 
 The provincial magistrate had been already made 
 aware, by former proceedings, of the bitter animosity 
 subsisting between Kleinschrot and his family. Two 
 months before his disappearance the old man had laid a 
 complaint before the magistrate, that his wife and sons 
 had possessed themselves of his keys and his money, 
 and assumed the whole management of the house and 
 mill. That they had ceased to treat him with reve- 
 rence, or to obey his orders, and had even threatened 
 him with blows. The wife and children, on the other 
 hand, replied that the plaintiff was a profligate spend- 
 thrift who neglected all the duties of a husband and 
 a father, and wasted his substance on low women. 
 The magistrate ordered them to submit to him as the 
 head of the family, and to restore to him the lawful 
 control over his own household. But on the following 
 day the miller complained to the magistrate that his 
 family would not abide by the decision of the court, 
 and that his children had actually struck him. A com- 
 mission was accordingly sent to reinstate old Klein- 
 schrot in his rights as head of the house. But even 
 in the presence of the commissioners, the family 
 expressed the bitterest hatred towards him, and de- 
 clared their settled determination to obtain redress 
 from justice for his extravagance, profligacy, and 
 cruelty.
 
 206 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 These and other circumstances, added to the state- 
 ment of the gendarme, were sufficient grounds for 
 a serious inquiry. The provincial judge of the dis- 
 trict took steps evincing great zeal in this matter. 
 On the very night in which this information reached 
 him, he caused Wagner and Wiedman to be arrested, 
 and went in person to the Black Mill, to examine the 
 miller's wife and her sons. Wiedman repeated before 
 the court the expression used by Wagner, which we 
 have already mentioned, and the common rumour 
 that Kleinschrot had been murdered in his mill, and 
 that Wagner had helped to bury the body in the saw- 
 mill. On the other hand, Wagner and the miller's 
 family maintained that old Kleinschrot had privately 
 absconded. The elder of the parish, who was ex- 
 amined as to the character of the Kleinschrot family, 
 declared that he knew nothing against either them 
 or Wagner; and a shepherd of the name of Sperber 
 stated, that during the hay harvest of 1817 he had 
 been employed by Kleinschrot to accompany him to 
 a neighbouring village, and to carry a bag of money, 
 which from its weight must have contained at least 
 2000 florins. Hereupon the proceedings were ab- 
 ruptly stopped. Wiedman was not examined upon 
 oath, the miller's daughters were not questioned at 
 all, and no search was made in the saw-mill, which 
 rumour pointed out as the spot in which the body had 
 been buried. The provincial judge, contrary to his 
 bounden duty, sent no report of the case to the cen- 
 tral tribunal, and thus the matter rested for three 
 whole years. 
 
 In the autumn of 1821 the provincial judge of the dis- 
 trict was suspended from his office on suspicion of mal-
 
 THE KLEINSCHROT FAMILY. 207 
 
 versation. A commission was sent by the central court 
 to direct the inquiry into his conduct, and to instal his 
 successor. The commissioner had scarcely commenced 
 the inquiry, when, on the night of the llth November, 
 a fire broke out in the record chamber, which was 
 kept constantly locked, and the greater part of the 
 records were destroyed, to the extreme injury of many 
 members of the community. Suspicion immediately 
 fell upon the suspended magistrate, who had an es- 
 pecial interest in the destruction of records which 
 might betray his malpractices, and who moreover 
 was alone able to effect it. The commissioner was 
 directed to inquire into the origin of the fire, and with 
 the view of discovering fresh cause of suspicion, and 
 of confirming those already existing, he set on foot 
 a rigid examination of the records which had escaped 
 the flames, in order to discover those which the sus- 
 pended magistrate might have had a peculiar interest 
 in destroying. During the course of his research he 
 found a small volume of documents relating to the 
 appointment of trustees .for the management of the 
 absent miller's property. The rumour that Klein- 
 schrot had been murdered by his own family, and that 
 the magistrate had received a considerable bribe from 
 them for letting the inquiry drop and hushing up the 
 whole affair, reached the commissioner's ears at the 
 same time. On further search, several other papers 
 connected with the proceedings were discovered. 
 
 These were sufficient grounds for fresh investiga- 
 tion, and on the 6th December, 1821, Wiedman's 
 evidence was taken on oath, and Wagner and Anna 
 his wife were summoned as witnesses. Wiedman re- 
 peated his former statement: Wagner renewed his
 
 '208 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 assurances that he did not know what had become 
 of the miller ; but his wife immediately confessed 
 "that in August or September, 1817, the miller's 
 sons tried to persuade her husband to assist them 
 in getting rid of their father: that she would not 
 suffer it, but that the sons never ceased urging 
 him, till at last her husband went one night into 
 the miller's bedroom, and helped the sons to murder 
 him ; whereupon the body was buried in the cleft of a 
 rock near a field belonging to the miller." John 
 Wagner, who in the meantime had been given in 
 charge to a gendarme, in order to prevent any com- 
 munication between himself and his wife, was ex- 
 amined afresh, and the following confession extracted 
 from him: 
 
 Old Klein sch rot, who was a cruel husband and 
 father, and a man of most abandoned habits, lived in 
 constant enmity with his family. One morning in 
 September, 1817, his son Conrad informed him 
 (Wagner) that the Kleinschrot family had determined 
 to put their father to death on the following night, 
 in order to save themselves from utter ruin. Conrad 
 promised to provide for him if he would assist them 
 in the deed, and told him how it was to be accom- 
 plished. After much hesitation he (Wagner) agreed. 
 Conrad fetched him at night, and, with the help of 
 the younger brother Frederick, they murdered the 
 old man in the kitchen. The body was first buried 
 in the saw-mill, but was afterwards carried away 
 from thence, thrown into the cleft of a rock in a field 
 called the Krumacker, and covered with earth and 
 stones. The miller's wife and daughters were privy 
 to the murder.
 
 THE KLEINSCHROT FAMILY. 209 
 
 On the 7th December, the court resolved upon 
 the provisory arrest of the miller's family, and 
 proceeded that very evening with a proper guard to 
 the Black Mill, where the whole family were found 
 saying grace after supper. When the prayer was 
 ended, the warrant of arrest was shown to the mil- 
 ler's wife and her two sons : every member of the 
 family was then arrested, and confined separately. 
 The mother and her two sons were examined on the 
 spot, but confessed nothing. They asserted that all 
 they knew was that Kleinschrot had been gone for 
 some years, they knew not whither. 
 
 On the following day Wagner was fetched from the 
 prison to show where the body of the murdered man 
 had been buried. He led the authorities up a steep 
 ascent to the left of the mill, and across several fields, 
 till they came to a cleft among some rocks, which 
 Wagner pointed out as the spot. After removing 
 several loose stones, they came to some leaves and moss, 
 whereupon Wagner remarked, " that they must now 
 be near the body." Under the layer of leaves and 
 moss were found some tattered scraps of linen, part 
 of a skull, several ribs, and other bones, which the 
 physicians pronounced to be those of a man. When 
 these were taken out of the cleft, Wagner said, 
 " These must be the bones of the murdered Frederick 
 Kleinschrot of the Black Mill, for his sons brought 
 his body here in my presence four years ago, and 
 threw it into this cleft ; we then covered it with leaves 
 and moss. Moreover, Kleinschrot had remarkably 
 fine teeth, just like those in the jaw-bone before us." 
 
 The miller's children were then led separately, one 
 after the other, first to the place where the bones had
 
 210 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 been deposited, and then to the cleft in the rock. 
 As soon as Conrad saw the bones, he exclaimed, be- 
 fore a question was asked, " That is my father !" and 
 added, after a pause, " but I am not the murderer." 
 Frederick looked at them without betraying emo- 
 tion or embarrassment, and on being asked, " What 
 are these?" answered, "Why, what should they be 
 but bones ; but whether of a man or a beast I cannot 
 say; I do not know the difference." The youngest 
 daughter, Kunigunda, cried out when led to the cleft, 
 "I know nothing about this: I know that about my 
 father, but of what happened up here I know 
 nothing; I am innocent, completely innocent." When 
 it came to the turn of the eldest daughter, Margaret, 
 she exclaimed, " I am innocent of the deed, I am in- 
 nocent. I knew nothing about it till I heard my 
 father's dreadful scream, and then it was too late. I 
 have never had a moment's peace since. Oh, God ! 
 what will become of us ?" 
 
 Thus, then, a mystery was brought to light which 
 had been concealed for so many years a murder 
 committed by a hired assassin on the person of the 
 miller, in which his wife, sons, and daughters were all 
 more or less concerned as instigators or accomplices. 
 
 Barbara, the wife of the murdered man, and the 
 daughter of a miller, was born on the 8th April, 
 1764. Her parents were, as the clergyman expressed 
 it, " equally wanting in head and heart." Her me- 
 mory and powers of comprehension were so defective 
 that she could retain nothing at school. The little 
 intellect she had ever possessed was so much impaired 
 by the constant ill usage she had received from her 
 husband during her long and unhappy marriage, that
 
 THE KLEINSCHROT FAMILY. 211 
 
 she occasionally sank into a state of stupidity bor- 
 dering on idiotcy. Her husband's constant complaint 
 was, that he had a wife so stupid that she could not 
 manage her owu household. All the witnesses con- 
 curred in describing her as a kind-hearted, patient, well- 
 meaning woman, and of spotless life and reputation. 
 
 The same was said of her children by the clergy- 
 man and many other witnesses, who unanimously 
 praised their piety, integrity, goodness, gentleness, 
 love of order, and industry. But they were all defi- 
 cient in intelligence, extraordinarily ignorant of every- 
 thing which did not concern their own immediate 
 occupation, and filled with the grossest superstition. 
 They believed ghosts and witches to belong to the 
 natural order of things. For instance, they were 
 firmly persuaded that Wagner's wife was a witch, and 
 Frederick took some trouble to convince the judge of 
 it. As positive proof of the truth of his assertion, he 
 related how, after refusing her something, she had 
 plagued him unmercifully with the nightmare on the 
 following night, and how she had once in his presence 
 drawn circles round a haycock with her rake, mut- 
 tering strange words the while, whereupon a whirl- 
 wind suddenly seized the haycock, lifted it high into 
 the air, and bore it away as far as his eyes could reach, 
 which plainly must have been witchcraft, as the other 
 haycocks remained quietly standing in their places. 
 
 Old Kleinschrot was described as a man of consi- 
 derable talent and information for his station in 
 life, and as a good manager in a certain sense. He 
 sent his children to school and communicated regu- 
 larly twice a year ; but his character was in every 
 respect the very reverse of that of his kiud-hearted
 
 212 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 wife and well-disposed children. Coarseness, cruelty, 
 brutal violence, quarrelsomeness, and niggardliness, 
 excepting where his own pleasures were concerned, 
 were the principal ingredients of his repulsive and 
 hateful character. He was an unnatural son, and had 
 frequently raised his impious hand against his father, 
 and forced him to take refuge from his violence be- 
 hind locks and bolts. The son who illtreated his 
 own father was still less likely to spare either wife 
 or children, whom he looked upon as creatures born 
 to serve and suffer under him. All his children on 
 leaving school became his menial servants, and ful- 
 filled their household duties with care and fidelity ; in 
 spite of which he refused them decent clothing, and 
 allowed them and their mother to suffer the greatest 
 privations, more especially whenever he left home for 
 several days, on which occasions he left them no 
 money for their daily wants. His ill-humour vented 
 itself not only in abuse, but in actual violence. 
 The peasant Roll, who had lived for twelve months 
 in Kleinschrot's service about twenty years before, 
 stated that the old miller never let a day pass 
 without quarrelling with and beating his wife and 
 sons, who were then boys. In his fury he seized the 
 first weapon that came to hand. He once struck his 
 wife such a blow with an axe that she had her arm in 
 a sling for fourteen days. The daughter Margaret 
 asserted that her mother had lost half her wits from a 
 blow on the head which she received from her hus- 
 band some fifteen years ago. The old miller's kept 
 mistress, Kunigunda Hopfengartner, who had formerly 
 served at the Black Mill, had once been present when 
 the miller flung a hatchet at his son Frederick, which
 
 THE KLEINSCHROT FAMILY. 213 
 
 must inevitably have killed him had he not started 
 forward, so that it only grazed his heel. The school- 
 master once saw him beat his wife and children with 
 a bar of iron. 
 
 The children, who beheld in their father only the 
 tormentor and oppressor of their suffering mother, 
 drew closer around her, and formed a defensive league 
 among themselves, united by affection for the oppressed 
 and bitter hatred towards the oppressor. The chil- 
 dren felt bound to protect their mother, and to assist 
 each other against the common enemy, whom they 
 not only hated, but also despised ; for they knew that 
 their father, notwithstanding his age, constantly asso- 
 ciated with the lowest women, by whom he had 
 several illegitimate children, and upon whom he 
 wasted his money, while his rightful children were suf- 
 fering want. Kunigunda Hopfengartner, a worthless 
 creature who was sent to the house of correction soon 
 after Kleinschrot's disappearance, had been kept by 
 him for years, and declared him to be the father of 
 her illegitimate child, born on the 7th April, 1817. 
 When it was known at the mill that she was with 
 child by old Kleinschrot, all the children, with the 
 exception of the youngest daughter, rose up against 
 him, and the quarrel reached such a pitch that the 
 two sons, Conrad and Frederick, came to blows 
 with him; one witness stated that Margaret, on 
 being attacked by her father, snatched up a pitchfork 
 with the words, " You old rascal, if you come near me 
 I will stick it into your ribs." This, however, she 
 strenuously denied. 
 
 In order fully to understand the character of the 
 murdered man, and the terms on which he lived
 
 214 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 with his family, it is necessary to hear the descrip- 
 tion which the wife and children gave of him. " You 
 cannot think," said the wife, " what a bad man my 
 husband was. He knocked my poor head about till I 
 quite lost my memory. Once when he had knocked 
 us down, my son Frederick and I lay all night bleeding 
 at the head in the hay-loft. He was a mischievous 
 man, as all who knew him can testify : he illused me 
 as no one else would use a beast, and for no possible 
 cause : he was always particularly savage at the holy 
 times of Christmas and Easter, and his fury against 
 every one then knew no bounds ; formerly too he 
 used to go by night to the place where four roads 
 meet, and where they say three things are to be got 
 money, or help in fighting, or something else, and I 
 therefore believe that my husband stood in communi- 
 cation with the Evil One." The eldest son, Conrad, 
 drew the following picture of his father. " My 
 father was a savage man who never treated us as his 
 children, nor even called us his children, but always 
 rogues and thieves. When I was twelve years old he 
 illused me and left me lying in the mill quite sense- 
 less, and I bear the mark of one of his blows over my 
 right ear to this day, where there is a scar and no 
 hair. Once during harvest he beat me over the loins 
 so that I was obliged to crawl home and leave the 
 horses standing in the field. I lay in bed for two 
 whole days after it, and my father was cruel enough 
 to forbid my mother to give me any food, as I earned 
 nothing. No servant could stay with him ; he had 
 three or four in the course of the year, so that my 
 brother and I had to do all the work, and we did it 
 willingly. Every one will allow that we have im-
 
 THE KLEINSCHROT FAMILY. 215 
 
 proved our property by our industry to the amount of 
 1000 florins and more : and yet he was never satisfied 
 and constantly abused us and said that we cost him 
 more than we earned. He never gave us clothes, and 
 we went about in rags. But ill as he treated us, he 
 treated our poor mother far worse. He was a monster 
 in every respect, he could not endure our mother, 
 called her by the vilest names, and frequently beat 
 her so that she lay in bed for days : she bears the 
 marks of his cruel treatment on her body to this day. 
 Sometimes he kicked and beat her till she was so 
 covered with blood that no one could have recognised 
 her. Thus we lived in constant fear of our lives. 
 Meanwhile he had three illegitimate children by wo- 
 men upon whom he spent the money which my mother 
 had brought him at their marriage, for all the property 
 was hers. We should have sought our living else- 
 where long ago, but that we must then have left our 
 mother exposed alone to our father's cruelty. At 
 length we sought for protection from justice, but found 
 none. Had he been like any other father, he might 
 have been happy with his children, for we were honest, 
 industrious, and well-conducted, as everybody knows. 
 But he was a monster whose only pleasure was in tor- 
 menting others. He often beat his own father, who 
 endeavoured to secure himself by six-fold bolts and 
 locks, as you may see in the mill to this day, as well 
 as the marks of the hatchet with which he tried to 
 break open the door into the room where my grand- 
 father had taken refuge, although it is now above 
 twenty years ago." 
 
 The youngest son, Frederick, expressed himself 
 much in the same manner " He was not a father,
 
 216 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 but a monster, who hated us from our youth up, and 
 almost killed our mother by ill-usage. His whole 
 way of life was a shame and a disgrace to us : we had 
 plenty of quarrels and blows from morning to night, 
 and but little food or clothing. Six months before he 
 was put out of the way, my father dealt me such a 
 blow on the head with a hoe, that the blood ran down 
 into my shoes, and the wound did not heal for three- 
 quarters of a year : the scar is still there. Once 
 when I was leaving the mill I heard dreadful screams 
 from the kitchen, and on going in I found my father 
 striking my mother with a hatchet and threatening to 
 kill her. He would certainly have murdered her but 
 for me, for she was bleeding violently. I ran for- 
 wards, wrenched the hatchet out of his hands, and 
 held him until my mother had escaped. I then let 
 go of him and ran away, but not till I had received 
 one blow on the loins and another on the arm, which 
 prevented my working for several days. My mother 
 and I slept that night in the barn, as we did not dare 
 return to the house. My mother's body is covered 
 with scars. My father's life was scandalous, arid had 
 been so from his youth. He had many illegitimate 
 children, although his lawful ones were already grown 
 up ; we even found him in bed with our maid-servant. 
 He stole money from his father to spend in these pro- 
 fligate courses. A short time before his father's death, 
 as I well remember, he seized the old man by the feet 
 and dragged him down the stairs and out at the mill- 
 door, so that his head was bruised and battered and 
 covered with blood. Such was the monster we had as 
 a father. Alas ! ever since we were born we have 
 never known peace ; while our father lived we were
 
 THE KLEINSCHROT FAMILY. 217 
 
 tortured by him, and now since his death we are tor- 
 tured by our consciences." 
 
 It is true that these statements were made by the 
 murderers; but the coincidence of their testimony 
 with the character given of the old miller by other 
 impartial witnesses, leaves no doubt of their truth : 
 indeed it is only on the supposition of such a father 
 that we can comprehend how a wife and children, 
 praised by all for their kindness and integrity, could be 
 driven to commit so fearful a crime. He was himself 
 the cause of all that befel him, and must be held 
 morally answerable for a large share of the heavy 
 guilt of the murder. His fate appears but as the act 
 of avenging justice. He who had ill-treated and 
 struck his own father fell by the hands of an assassin 
 hired by his own children. 
 
 The following account of the murder and of its im- 
 mediate cause is compiled from the confessions of the 
 murderers. 
 
 The mother and sons had several times, in their 
 impatience to be freed from their intolerable domestic 
 oppression and misery, given utterance, even in the 
 presence of strangers, to ideas of murder. Once, 
 about a year or even longer before the murder, one 
 of the sons said to John Schuster, a forester who acci- 
 dentally came to the mill, " that he only wished he 
 would shoot his father for a roebuck ;" and the mother 
 added that " he should not then need to buy flour for 
 some time to come." Schuster did not know whether 
 this was meant in jest or earnest, and went away 
 without answering a word. One evening, before 
 Wagner lived in the cottage near the mill, a labourer 
 of the name of Frederick Deininger was at work for
 
 218 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 the miller's family, and one of the sons said to him, 
 " Whoever would put my father out of the way should 
 be well paid for the job." Deininger is said to have 
 replied that he could not do it, as the old man would 
 be able to master him. The miller's family declared 
 that these expressions fell from them in anger caused 
 by a sense of recent injuries, and not from any pre- 
 concerted scheme. Thus much, however, is certain, 
 that the idea of killing the old miller was not strange 
 to them, and that they would have been well pleased 
 if any one to whom they had said as much in their 
 auger had offered to do it for them. They wished him 
 to be killed, but not by themselves. 
 
 An expression which the provincial judge impru- 
 dently repeated several times tended to strengthen 
 their desire for the old miller's death. When the 
 sons endeavoured to obtain protection against the 
 cruelty of their father, or complained of his extrava- 
 gance, the judge dismissed them with the dishearten- 
 ing observation, " I can neither assist nor advise you ; 
 you have a bad and quarrelsome father ; the best thing 
 that could happen would be his death." The mother 
 and children concurred in saying that these words 
 made the deepest impression upon them, and pointed 
 out, to them the only way that was open to them. It 
 was evident that nothing was to be hoped from the 
 protection of the law, and that there was no release 
 for them but by their father's death, which now ap- 
 peared to them to be both necessary and justifiable. 
 
 Subsequently, when the girl Hopfengartner accused 
 the old miller of being the father of her child, at 
 which the irritation of the miller's family was so 
 great as to cause the sons for the first time to lay vio-
 
 THE KLEINSCHROT FAMILY. 219 
 
 lent hands on their father, these thoughts took a 
 stronger hold of their minds than ever. Just at this 
 time too, unhappily for them, a man was thrown in 
 their way well able to understand thoughts of this 
 kind, and who knew how to work upon men and to 
 place their thoughts in a light which deprived them 
 of nearly all their horror. This was Wagner, the 
 day-labourer, a man exactly fitted to suit those who, 
 without being villains themselves, stood in need of a 
 villain to do that for the which they felt themselves 
 too fainthearted. 
 
 John Adam Wagner was the son of a day-labourer, 
 who was still living when the trial took place. He 
 was born on the 9th November, 1769, and was a 
 Lutheran. Common report gave him a very bad 
 character, especially for cruelty. One of his childish 
 amusements consisted in catching birds, putting out 
 their eyes, and then letting them fly. He served first 
 in the contingent of an imperial city, then for twenty 
 years in the Prussian army, and in 1807 in that of 
 Bavaria. He afterwards wandered about Prussia, 
 Hanover, and Bohemia, and returned home in 1808 
 accompanied by a mistress. He then served for three- 
 quarters of a year in the preventive service, after 
 which he married a widow with two children, and 
 supported himself with difficulty as a labourer. 
 Those whom he served found no particular fault 
 with him, excepting a certain unwillingness to work, 
 owing probably to his long military career. Another 
 consequence of this was an utter want of feeling 
 added to his originally cruel nature, which he ex- 
 hibited in the most revolting manner upon this 
 trial. A murder, committed with every prospect of
 
 220 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 concealment, and for which he was well paid, was 
 no more to him than any other task ; at least he 
 related all the circumstances of the horrid deed as 
 circumstantially and as coolly as a labourer might do 
 when called upon by his master to render an account 
 of the work done on a particular day. 1817, the 
 year of Kleinschrot's disappearance, was a year of 
 famine, and Wagner had a wife and four children to 
 support, for whom his wages were insufficient to buy 
 bread, and he and his family often went supperless 
 to bed. When, therefore, a prospect was opened to 
 him of present gain and future support, he was ready 
 to do anything. 
 
 It was Conrad Kleinschrot's misfortune to be con- 
 stantly thrown into the company of this man, and 
 while at work with him he often talked freely of the 
 misery of his home and of his bitter hatred towards 
 his father. On the 1st May, 1817, Conrad told 
 Wagner that his father had again left home on the 
 previous night, taking with him all the money, and 
 that his mother and the family knew not what to do. 
 " The best would be," said Wagner, " for some one to 
 follow him, knock him on the head, and take away 
 his money ; it would be easy to kill him in the Hin- 
 terhof " (a dark ravine about three miles from the 
 mill) : " there he might lie, and no one be the wiser." 
 Conrad answered, " Dare you do it ?" " To be sure 
 I dare," said Wagner. Conrad then objected that " a 
 murdered man, especially one so wicked, would find 
 no rest in his grave, but would walk the earth as a 
 ghost." But Wagner bade him be at ease, for that 
 " he knew how to lay the old man." 
 
 This conversation did not, however, lead to any
 
 THE KLEINSCHKOT FAMILY. 221 
 
 immediate result ; it was merely an expression of the 
 general feelings and wishes of the family. The same 
 subject was, however, the constant theme of conversa- 
 tion whenever Conrad was alone with Wagner, and 
 the only objections he raised were the possibility of 
 discovery and fear of the old man's ghost. But 
 Wagner was always ready with an answer to every 
 scruple, doubt, or fear. 
 
 About six or eight weeks before the miller's death 
 Conrad and Wagner were again thrown together, 
 and Conrad again exclaimed, " How lucky it would 
 be if the old man were never to return." Wagner, 
 who saw that the family were not yet prepared for 
 violence, endeavoured to tempt them to an indirect 
 attempt on their father's life, and proposed to destroy 
 the old man by a sympathetic charm. " He knew," 
 said he, " a piece of magic by which he could make 
 the old man perish like a waxen figure within four 
 weeks." Conrad, who was as superstitious as the 
 rest of his family, replied, " It would indeed be best 
 if we could get rid of my father in this way," and 
 entered heartily into the plan. His mother had al- 
 ready consulted Anna Wagner upon a scheme of this 
 nature, and had given her a pair of old Kleinschrot's 
 stockings, which were to be hung inside the chimney. 
 The mother and sons waited some weeks hoping that 
 the black art would produce its effect, but at length 
 they informed Wagner that his magic had failed. 
 Wagner, who was not easily disconcerted, rejoined, 
 " Well, if magic fails, I must rid you of him by other 
 means." 
 
 On the 7th June, 1817, when old Kleinschrot com- 
 plained to the local authorities of the conduct of his
 
 222 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 family, he also petitioned that, to maintain his paternal 
 authority and the order of his household, his sons 
 should be sent on the Wanderschaft ;* and on seeing 
 that his sons did not obey the verbal order of the 
 court, he renewed the request in writing. The mother 
 and children were in terror lest old Kleinschrot should 
 succeed in this application. She could not endure the 
 thought that her sons, her only protection against her 
 husband's cruelty, should quit her; and the sons, 
 between whom the greatest unanimity prevailed, could 
 not resolve to leave their mother exposed to the in- 
 human treatment of their father. In addition to this, 
 the family were informed that the girl Hopfeugartner 
 publicly boasted that the old miller was going to turn 
 all his own family out of doors and to take her as his 
 housekeeper: they likewise suspected that he in- 
 tended to procure a formal divorce from his wife. 
 
 During all the early part of August Kleinschrot 
 was busily employed in his own chamber in writing 
 something which the wife and her children imagined 
 to be intended against themselves. The youngest 
 son, Frederick, probably at his mother's instigation, 
 stole into his father's room on the 9th August to dis- 
 cover what he had been writing all the week, and 
 found a memorial addressed to the provincial autho- 
 rities demanding the removal of his wife and sons 
 from the mill. Frederick hastened upstairs with the 
 paper and read it to his mother and to Conrad. 
 Their consternation was extreme, especially that of 
 the mother, who lamented at the thought of being 
 divorced in her old days to make room for a harlot. 
 
 * The custom of travelling for three years, and supporting them- 
 selves by occasional work and sometimes by begging. Trans.
 
 THE KLEINSCHKOT FAMILY. 223 
 
 Wagner's suggestion was mentioned, and it was re- 
 solved that he should murder the old miller on the 
 following night. It is not known who first gave 
 utterance to their common feeling ; in all probability 
 it was the mother; at least so Conrad positively 
 asserted. The mother did not deny that she and 
 her sons had consulted together about putting her 
 husband to death ; but whether, when the murder 
 was determined upon, she had told Conrad that he 
 might go and settle the matter with Wagner, was 
 more than she could say, as her memory was so de- 
 fective. She, however, admitted that if her sons said 
 so, they were probably right ; she could no longer re- 
 member the exact words in which she had consented to 
 her husband's murder ; but in all her confessions she 
 repeated that the fear of separation from her children, 
 and of being divorced in favour of a worthless woman, 
 had led her to say to her sons, " that she consented to 
 Wagner's being employed to kill her husband." She 
 even added, " If I had not agreed to it, the murder 
 would never have happened ; but I did agree, and I 
 said so to my sons." 
 
 The two daughters, Margaret and Kunigunda, had 
 taken no part whatever in the consultation upon the 
 murder. When it was already determined and Fre- 
 derick was leaving the room, they entered it acci- 
 dentally and found Conrad with his mother. Their 
 brother then told them what was about to happen, 
 and, according to her own account, Margaret replied, 
 " Do not do this. If our father leads a bad life, he 
 will have to answer for it in the next world : let him 
 live, and leave him to his conscience if he has behaved 
 ill." On hearing that Wagner was to put her father
 
 224 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 out of the way t that very night, she said to her 
 brother, " Do not suffer it ; Wagner is a bad man, 
 who will bring you into trouble in order to get 
 money." 
 
 Frederick, the younger son, appears to have taken 
 no part in the transaction until the day of the murder. 
 He had no communication with Wagner, and did not 
 remember that his brother had formerly told him 
 that Wagner had offered to rid them of the old 
 man. On the contrary, he repeatedly stated that on 
 the 9th August, after reading the memorial which he 
 had found in his father's chamber, his mother, as he 
 thinks, proposed that the miller should be murdered 
 by Wagner ; whereupon he had exclaimed, " Oh, 
 mother, that would be a horrid thing ; I would rather 
 go away than that such a thing should happen." But 
 when his brother represented to him that " if they two 
 went away, the miller would marry a worthless woman, 
 and have a number of children and waste their whole 
 patrimony ;" and his mother added that " there was 
 no help for it;" he at length gave way, saying, 
 " Well, as you please, if you think it right to do it ; 1 
 agree to anything." 
 
 When the matter was thus settled, Conrad went 
 out, called Wagner, and asked him whether he would 
 still undertake to murder the old man on the follow- 
 ing night. On Wagner's replying in the affirmative, 
 Conrad promised to give him 200 florins down, and 
 never to lose sight of him, but to give him something 
 every year. 
 
 They passed the afternoon together in the fields, 
 talking the matter over, and devising how the plan 
 was to be carried into execution. Conrad reiterated
 
 THE KLEINSCHROT FAMILY. 225 
 
 his former doubts as to whether Wagner really thought 
 it would succeed, and supposing it did, whether his 
 father would rest in his grave, and whether the crime 
 might not be discovered, and their lives endangered. 
 Conrad even desired him to consult his wife on the 
 subject. But Wagner overruled his scruples, and it 
 was definitively settled that the murder should take 
 place on the following night. 
 
 On the evening of the 9th August, old Kleinschrot 
 supped in company with his wife, his children, and 
 the Wagners. After supper Wagner and his wife 
 returned to their cottage, and Kleinschrot went into 
 his bedroom, which communicated with the kitchen 
 by a small flight of steps. At about ten o'clock, 
 after his mother and sisters were in bed, Conrad went 
 to Wagner, and told him that everything was quiet. 
 Wagner immediately armed himself with a hatchet, and 
 returned to the mill to earn his two hundred florins. 
 Wagner and Conrad had agreed during their after- 
 noon's walk that old Kleinschrot should be lured into 
 the dark kitchen, and there killed by Wagner. After 
 a long opposition, Frederick consented to ring the 
 mill bell, which would bring his father out of his 
 bedroom. At first he refused, as he knew that his 
 father was in the habit of going into the mill every 
 night, and he thought that Wagner might wait till 
 then. At length, however, he went to the mill, and 
 rang the bell. Meanwhile Wagner stood beside the 
 steps leading from the bedroom, with the axe in his 
 hand, and Conrad went to his own room, and sat on 
 his bed waiting the event. 
 
 Wagner stood with his hatchet raised and ready to 
 strike, when the mill bell rang violently. The old 
 
 Q
 
 226 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 miller came out of the bedroom in his shirt, and when 
 he had reached the lowest step, Wagner aimed a 
 blow at his head with the back of the hatchet. He, 
 however, missed it in the dark, and struck him some- 
 where else. Either from fright or pain the miller 
 uttered a loud scream, which was heard by Conrad 
 and his mother and sisters in their beds, and endea- 
 voured to run back into his room. But Wagner, 
 having missed his blow, threw away the hatchet and 
 seized the miller, who defended himself, occasionally 
 exclaiming, " Oh God ! oh God ! let me go," " Let 
 me go, my dear fellow, and I will never injure you 
 again as long as I live." They struggled together 
 for some time, and such was the old miller's strength, 
 that Wagner at one time thought he should be over- 
 powered by him. At length Wagner remembered 
 that he had a clasp knife, and, loosening his hold 
 of the miller for a moment, he drew it out of his 
 pocket, opened it against his own body, and thrust 
 the blade into the old man's side. 
 
 On hearing his father scream, Conrad concluded 
 that Wagner's blow had failed, and rushed out of the 
 house in terror ; he ran round the saw-mill, but soon 
 returned, and on hearing repeated cries for help, went 
 into the kitchen. His father had received the stab, 
 but still stood upright, moaning. Conrad took a log 
 of wood from the pile in the corner of the kitchen, 
 reached it to Wagner, and then ran out into the road 
 to see if all was safe. 
 
 Wagner, who had dropped his knife in the mean- 
 time, struck the miller on the head with the billet of 
 wood. He staggered, and fell back upon the hearth. 
 
 But this blow lost part of its force owing to Wag-
 
 THE KLEINSCHROT FAMILY. 227 
 
 ner's proximity to his victim, and the miller still 
 lived, and lay groaning. Wagner therefore snatched up 
 a brick which lay on the hearth, and struck the miller 
 with it on the head, until the brick was broken to 
 pieces. The miller at length ceased from moaning. 
 
 Meanwhile Conrad had gone in again, but he had 
 scarcely lain down on his bed when Wagner came 
 and told him that his father was dead, and requested 
 him to bring a light. Conrad went to the mill to 
 fetch Frederick, and the two brothers returned to the 
 kitchen with a candle. They found their father wel- 
 tering in his blood, but still breathing faintly. Wag- 
 ner then asked Frederick for a string : he gave him a 
 bit which he happened to have in his pocket, and 
 went away. Wagner placed it round the miller's 
 throat, intending to strangle him, but did not tighten 
 it, as the old man was already dead. 
 
 While all this was going on, Margaret went quietly 
 to sleep, and even after her father's fearful scream had 
 awakened her, she did not ask what had become of 
 him. Cunigunda also went to bed at about ten 
 o'clock, at her brother's request, because, as she said, 
 she had done her work, and was afraid to interfere, 
 lest her brother or Wagner should do her a mischief. 
 Wagner and Conrad dragged the dead body into the 
 bedroom, laid it on the floor near the bed, and locked 
 the door. After refreshing himself with a glass of 
 brandy, Wagner returned to his cottage to rest. 
 Conrad went upstairs to his mother, exclaiming, 
 " Oh, mother, if the deed were not done, it never 
 should be done." The mother did not shed a single 
 tear ; for, said she, her husband had used her so 
 ill that she thought that God himself must have 
 
 Q2
 
 228 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 inspired her children and herself with the idea of 
 having him murdered. When asked on her final 
 examination, whether she believed that it would go 
 well with her after death, she replied, " Certainly I 
 do believe that I shall be received into God's mercy ; 
 for I have suffered so much in this world, that there 
 would be no such thing as justice if it were not made 
 up to me in the next." 
 
 Early on the following morning, which was Sunday, 
 Conrad fetched Anna Wagner. She washed out the 
 blood-stains in the kitchen, and received the bucket 
 she had used as a reward. Conrad and his brother 
 went in the afternoon to the fair at Petersau, not for 
 pleasure, but because they had been invited by their 
 customers, and could not well avoid going. Far 
 from amusing themselves, they stole away to a neigh- 
 bouring hill, fell on their knees, and prayed to God 
 for forgiveness of their crime. 
 
 Early on Monday morning Wagner rolled the 
 corpse in some linen, given him for the purpose by 
 the old miller's wife, and sewed it up in a sack which 
 Anna Wagner had made of some coarse canvas. 
 He then dug a hole at the back of the saw-mill, 
 whither Conrad and Wagner carried the corpse at 
 midday, and Wagner buried it with the assistance of 
 his wife. Frederick stamped down the loose earth 
 over his father's grave, while his mother stood in the 
 doorway praying. 
 
 Here the dead body lay for nearly a year ; but 
 about Michaelmas, 1818, when it was rumoured 
 abroad that the old miller had been murdered, and 
 buried in the saw-mill, it was disinterred by Wagner 
 and Conrad. The two brothers carried it on a bier to
 
 THE KLEINSCKROT FAMILY. 229 
 
 some rocks in a field called the Weiheracker, where 
 they and Wagner covered it with stones aud moss. 
 Wagner was rewarded for this job with another hun- 
 dred florins. 
 
 This case presented many difficulties ; above all, 
 that of the That bestand, or fact of a murder having 
 been committed. 
 
 It was impossible to prove the violent death by 
 inspection of the remains (augenschein), as the body 
 was entirely decomposed, and the bones so scattered, 
 that there were not enough forthcoming to form a 
 complete skeleton. The physician supposed that some 
 of the larger bones lay still deeper and had not been 
 discovered, but it is more likely that a fox or some 
 other animal had knawed the body and carried away 
 the missing parts. 
 
 The only fact juridically proved was that old 
 Frederick Kleinschrot was no longer alive ; but ac- 
 cording to the Bavarian code the confession of one 
 criminal is, under certain circumstances, equal to the 
 testimony of a competent witness ;* how much 
 stronger therefore were the concurrent confessions of 
 several accomplices, whose statements were evidence 
 not only against themselves, but against each other ? 
 But this same code further requires^ that when a 
 violent death is not distinctly proved by the remains, 
 the witness or witnesses shall prove that " the in- 
 juries were of such a nature that death must neces- 
 sarily have ensued from them." This was not the 
 case with old Kleinschrot : there was nothing to 
 
 * Art. 280, No. 3, Part Il.^of the Strafgesetzbuch.' 
 f Ibid., Art/269, 271.
 
 230 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 show that the stab or the blows on the head were 
 mortal. 
 
 Thus, therefore, although no reasonable man could 
 doubt that the miller, Frederick Kleinschrot, died of 
 the injuries which he had received, the legal evidence 
 was incomplete. For although it was certain that he 
 was dead, and moreover that his death had been 
 caused, according to the full confession of the accom- 
 plices, by bodily injuries inflicted by themselves, 
 nevertheless it was not proved either from inspection 
 of the remains, or by any witness, or by the opinion 
 of the examining physician, that these injuries were 
 fatal. The Bavarian criminal law requires certainty, 
 and does not admit the ordinary conclusion from post 
 hoc to propter hoc. 
 
 As the murder had not been judicially proved, 
 sentence of death could not be passed upon any one 
 of the criminals; but they were found guilty, accord- 
 ing to their several gradations in crime, of attempt to 
 murder.* Wagner had done everything in his power 
 to accomplish the murder; nothing was wanting but 
 the legal proof that his attempt had been successful. 
 Conrad also was evidently a principal : he had hired 
 the assassin and originated the deed, which in his 
 case was more criminal, as the victim was his own 
 father. These two were accordingly sentenced to the 
 severest punishment short of death solitary imprison- 
 ment for life in heavy chains, involving civil death 
 and previous public exposure. 
 
 Frederick Kleinschrot was considered as accessory 
 in the first degree, and was sentenced to imprisonment 
 for fifteen years. 
 
 * Art. 60, Part I., Strafgesetzbuch.'
 
 THE KLEINSCIIROT FAMILY. 231 
 
 The mother, Barbara Kleinschrot, as accessory in 
 the second degree and with extenuating circum- 
 stances, was sentenced to only eight years' imprison- 
 ment in the house of correction. 
 
 The elder daughter, Margaret, would have been 
 considered as accessory in the third degree* had the 
 evidence against her been clear ; but both she and her 
 younger sister Cunigunda, who appeared to be of 
 very weak intellect, were acquitted for want of evi- 
 dence. 
 
 Anna Wagner pleaded in her justification that 
 she had acted in obedience to her husband. By the 
 Bavarian code,f a person who knows that a crime is 
 about to be committed and does nothing to prevent it, 
 which he may do without thereby exposing himself 
 to danger, becomes accessory in the third degree, and 
 liable to imprisonment in the house of correction of 
 from one to three years' duration. 
 
 This was precisely Anna Wagner's predicament; 
 and in consideration of her confession which pro- 
 duced the discovery of this long-concealed murder, 
 the court sentenced her to the smallest amount of 
 punishment, one year's imprisonment in the house of 
 correction. 
 
 The sentences against Wagner and Conrad were 
 sent for confirmation to the central court of Bavaria ; 
 the others were only to be sent in case of their being 
 appealed against. 
 
 When Frederick Kleinschrot heard the sentence 
 pronounced on him, on the 12th August, he was vio- 
 lently agitated. " I cannot bear my sentence, but 
 will appeal against it. I can never endure the punish- 
 * Art. 78, No. 2, ' Strafgesetzbuch.' f Ibid.
 
 232 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 ment awarded me, and would much prefer death to 
 fifteen years' imprisonment in the house of correc- 
 tion. Neither am I convinced that it is just to con- 
 demn me to so severe a punishment on account of a 
 man who was so wicked as my father. As long as 
 my father lived my home was a cruel prison, and if 
 I am to live fifteen years more in another, I would 
 rather die." 
 
 His mother also at first declared that she would 
 appeal, but eventually they both submitted to their 
 sentence. 
 
 Frederick afterwards said, "What determines me 
 not to appeal is, that I shall thus be freed from the 
 misery of suspense, and that I have some hope of being 
 released from prison when I shall have proved by my 
 conduct that I am only erring and not corrupt." 
 
 On the 16th November the supreme court confirmed 
 the sentence on Wagner and Conrad. They were both 
 exposed in the pillory with placards on their breasts 
 and the irons in which they were to die riveted upon 
 them. They were then led to their solitary cells. 
 
 In the pillory Conrad's demeanour was as might 
 have been expected from him : conscious of his guilt, 
 he endured his punishment in silence, with his head 
 sunk on his breast. Wagner, on the contrary, gazed 
 upon the assembled multitude with an air of im- 
 pudent defiance, and once even held up the placard 
 which proclaimed his infamy, as if to show it to the 
 crowd more plainly.
 
 JOHN GEORGE SO EG EL, 
 
 THE IDIOT MURDERER. 
 
 CONRAD EICHMULLER, of Lenzenberg, a day-labourer 
 seventy-one years old, and feeble with age, had been 
 employed for about a week on a hill in the forest 
 near Hersbruck, in digging and cutting up stumps 
 of trees. He always went to his work early in the 
 morning, and returned home before dark, usually 
 at five o'clock; but on the 7th of September, 1824, 
 night began to close in, and he was not come back. 
 His wife, a woman of sixty-two, became uneasy about 
 him, and sent her son by a former marriage, a young 
 man called Lahner, with some other youths, to look 
 after him. They soon returned with the news that 
 the old man was lying dead in the forest, and took 
 with them some men, and a cart to fetch the body. 
 
 Eichmuller was found about three feet from the 
 stump at which he had been working, and in which 
 three wedges were still sticking ; he was lying with his 
 face towards the ground ; his skull shattered, and both 
 feet chopped off; the left foot still adhered to the body 
 by the boot, but the right lay under a tree at a 
 distance of four or five feet ; traces of blood clearly 
 showed that he had been dragged from the spot where 
 he was at work, after he had been killed and his feet
 
 234 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 had been chopped off: his jacket and his two axes 
 were scattered about, and one of the latter was stained 
 with blood in a manner which left no doubt that it 
 had been used in the murder and mutilation of the 
 unfortunate old man. The wife had charged her son 
 to take possession of the money which her husband 
 had in his pocket, amounting to about two florins, but 
 on searching the body nothing was found upon it save 
 one button in the breeches pocket. 
 
 The deed was no sooner made public than the mur- 
 derer was known and brought before the tribunal at 
 Hersbruck. 
 
 On the 7th of September (the day of the murder), 
 Paul Deuerlein, a day-labourer, was driving a cartload 
 of grain from Reichenschwand to Hersbruck, and at 
 about five o'clock in the afternoon he overtook young 
 Sorgel on the road, and called out to him, " Where 
 do you come from? the Hansgorgle, eh?" Sorgel 
 replied, pointing to the hill, " A year ago some one 
 buried my blood up there ; I went to look for it last 
 year, but it had not curdled then, and he who had 
 buried it flogged me soundly. To-day I went up there 
 again to look after my blood, and he who buried it 
 was there again, and had horns, but I hit him on 
 the head with the hatchet, chopped off his feet, .and 
 drank his blood." Deuerlein, who knew that Sorgel 
 was foolish at times, took no heed of what he said ; 
 meanwhile they came to Hersbruck, where Sergei's 
 father was waiting for him at the door of the poor- 
 house, into which he and his family had been re- 
 ceived. 
 
 Sorgel came quietly along with Deuerlein, who told 
 the father, in the presence of a blind man called Albert
 
 JOHN GEORGE SORGEL. 235 
 
 Gassner, what his son had been saying. The father 
 scolded his son for talking such nonsense ; but he re- 
 plied, " Yes, father, it is quite true that I knocked a 
 man on the head, and chopped off his feet ; I killed 
 him in order to drink a felon's blood ; and the man had 
 horns upon his head." Gassner followed Sorgel into 
 his room, where he added, " I also took from him a 
 purse of money, but I threw it away again, for I will 
 never keep what is not mine." Gassner said, jesting, 
 " Oh, you kept the money, to be sure ;" whereupon 
 Sorgel was angry, and said, " Hold your tongue, or 
 I will strike you dead." 
 
 About an hour later Sorgel went into the barn of 
 the inn next door to the poorhouse, laughing heartily, 
 and said to Katharine Gassner, " Now I am well 
 again ; I have given it to some one soundly ; I hit 
 him on the head, and chopped off both his feet, and 
 one of them I threw away." Katharine was frightened 
 at this speech, especially as she perceived blood upon 
 his face : when she asked him how it got there, he 
 answered, " I drank a felon's blood ;" and he went 
 on to tell her that the man was sitting on the ground 
 filling a pipe, and that he (Sorgel) took up the man's 
 hatchet, which lay beside him, struck him with it 
 on the head, and took two florins which he had upon 
 him. 
 
 In the evening he told Katharine Gb'tz, the daughter 
 of the sick-nurse in the poorhouse, that he had come 
 upon a woodcutter who was digging up stumps in the 
 forest, and that at first he had helped him at his work, 
 but that the man then appeared to him to have horns, 
 whereupon he took up the hatchet and hit him on 
 the head, that the man groaned very much, and
 
 236 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 he then chopped off both his feet, and drank his 
 blood. 
 
 Old Sb'rgel, who looked upon his son's story as a 
 symptom of returning insanity, to attacks of which 
 his son was subject, chained him to his bed by way 
 of precaution. The son bore it quietly, ate his supper, 
 and joined in prayer with the rest of the family as 
 usual, and then lay down ; but towards morning he 
 broke out in raving madness, stormed, and tugged at 
 his chain, which he endeavoured to break. In this 
 state he was found by the constables when they went 
 to arrest and take him before the court, and they were 
 accordingly forced to depart without him. Soon after, 
 however, he became perfectly quiet, and his own father 
 and another man took him before the court, unfet- 
 tered, on the 8th of September. 
 
 He was immediately examined in the presence of his 
 father and his father's companion. On being ques- 
 tioned, he stated that his name was John George Sb'rgel, 
 that he was twenty years of age, a Protestant, the son 
 of a day-labourer, born in the poorhouse at Hersbruck, 
 unmarried, and without property, and that he had 
 learned the trade of a knife-grinder and of a chimney- 
 sweep. On being asked whether he had ever been in 
 custody before, he replied, " Oh, no ; who would do 
 any harm to me I am an angel." He then related 
 the murder as follows : " I went yesterday with my 
 father to the wood called the Hansgbrgle I left my 
 father, and saw at a distance an old man digging up 
 stumps of trees I did not know this man; but it 
 seemed to me that my own blood was buried under 
 the stump, and I formerly dreamed that my parents 
 were shut up in that place, and that I must drink the
 
 JOHN GEORGE SOHGEL. 237 
 
 blood of a felon. So I went up to the old man and 
 struck him on the head with his hatchet, and chopped 
 off both his feet. I then drank the blood out of his 
 head, left him lying there, and went home." When 
 asked what could induce him to commit such a deed, 
 he said, " The thing is done and I cannot help it ; it 
 was because I thought he was digging up my blood. 
 Sorgel signed the protocol properly, but during the 
 examination he stared about him wildly, showed great 
 restlessness, and fidgeted with his feet and hands; more- 
 over, he continually expressed a desire of becoming a 
 soldier, and could only be kept in the room by the 
 promise that his wishes should be complied with. 
 
 On the same afternoon he was taken to Lenzenberg 
 to see the body, which he approached without the 
 slightest air of dismay, embarrassment, or remorse. 
 When asked whether he recognised it, he said, " Yes, 
 it is the same man whom I struck yesterday evening, 
 he is dressed in the same clothes ; I chopped off his 
 feet so that he might never be laid in chains again." 
 During this scene he displayed the same bodily rest- 
 lessness as he had done at his examination. He fre- 
 quently laughed, and said that he was an angel, and 
 that he had known very well that the old man was 
 good for nothing. 
 
 On the following day, 9th of September, the judges 
 went into the prison of the accused to examine him 
 again. When asked how he felt, he said, " My head 
 is very full, and I have bad dreams ; among other 
 things I dreamt that I must go up to the Hansgb'rgle ; 
 where there is a clock which strikes verv loud." You 
 
 / 
 
 told us yesterday that you had killed a man : how did 
 you do that ? "I saw an old man digging up stumps
 
 238 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 in the Hansgorgle, and I went and sat down near 
 him. I took up his hatchet, which lay beside him, 
 and struck him with the back of it upon the head, so 
 that he instantly fell down dead ; then I chopped off 
 both his feet. He had an old wooden tobacco-pipe in 
 his hand, which he dropped when I struck him ; I took 
 the pipe, but threw it away directly. I also took his 
 flint and steel, arid kept them" (these were found upon 
 him by his father, and delivered to the court). Sorgel 
 steadfastly denied having taken any money from the 
 old man, or having confessed to any one that he had 
 done so, nor was a single coin found upon him. Why 
 then did you chop off the man's feet ? " In order that 
 he might not be laid in chains." Why did you kill 
 him ? "I struck him because I thought he was going 
 to dig up my own blood." He then went on to say 
 that a strange woman had once told him he must drink 
 felon's blood to be cured of the falling sickness ; and 
 he added that he had felt much better since he had 
 drunk the old man's blood. I knew, said he, that it 
 was forbidden to kill people, but I killed the man 
 in order to be cured by his blood. It happened soon 
 before five in the afternoon, and I first drank the blood 
 from the man's head, and then dragged him to a little 
 distance and cut off both his feet; the left foot re- 
 mained attached to the boot, and the right foot I threw 
 away." The blood-stained hatchet was then laid 
 before him ; he looked at it attentively, and said at last, 
 " Yes, that is the hatchet with which I struck the 
 man and chopped off his feet." He also recognised 
 the flint and steel which were shown him. The exa- 
 mination concluded with the following questions and 
 answers : Do you repent of what you have done ?
 
 JOHN GEORGE SORGEL. 239 
 
 " Why, he beat me soundly last year, and that is why 
 he did nothing to me when I hit him on the head." 
 On what occasion did the man beat you last year? 
 " I went to the woods once before to catch birds, and 
 he beat me then." 
 
 On the 15th of September the court was informed 
 that Sb'rgel had been perfectly quiet for several days, 
 and that he talked coherently, without any mixture of 
 foolish fancies. The judges hereupon repaired to his 
 prison in order to avail themselves of this interval of 
 reason for an examination. His appearance and man- 
 ner were totally changed ; when the authorities came 
 in he took off his cap, and greeted them civilly, which 
 he had never done before, at the same time addressing 
 the judge by name. On being asked, he said he had felt 
 much better ever since he had been bled by order of 
 the physician. That before that he had not been at all 
 well, that his head had been dizzy and full of strange 
 fancies, and that he had dreamt all manner of nonsense. 
 He was then asked if he knew the cause of his arrest. 
 " My father," said he, " who generally watches beside 
 me at night, told me that I ran away from him 
 in the Hansgb'rgle and killed a woodcutter, so I sup- 
 pose that is why I am in prison." Did he remember 
 going to the Hansgb'rgle with his father. " No ; I 
 should know nothing of the matter had not my father 
 told me about it the other day. I know nothing at all 
 of having killed a man ; and if I did so, it must have 
 been the will of God who led me thither.'' He \vas 
 then reminded that he had himself twice told the court 
 that he had killed a woodcutter with his own hatchet. 
 " I remember," said he, " that you were here in my 
 prison, and that somebody wrote at yonder table, but
 
 240 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 I know nothing of having confessed that I killed a 
 man." He as positively denied any recollection of 
 having had a dead man with his legs chopped off 
 shown to him, or that a bloody hatchet and a flint and 
 steel had been laid before him, both of which he re- 
 cognised. Nevertheless, he knew that he had been 
 imprisoned for about ten days, and that it was Satur- 
 day. He admitted having heard, as he added, from 
 his mother, who had heard it from some one else, that 
 the blood of a felon was a cure for the falling sickness, 
 but observed that the man he killed was no felon, but 
 rather that he himself must be one. Still he main- 
 tained that he never remembered drinking human 
 blood or killing the woodcutter. " Every one tells 
 me that I did so," said he, " and therefore I am bound 
 to believe it, but I must have been out of my mind at 
 the time." During the whole examination his de- 
 meanour was quiet and collected, he spoke coherently, 
 and without any confusion of ideas, and his look was 
 open and unembarrassed. 
 
 The next examination was deferred until the 28th 
 September, but nothing new was elicited. Sorgel 
 still answered every question by declaring that he 
 knew absolutely nothing of all that he had formerly 
 related to the court and to other persons. The flint 
 and steel were shown to him, but he denied all know- 
 ledge of them, or of how they had come into his pos- 
 session. The axe was likewise laid before him, but 
 he said " I don't know it." The court remarked that 
 during the whole examination the prisoner behaved 
 with composure and propriety, was perfectly easy and 
 unconstrained, and that his countenance was open and 
 cheerful.
 
 JOHN GEORGE SOHGEL. 241 
 
 It is evident that the utter ignorance of all he 
 had done, which Sb'rgel professed during the exami- 
 nations of the 15th and 28th August, was not affected. 
 Falsehood is never so perfectly consistent as were his 
 declarations in the two last examinations, nor can dis- 
 simulation ever appear so frank and unconstrained as 
 the demeanour of this young man, who was, moreover, 
 described by all who knew him as a simple, kind- 
 hearted, pious lad when in his right senses. At both 
 the two last examinations he showed himself perfectly 
 sane, whereas if he had had any reason for wishing to 
 deceive the judge, nothing would have been easier for 
 him than to continue playing the part of a madman. 
 If his ignorance at the two last examinations was 
 affected, his former madness must necessarily have 
 been equally false, a supposition which is contradicted 
 by all the evidence. None but a Garrick could have 
 acted madness with such fearful truth and nature. 
 Nor was a murderer at all likely first to confess his 
 crime in the assumed character of a madman, and 
 then to affect forgetfulness of the past upon pretending 
 to recover reason. If, again, he were really mad when 
 he committed the crime, when he related it and when 
 he recognised the corpse and the blood-stained axe, he 
 could have no conceivable motive for acting forgetful- 
 ness of deeds committed and words uttered during a 
 paroxysm of insanity. 
 
 His behaviour in court on the 3rd November, when 
 his advocate's defence was read to him, confirmed the 
 truth of his statement. His advocate pleaded for an 
 acquittal on the ground that he was not accountable 
 for his actions. During the reading of this paper 
 Sorgel's manner was unconstrained and almost indif- 
 
 R
 
 242 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 ferent : he listened to it attentively, but without the 
 slightest emotion. On being asked whether he was 
 satisfied with the defence, whether he had any- 
 thing to add, and if so, what ? he answered, " I have 
 nothing to add, and what yonder gentleman has 
 written is quite to my mind. As I have often said, I 
 know nothing about killing any man, and if I did so, 
 it must have been while I did not know what I was 
 about. If I had been in my right mind, as I am now, 
 I certainly should not have harmed any one." To 
 the inquiry how he felt, he replied, " Very well, but 
 a few days ago my keeper tells me I was very crazy 
 again and talked all manner of nonsense, but I do not 
 know a word of the matter." 
 
 As yet we have confined ourselves merely to Sergei's 
 murder and trial, but in order to understand his state 
 of mind and the event to which it gave rise, we must 
 examine his previous history, as collected from the 
 evidence of his parents and other persons who ob- 
 served him shortly before the trial. 
 
 John George Sorgel was the son of a very poor 
 day-labourer who lived in the poorhouse at Hers- 
 bruck. He received a proper school education, by 
 which he profited very well : he was fond of reading 
 and wrote a fair legible hand. From his earliest 
 youth he was always very industrious, helping his 
 father in his work to the utmost of his power, civil 
 and gentle towards every one, and very piously in- 
 clined. His leisure hours were occupied in reading 
 religious books, especially the Bible, in which he 
 was well versed : his mind thus became filled with 
 vague images of angels, devils, hell, heaven, divine 
 revelations, and the like, mixed up with a large stock
 
 JOHN GEORGE SORGEL. 243 
 
 of vulgar superstition. These images formed the 
 basis of the world of dreams into which he was 
 thrown by madness. In the year 1820 he was ap- 
 prenticed to a chimney-sweeper. His master gave 
 the highest testimony to his industry, good-will, atten- 
 tion, and morals ; but at the end of a year he was com- 
 pelled to leave his work owing to a violent attack of 
 epilepsy, which forced his master to release him from 
 his apprenticeship and to send him home. From that 
 time he remained subject to that disease in its most 
 virulent form: he not unfrequently had several fits 
 during the day, once even as many as eight. These 
 constant fits weakened his understanding without in 
 the least blunting his imagination,, and he fell into 
 a state of morbid melancholy, arising partly from 
 bodily infirmity and partly from the thought that his 
 illness kept him at home a burden to his family, and 
 debarred him from the possibility of occupation or 
 enjoyment. 
 
 In the spring of 1823 the disorder of his mind 
 broke out for the first time into positive madness. 
 He lay in bed, ate nothing, stared at one corner of the 
 room, spoke little, except at times when he poured 
 out wild and incoherent speeches almost entirely upon 
 religious subjects, saying that the Saviour had ap- 
 peared to him and had talked and eaten with him, 
 that his father and mother would go to heaven, where 
 there was no water to drink, but only wine, and 
 sweet things to eat. The constable, Andreas Lauter, 
 who visited him during this attack, said, " Sorgel 
 shouted, preached, and sang hymns without ceasing 
 for twenty-four hours together. He told us that he 
 had been with God and had talked to him. When I 
 
 R'2
 
 244 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 entered the room he called to his mother to withdraw, 
 for that I was the devil : he was lying in bed at the 
 time. I reminded him of it since, but he remem- 
 bered nothing at all of the matter." In this condi- 
 tion he remained, according to his mother's account, 
 for a week ; according to his father's, for a month. He 
 then recovered completely, talked rationally and co- 
 herently, and went to work again as before, and for 
 nearly a year he had no relapse ; but in the spring of 
 1824 he had fresh attacks, which did not at first last 
 long, but gradually increased in frequency and in 
 violence. 
 
 "This spring," says Katharine Gassner, an eye- 
 witness, " three young men of the town passed the 
 poorhouse singing and hallooing on their way to 
 foreign parts. This perhaps vexed young Sorgel, 
 who stood at the gate and began as if he were preach- 
 ing * I am the collier lad. . They go forth re- 
 joicing, and I have the falling sickness, and am left 
 behind in grief and sorrow.' He instantly became 
 restless and uneasy, and we saw that some change was 
 taking place in him. The wife of Gb'tz, the attendant 
 on the sick, tried to quiet him and to persuade him to 
 go back to his room, but he struck her twice on the 
 face and went out upon the high road, where he walked 
 up and down with a disturbed and angry air. At this 
 moment a stranger came along the road, and Sorgel 
 went up to him, knocked his hat off his head, struck 
 him with his fist, and trampled the hat under foot. 
 The stranger, surprised at this unexpected attack, was 
 going to beat him, but his mother, Gb'tz's wife, and I, 
 ran up and pacified him by explaining that the young 
 man was out of his senses." Another witness gave
 
 JOHN GEORGE SORGEL. 245 
 
 the same account of this occurrence, with the addition 
 that he said in a preaching tone, " I am a little hare ; 
 I am the Lord Jesus, and make the grass to grow." 
 
 In the course of the following night he secretly got 
 out of the window and ran in his shirt to the church- 
 yard of the neighbouring village. 
 
 In the month of May he was working with his 
 father in a hop-ground, when he suddenly began to 
 thrust the iron bar with which holes are bored for the 
 hop- poles violently into the ground, saying, " Now I 
 am thrusting down into hell." He then ran home to 
 his mother and told her that he would tie no more 
 hops, as he was floating between heaven and earth. 
 He then ran away to Scherau, a wilderness surrounded 
 with fish-ponds : on his way he pulled off his boots 
 and left them on a hill. At Scherau he jumped into 
 a pond, pulled off his trowsers and stockings, and 
 threw them into the water. At nine o'clock at night 
 on the 14th May he came in his shirt to a farmer's 
 house and shouted through the window, " Which way 
 must I go to get upon earth again ?" The farmer's 
 son came out and asked him who he was and what he 
 was about, and he replied that he had run away from 
 home because the earth gave way under his feet while 
 he was binding hops. He repeated this answer next 
 day before the magistrate at Altorf, to whom he was 
 taken by the farmer's son, and who sent him home to 
 his parents." 
 
 For several months after this he was quite sane, 
 but in the first week of September he exhibited the 
 first symptoms of a fresh and far more terrible at- 
 tack. " On the Wednesday preceding the murder," 
 said Margaret Gb'tz, to whom Sorgel was secretly
 
 246 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 attached, " he complained of a great weight upon his 
 heart, but did not seem at all wrong in his mind. 
 On the Thursday, as I was sitting at my work in 
 the court of the poorhouse, he said to me, ' Margaret, 
 this weight is terrible ; I never felt anything like it 
 before ; I think I must be going to die.' On Friday I 
 observed that he talked wildly. He did not come and 
 sit with me and the other women, but sat apart by 
 himself; he stared wildly, laughed like a madman, 
 and said he was going down into hell. His friend, 
 the blind Albert Gassner, came in ; he seized him 
 by the forehead, pulled open his eyelids, and said 
 ' Now you will see ;' and when Gassner said that he 
 could not see now nor ever should, Sb'rgel replied, 
 * Wait a bit ; I will take a knife and cut your eyes 
 open, and then you will see ;' which frightened Gass- 
 ner so that he ran away. On Saturday, 4th Septem- 
 ber, he stayed nearly all day in my parents' room, 
 where there was a soldier lying sick. He did not 
 seem to like this, and frequently asked the soldier 
 to get up and go away with him. I turned him out 
 at the door several times, but he always returned, and 
 once he gave me such a terrible look that I was quite 
 frightened. On Sunday (5th) he told me that he 
 had a hair in his mouth that reached down into his 
 stomach, and begged me to pull it out. I was going 
 to do so, but his mouth was so full of foam that I 
 was frightened. He then went to the well and rinsed 
 
 o 
 
 his mouth, saying all the time that he felt so ill he 
 must be going to die. In the evening he lay upon 
 the bench in my room and hung his head down 
 backwards, which I forbid him several times, but he 
 always did it again. On Monday afternoon he kept
 
 JOHN GEORGE SORGEL. 247 
 
 walking up and down in the passage, and at last 
 threw himself violently upon his face, crying ' Kill 
 me, kill me !' and in the evening he threw himself 
 down in the same manner under a tree, so that his 
 father had to carry him away." Katharine Gassner 
 and Elizabeth Hecklin gave evidence to precisely the 
 same effect. 
 
 After his father had taken him home on Monday 
 evening, he again tried to escape through the window, 
 whereupon old Sb'rgel sent to the constable for a chain 
 and padlock, and chained his son to the wall beside 
 his bed, to which he quietly submitted. 
 
 On Tuesday morning young Sb'rgel appeared per- 
 fectly tranquil, and begged his father for God's sake 
 to unfetter him. His request was complied with, and 
 he. prayed and breakfasted with his parents. At last 
 he proposed to his father to take a walk with him up 
 the old hill, about three miles from Hersbruck, as it 
 might divert his thoughts and do him good. His 
 father consented and they set out together at about 
 eight o'clock. When they reached the very top of 
 the mountain, young Sorgel jumped down a steep 
 bank, broke through the thicket and disappeared. 
 His father, seeing that it was impossible to follow 
 him, went home, in order to prevent mischief there. 
 What followed our readers already know. 
 
 Nothing is more remarkable than that Sergei's 
 confessions, which were made during his tits of mad- 
 ness, should, with one single exception, tally so accu- 
 rately in every point with the real facts of the case. 
 His statement was as connected and as intelligible a 
 one in every respect except the fantastic motives 
 which he assigned for the deed, as could have been
 
 248 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 made by a perfectly sane man. The only one of his 
 assertions which was contradicted by the evidence of 
 others is this, that before the court Sorgel denied 
 having taken, or having ever told any one that he 
 had taken, the murdered man's purse. It was never- 
 theless certain that the woodcutter had had two florins 
 in his possession, and that this money must have been 
 taken by Sorgel. This was proved by the declaration 
 of the widow and her son, and by the confession made 
 by Sorgel that very evening to the blind Gassner and 
 to Catherine, both parties agreeing exactly as to the 
 sum. It is, however, equally certain that Sorgel did 
 not keep this money ; in all probability he took it in 
 a fit of childish avidity, and afterwards threw it away 
 as a useless or forbidden possession. 
 
 The perfect unconcern with which Sorgel related 
 the whole transaction, as if it were the most ordinary 
 event, as well as several irrational expressions which 
 he made use of in court, prove him to have been mad, 
 not only when he committed the murder, but also 
 when he underwent the first two examinations. The 
 most remarkable light is thrown upon his condition 
 by the change which took place in him when the fit 
 of madness had passed away. With the madness 
 every trace of the imaginary world which it had called 
 into existence disappeared from his mind. His reco- 
 very was like waking from a deep sleep, which left 
 no impression but a vague sense of bad and frightful 
 dreams. So long as his soul was darkened by mad- 
 ness he was as perfectly conscious of his own fancies, 
 motives, resolutions, and actions, as of the real exter- 
 nal circumstances of the deed, and was able clearly to 
 describe all that had passed. But these images, motives,
 
 JOHN GEORGE SORGEL. 249 
 
 and recollections vanished as soon as the spell of 
 madness was broken, and he heard the account with 
 as much surprise as he would have listened to the re- 
 cital of the strange deeds of some unknown person. 
 He knew only thus much of a period of several days, 
 '* that his head was very confused, and that he dreamt 
 all manner of nonsense." He did not even remember 
 the substance of his dreams ; only one or two circum- 
 stances remained in his memory; for instance, that 
 the judge had visited him in prison, and that some 
 one had written at the table. He was not aware 
 either that he was himself the principal person con- 
 cerned on that occasion, that the subject of the in- 
 quiry was his own deed, or that he had confessed it. 
 
 It is well known that in madness or delirium the 
 patient often appears to himself to be a third person, or 
 ascribes his own feelings and actions to some one else. 
 Thus a fever patient begs his nurse to remove that 
 troublesome guest out of his bed, pointing all the 
 while to himself, or says that a friend sitting by his 
 bedside has a violent pain in the side or is thirsty, 
 and requests that something may be given him to 
 drink ; while it is he himself who feels the pain and 
 the thirst which he ascribes to another. This singular 
 confusion of persons occurs twice in Sergei's madness, 
 and proves its reality and the truth of his confession ; 
 and also that the confession was made during the 
 paroxysm of insanity, as in it he relates these delusions 
 as positive facts. 
 
 The first instance of this delusion was that which 
 prompted him to drink the blood of the murdered 
 man. After he had recovered his senses he was per- 
 fectly well able to distinguish a felon from a murdered
 
 250 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 man. Thus his application of the vulgar superstition 
 that the blood of an executed felon is a cure for the 
 falling sickness, to the man he had himself killed, 
 was no doubt entirely the result of this delusion. His 
 imagination transferred to the person of the murdered 
 man that which he knew himself to have become by 
 the deed he had committed. 
 
 We find exactly the same confusion in the motive 
 which induced him to chop off the feet of the mur- 
 dered man. He constantly asserted that he had done 
 this in order to prevent their laying the old man in 
 chains again. Now Sorgel had of late been frequently 
 chained himself, and indeed had but just been re- 
 leased from the chains in which he had lain all night, 
 and possibly still felt the pressure of the rings upon 
 his ankles ; and here again his disturbed imagination 
 confounded his own feet with those of the dead man, 
 and in order to secure himself .from the danger of 
 being laid in chains in future, on the presumption 
 that a man who has no feet cannot be chained by 
 them, he chopped off both the feet of the dead wood- 
 cutter. 
 
 The physicians declared their opinion that Sorgel 
 had committed the murder in a paroxysm of madness, 
 when he was not accountable for his actions, and ac- 
 cordingly the court, on the 23rd November, 1824, 
 acquitted him of murder. 
 
 For the safety of the community he was confined 
 in the madhouse of Schwabach, where he died in the 
 course of a few months.
 
 GEORGE WACHS; 
 
 OB, 
 
 THE SUDDEN TEMPTATION. 
 
 ABOUT two miles beyond Vilsbiburg, in the district of 
 the Isar, on an eminence at two hundred paces from 
 several mills, stands a solitary cottage called the Rasch- 
 enhauschen. This belonged to a poor honest shoe- 
 maker of about forty-two years of age, named James 
 Huber, who lived there with his wife Elizabeth arid 
 his three children Catherine, a girl of nine ; Michael, 
 a boy of three ; and a baby of two months old. One 
 half of the cottage, with a separate entrance, was let to 
 a day-labourer called Maier, and his family. 
 
 Maier returned from his day's labour with his wife 
 at about half-past six in the evening of Maunday 
 Thursday, 8th of April, 1819, and was surprised at the 
 unusual quiet of his neighbour's cottage ; none of the 
 shoemaker's family were to be seen or heard. Maier's 
 sister-in-law, Maria Wieser, who had stayed at home 
 all day, had seen the shoemaker's wife leave her house 
 at about three and return home at six : she had heard 
 her knock at the door and laugh aloud when it was 
 opened to her, as if she was astonished at finding the 
 door locked so early in the day, or as if some unex- 
 pected guest had advanced to meet her as she crossed
 
 252 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 the threshold. Since that time Maria Wieser had 
 seen nothing of the shoemaker's family. On the fol- 
 lowing morning too the Hubers gave no token of their 
 existence : no smoke came out of their chimney, the 
 house-door remained closed ; nothing stirred within, 
 and continued knocking and calling produced no 
 effect. 
 
 At length, the daughter Catherine, with her face 
 bloody and disfigured, looked out of the upper window, 
 but was too much frightened to come down. After 
 many earnest entreaties she at length opened the house- 
 door. The first object that met the eyes o those who 
 entered was the corpse of Elizabeth Huber bathed in 
 blood. The body of little Michael was next found 
 rolled up like a hedgehog between the lowest step of 
 the stairs which led to the upper floor and a chest near 
 them. The shoemaker's large iron hammer lay on 
 the floor of the workshop, which was covered with 
 blood, more especially all round the bench, which was 
 upset: on the floor of the bed-room, near the bed, 
 Huber was found lying dead with his face towards the 
 ground. On the bed, near its father's dead body, the 
 infant slept unhurt, though half-starved with cold. 
 All the bodies were in their usual dresses, and the shoe- 
 maker had on his leathern apron. 
 
 As there were no traces of violence on the outside of 
 the house which might lead to the supposition of house- 
 breakers, the first impression was that the family might 
 have done the deed themselves ; but the overturned 
 stool, round which was a pool of blood, and the awl 
 drawn half through some leather which lay upon the 
 table these and several other circumstances clearly
 
 GEORGE WACHS. 253 
 
 proved that the shoemaker must have been struck 
 down suddenly while seated at his work, and after- 
 wards dragged into the bed-room ; besides, the appear- 
 ance of the upper rooms proved that a robbery had 
 been committed there. Several closets had been 
 broken open with some sharp instrument, their con- 
 tents tossed about in great disorder, and a hatband and 
 buckle, which was probably of silver, cut off the shoe- 
 maker's hat. The first glance, therefore, proved be- 
 yond doubt that this triple murder must have been 
 committed by one or more robbers, who had either 
 stolen into, the house during the day, or found some 
 pretext for staying there openly. 
 
 The following was the result of the post-mortem ex- 
 amination of the bodies, which took place a few hours 
 after the discovery of the murders. 
 
 The corpse of Elizabeth Huber, a healthy woman of 
 about six and thirty, bore no trace of injury except 
 upon the head. Two deep triangular wounds, each 
 three inches in diameter, which penetrated the skull, 
 disfigured her swollen face one at the corner of the 
 left eye, the other just above the left temple : the 
 forehead and the bridge of the nose were likewise com- 
 pletely crushed the heavy iron hammer found on the 
 floor of the workshop exactly fitted the wounds. 
 
 The corpse of James Huber also showed no traces 
 of injury save about the head, the back of which was 
 completely shattered. 
 
 Neither the head nor the face of the boy Michael 
 had any external wound, but were much swollen : the 
 skull was as soft as dough : the frontal bone, the temple, 
 and the occiput were broken into innumerable frag- 
 ments ; the rest of the body was uninjured.
 
 254 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS: 
 
 The daughter Catherine was severely but not dan- 
 gerously wounded. The left side of her face was 
 swollen and covered with blood, and her eye closed 
 up ; an oblique flesh wound, about an inch and a half 
 in length, and a great deal of blood, appeared on the 
 back of her head, and also a contusion on the left 
 shoulder. 
 
 There could not be the slightest doubt as to the 
 mortal nature of the injuries inflicted on the three dead 
 bodies. The medical men were unanimous in their 
 opinion that all three had been murdered with the 
 shoemaker's hammer : this was of iron, weighing about 
 two pounds, and the handle was a foot long. 
 
 The strongest suspicion against the perpetrator arose 
 simultaneously with its discovery. The daughter who 
 had escaped gave the first link in the chain of evi- 
 dence. She could riot, indeed, as yet be judicially ex- 
 amined, as she was still suffering from fever, and was 
 always either asleep or in a state of stupor ; mean- 
 while, however, the neighbours and others extracted 
 thus much from her, " that she had been struck down 
 in the house by a man with a blue coat and a high 
 hat ; that this man had frequently been at her father's 
 house before ; that he had been there on the previous 
 Thursday, and had sat for a long time with her father 
 in his workshop." This information was confirmed 
 by the statement of Maier's sister-in-law. She said 
 that on Maunday Thursday, towards three o'clock in 
 the afternoon, she had seen a young man answering to 
 Catherine's description enter the shoemaker's house. 
 
 Soon after, the miller's son, James S , went into 
 
 the house, as she heard, to cut the shoemaker's hair. 
 She had seen the young man, whose name was un-
 
 GEORGE WACHS. 255 
 
 known to her, but who, as she had heard, lived with 
 Schneevveisser, the carpenter, in the village of Soiling', 
 some fourteen days before in the shoemaker's shop, 
 where his boots were being mended : she had likewise 
 heard from the children of the miller that at five o'clock 
 in the evening of Maunday Thursday he was still at 
 the shoemaker's cottage. The above-named miller's 
 
 son, James S , related at his examination of the 
 
 10th of April, " that at about three o'clock on the 8th 
 of April he had, at the shoemaker's request, gone to him 
 and had cut his hair ; besides the shoemaker, his wife 
 and children, he had found a young man who he 
 believed lived with Schneeweisser, the carpenter, at 
 Soiling. The shoemaker begged the lad, who had 
 already taken off his boot, to wait until his hair was 
 cut, when he would serve him. The young man said 
 nothing while witness was present, but stared wildly 
 about him, and seemed rather drunk. He had seen 
 the same man at the public-house (the Post) at Vilsbi- 
 burg on the day when the murder was discovered : 
 everybody there was talking about it : this lad only said 
 nothing, but kept his eyes fixed upon high, and " I 
 thought," said witness, " that as he took no part in the 
 conversation, it must be disagreeable to him. I don't 
 know what to make of him, but I can't help thinking 
 that he must be the man, otherwise he would surely 
 have lamented over such a misfortune, like every one 
 else : he alone said nothing, although he had been 
 with the shoemaker the day before." 
 
 It was immediately discovered, from the accurate 
 descriptions, that the unknown person could be no 
 other than George Wachs, an apprentice of Schnee- 
 weisser, the carpenter, at Soiling. He was arrested
 
 256 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 during the night of the 10th of April, and several sus- 
 picious articles, particularly two silver hat-buckles, 
 were found concealed in his trowsers. Early next 
 morning (Easter Sunday), when the gaoler entered his 
 cell, the accused came forwards of his own accord, and 
 said, " I must own that I am the murderer of the 
 shoemaker and his family : it is all over with me : I 
 should have confessed to-day, and then have given 
 myself up to justice." He was forced to make his 
 Easter confession to the judge, instead of to his 
 confessor. 
 
 George Wachs, born of Catholic parents, at Soiling, 
 in the circuit of Moosburg, on the 17th of April, 
 1800, and, accordingly, only nineteen years of age 
 when he committed this crime, was the son of a small 
 farmer, who also worked as a day-labourer. His 
 parents, who were both living when their only son was 
 brought to trial, were generally described as very 
 worthy people, who had sent him to school from his 
 earliest youth, and had endeavoured to keep him 
 straight by their advice and example. His moral 
 conduct as a boy was not worse than that of others. On 
 leaving school he was bound apprentice to a miller at 
 Freising, who was perfectly satisfied with him, and who 
 gave him his freedom after three years' service, on the 
 7th of April, 1817. He then served as a miller's boy 
 at several places in the district of the. Isar, everywhere 
 earning a character for diligence and good conduct. 
 But his eighteenth year was the turning point in his 
 moral life. He was out of work from the 16th of 
 August, 1818, and either stayed at home with his 
 parents or wandered about the country seeking employ- 
 ment, and working now and then as a day-labourer.
 
 GEORGE WACHS. 257 
 
 In the following October, while working under a stone- 
 mason at Moosburg, he stole from the wife of his em- 
 ployer fifty florins (according to her account ninety- 
 eight florins), and would have been delivered over to 
 justice, had not his father perhaps unfortunately for 
 him been induced for the sake of his own honour, as 
 well as by affection for his son, to make full restitution. 
 At length, on the 25th of December, 1818, he entered 
 the service of the miller Ingerl, at Gerzen, who dis- 
 missed him after three months. " I turned the fellow 
 off," says Ingerl, " simply because his labour was not 
 worth a farthing, and he was always running after 
 women ; besides, he was a reckless, dissolute, riotous 
 fellow, who had no regard for Christianity, and was 
 disagreeable to me on account of his impudent and 
 licentious conduct." This young man's immoderate 
 taste for women fully accounts for the suddenness of 
 the change in his moral nature. Wantonness made 
 ^ him riotous, disorderly, and lazy; love of women 
 made him vain and fond of dress, and vanity made 
 him rapacious, until he became first a thief, and then 
 a murderer. 
 
 After Ingerl, the miller, had dismissed him from his 
 service, on the 17th of March, 1819, he all at once 
 gave up his business, and bound himself apprentice to 
 a master carpenter at Soiling, of the name of Schnee- 
 weisser, in the hope of succeeding better in that line. 
 But scarce had he been a fortnight in his new trade 
 when he, who had till then been known merely as a 
 wanton, jovial, reckless youth, proved, by a deed of 
 which no one suspected him capable, the truth of the 
 old saying, that there is no propensity, even one 
 apparently harmless, which may not, when fostered
 
 258 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 by circumstances, grow into an irresistible passion, 
 and hurry a man into the commission of monstrous 
 crimes. 
 
 With his master's leave, Wachs left home at eight 
 o'clock in the morning of Maunday Thursday, the 8th 
 of April, with the intention of making his Easter con- 
 fession at Vilsbiburg. On his way he met Matthias 
 Hingerl, a peasant's son, who was going to the same 
 village to fetch his watch, which he had left to be 
 mended at a watchmaker's, and which he wanted to 
 wear during the approaching Easter festivities. 
 
 George Wachs having unexpectedly found an agree- 
 able companion, thought that any other day in the 
 week would do as well for confessing, and spent the 
 greater part of the morning at Vilsbiburg, not in 
 church, but in the public-houses, drinking beer and 
 talking, chiefly about women and his own adventures. 
 Hingerl showed him his watch, which he had fetched 
 from the watchmaker ; and although George Wachs 
 said nothing at the time, we may infer from what 
 subsequently happened, that the sight of this enviable 
 possession painfully recalled to his recollection that, 
 although he certainly had good clothes for the next 
 Easter Sunday, he was still without a watch. 
 
 At about noon they both went merrily towards 
 home, but stopped by the way at a village, where they 
 drank three quarts more of beer, and then continued 
 their journey. George Wachs, who, as well as his 
 companion, had druhk a good deal, but not enough 
 to affect his senses, was exceedingly merry and noisy, 
 sung and rolled his hat along before him, ran after it, 
 and played all manner of childish tricks. After ac- 
 companying Hingerl about two miles farther, he took
 
 GEORGE WACHS. 259 
 
 leave of him, and said that he was going to turn back, 
 but did not say whither he was going or what he 
 wanted. Hingerl had, however, previously remarked 
 that Wachs walked lame, and on asking the reason, 
 Wachs told him that he had cut his foot with a hatchet, 
 and must have his boot mended before Easter 
 Sunday. 
 
 With this object only, so at least the accused declared 
 on every examination, he turned back and went to the 
 shoemaker's house, which he reached at about three, 
 and where he found the shoemaker's wife and children, 
 and some girls from the neighbouring mill. Before 
 
 long, James S came in and cut the shoemaker's 
 
 hair, after which he went away again. It was not till 
 then that the shoemaker set to work upon Wachs' boot; 
 Wachs meanwhile played with the children, and took 
 particular notice of little Michael, to whom he gave a 
 carnival-cake. After his boot had been mended, and 
 he had stayed some time with the shoemaker, he wished, 
 according to his own account at least, to go away at 
 about four o'clock, and asked the shoemaker whether 
 his clock was right? whereupon the latter told him 
 that it was too slow by a quarter of an hour, and de- 
 sired his wife to fetch him his silver watch from up- 
 stairs that he might wind it up. After bringing the 
 \\atch to her husband, who wound it up, and hung it 
 upon a nail in the wall beside him, she left the house 
 and went to Soiling to buy fish for the next day. The 
 children also went out to play in the garden with their 
 companions, and George Wachs was left alone with 
 the shoemaker in the workshop. Wachs asserted that 
 he would have gone away with the wife, had not the 
 shoemaker detained him, saying, " Stop a bit longer ; 
 
 s2
 
 260 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 you cannot do much more to-day, and I shall be dull 
 all by myself." 
 
 The wife was very unwilling to leave the stranger 
 alone with her husband. At Soiling, she told Mary 
 
 Z , that " Schneeweisser's apprentice had already 
 
 been three hours at her house ; that the young man 
 was drunk, and that she disliked his way of talking, 
 which was so strange that it made her laugh at one 
 moment, and frightened her the next." A fortnight 
 before this, Wachs had been at the shoemaker's on a 
 Sunday morning to have his boots mended, and she 
 now said to Mary Wiesers, " That fellow is at my 
 house whom I dislike for coming during church time 
 I cannot bear him." This foreboding was soon 
 terribly fulfilled on her husband, her children, and 
 herself. 
 
 " When the woman was gone" these are the cri- 
 minal's own words " we talked over a variety of in- 
 different matters, and for a long while no evil thought 
 crossed my mind, although the watch was hanging 
 before my eyes the whole time. All at once it struck 
 me how beautiful the watch was. I took it from the 
 wall, examined it closely, opened it, and asked the 
 shoemaker how much it had cost. He told me that, 
 with a silver chain and seal, the watch had cost fourteen 
 florins, but that the chain was up-stairs in the cup- 
 board, as he only wore it on holidays, when I should 
 be able to see it. I remarked that I had a mind to 
 buy them, if I could ever get together enough money, 
 and he appeared quite willing to sell them. I could 
 not get the watch out of my head : I walked up and 
 down the room with my eyes fixed upon it, and the 
 thought struck me that I would run off with it as soon
 
 GEORGE WACHS. 261 
 
 as the shoemaker had left the room. But he never 
 stirred from his seat, and continued hard at work upon 
 the upper-leathers of a pair of shoes. The desire for 
 the watch grew upon me every moment, and as I 
 walked up and down the room, I turned over in my 
 own mind how I could get possession of it ; and as the 
 shoemaker still sat at his work, it suddenly came across 
 me suppose I were to kill him ? There lay the ham- 
 mer : I took it up before the shoemaker's face and pre- 
 tended to play with it ; but I did not hit him directly, 
 because I kept thinking to myself that I ought not to 
 kill him. I walked up and down behind his back for 
 some minutes with the hammer in my hand, but still 
 in doubt. Then my longing after the watch gained 
 the upper hand, and I said to myself, Now is the time, 
 otherwise the wife will be here too ! And just as the 
 shoemaker was most busily at work, I raised the ham- 
 mer and struck him with it as hard as I could on the 
 left temple : he fell from his seat covered with blood, 
 and never moved or uttered a sound. I felt sure 
 that I could kill him with one blow. I should think 
 that a quarter of an hour must have elapsed while I 
 went up and down the room thinking how I could 
 get the watch : at length I struck the blow, and this 
 was my last and worst thought." 
 
 " It must have been in an unlucky hour that the 
 desire for the watch took so strong a hold of me. I 
 had never thought about it before ; nor should I 
 have entered the shoemaker's house, but for my torn 
 boot." 
 
 " As soon as the shoemaker was down, I put the 
 watch into my pocket and went up-stairs to look for 
 the chain. The key was in the door of the closet in
 
 262 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 the upper bed-room ; and as I thought that they were 
 sure to keep their best things there, I looked in it for 
 the chain, which I did not find ; but there were two 
 sheep-skins, which I took. Just as I was going down 
 stairs with the sheep-skins, I saw two other closets on 
 the landing ; I therefore turned back and broke them 
 open with a hoe : thinking that perhaps I should now 
 find the chain which belonged to the watch, I turned 
 everything over, but did not find the chain ; however 
 I did find six florins in half-florin pieces, thirty 
 kreutzers, and a silver hat-buckle. In the same place 
 also was a hat with a silver filigree buckle, which I 
 cut off, and put in my pocket." (He then enumerated 
 all the articles which he had found in the second 
 closet, and which he had taken ; the value of all he 
 stole, including the watch, which had cost nine florins, 
 amounted to about thirty-three florins, or 2L 15s.) He 
 then proceeded : " My chief object still was to find 
 the silver chain, and it was only during my search 
 for it that the other things fell in my way, and that I 
 took them." 
 
 " When I had got all these things, I returned to the 
 workshop to take a piece of leather, and perceived that 
 the shoemaker still breathed ; I therefore gave him a 
 few more blows on the temple with the hammer, and 
 then I thought that I had better remove him into the 
 bed-chamber, so that his wife might not see him im- 
 mediately upon entering the house. I accordingly 
 dragged him out of the shop into the chamber near 
 the bed." 
 
 George Wachs had now attained his object, with 
 the exception of the missing chain. There was 
 nothing more to be got; but one crime leads to
 
 GEORGE WACHS. 263 
 
 another. In this case the words of Macbeth proved 
 but too true 
 
 " Things bad begun, make strong themselves by ill." 
 
 After dragging the murdered man into the chamber, 
 and filling his own pockets with leather enough to 
 make a pair of boots, in addition to the other articles, 
 George Wachs was on the point of leaving the house 
 when the two children met him at the door on their 
 return from play. These children had seen him 
 during nearly half the day, and knew him : if they 
 remained alive, he was betrayed. There could be no 
 doubt as to what his safety required: no choice was 
 left him : the thought and the deed were one. He 
 seized the little boy, and dashed him upon the ground 
 at the foot of the stairs with such violence, that the 
 death-rattle was in his throat in a moment. He then 
 flung Catherine with equal violence under the stairs 
 among a mass of wood and iron ; but the girl, after 
 lying stunned for a short time, got up again and en- 
 deavoured to reach the inner room to seek protection 
 from her father : the murderer then took up the ham- 
 mer from the ground, struck the child with it about 
 the face and head, and again threw her under the stairs 
 among a heap of old wood and iron, where she lay 
 motionless, and he concluded her to be dead. Little 
 Michael, however, still breathed. " When 1 saw," con- 
 tinued the murderer, " that I had thrown him with 
 such violence that he could not survive, I gave him a 
 few blows on the head with the hammer to put him 
 out of his misery. I then threw him between the steps 
 and an old chest, so that they might not find him 
 directly." 
 
 This second business was now over ; but, before he
 
 264 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 was well aware of it, a bloody harvest had sprung up 
 under his hands from the seeds he had sown. 
 
 As soon as the children had shared their father's 
 fate, he again prepared for flight, but first looked out 
 at the window to see whether any one was near who 
 might observe him. Just then a man drove by in 
 a cart, and he was forced to wait until it was out of 
 sight. At last he thought he might escape in safety, 
 but on putting his head out at the door to see if any 
 one was near, he beheld the shoemaker's wife returning 
 from Soiling : she had already turned off the road into 
 her garden, and was only a few steps from the house, 
 which he could not leave without running directly into 
 her hands. It was clear, then, that he must stay and 
 murder her too, as he had already murdered her hus- 
 band and children. " When I saw the woman coming, 
 I said to myself, Now I cannot escape ; I am lost, and 
 must kill her too. So I shut the door, seized the ham- 
 mer, and held it with one hand hidden under my coat, 
 while I opened the door with the other: the shoe- 
 maker's wife entered laughing, and said, Why, you 
 have locked yourselves in ! I made no answer. As 
 soon as she entered the room she turned towards the 
 chest which stood near the entrance, and which I had 
 left open after my search for the chain. I stood be- 
 hind her, nearest the door, and before she was aware 
 of it I struck her such a heavy blow with the hammer 
 on the left temple, that she instantly fell close to the 
 chest, and only cried in a low voice, Jesus Maria ! 
 I saw that she could not recover, and gave her 
 several more blows as she lay on the floor, to 
 put her out of her misery. I then dragged her 
 on one side towards the inner room, so that people
 
 GEORGE WACHS. 265 
 
 should not tread upon her as they entered the 
 house." 
 
 " I then went into the inner room, threw a napkin 
 full of eggs, which the woman had brought, behind 
 the grate, and the hammer on the ground, hastily 
 took up the little baby which was lying on the bench, 
 and laid it upon the bed in the back room for fear it 
 should fall and be hurt. I then left the house in per- 
 fect security, locked the front door, and went straight 
 home to my master's house, where I arrived at about 
 half-past six."* 
 
 " The whole affair could not have lasted an hour. 
 It was past five when I struck the shoemaker, and by 
 six the wife was killed." 
 
 " If it had not been for the watch-chain, I should 
 not have got into all this trouble, and nobody would 
 have been killed but the shoemaker. I never once 
 thought of killing the wife and the children." 
 
 That he was at the time in perfect possession of all 
 his faculties, and not in a state of furious drunkenness, 
 is proved by the nature of the crime itself, as well as 
 by his own confession. " I felt a little the worse for 
 liquor, but I knew all the while what I was about, 
 otherwise I could never have done all I did. I cannot 
 tell what possessed me, but I was very merry and 
 joyous all that day." 
 
 An eyewitness was present at the murder of the 
 woman and of the little boy, upon whom the criminal 
 had by no means reckoned this was the daughter 
 Catherine, who gave her evidence before the court on 
 
 * It is strange that all these murders left no mark of blood 
 either on the clothes or the body of the murderer : there were only, 
 as he says, a few spots on his boots, which he easily wiped away.
 
 266 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 the 30th of April, after she had sufficiently recovered 
 from her injuries. It will be interesting to hear the 
 most important part of the testimony given by this 
 child, though legally an incompetent witness. After 
 giving a detailed account of the arrival of the carpen- 
 ter's apprentice at her father's house, her mother's de- 
 parture for Soiling, and the children's going into the 
 garden to play, she proceeded thus : " We children 
 stayed out together a long time, and as we entered 
 the house the carpenter's man came towards us and 
 threw us against the stairs : my brother presently began 
 to move, and the man hit him on the head with my 
 father's hammer. I got up again and tried to get to 
 the inner room to seek help from my father ; but the 
 man caught hold of me, and struck me over my eye 
 with the broad end of the hammer, and on the back 
 of my head and shoulders with the sharp end, and 
 threw me once more under the stairs. I did not 
 dare to move again, and pretended to be dead. The 
 man then went to the door and looked out, but came 
 back in a minute and shut the door, and then I heard 
 my mother call, Open the door ! The man let her in 
 directly. I was still in a great fright, and lay as still 
 as a mouse, arid all at once the man struck her such a 
 blow upon the head with the hammer that she fell, 
 and I only heard her cry out " Help ! " He then 
 dragged my mother towards the inner room, and soon 
 after went out of the door, which he shut after him." 
 
 In all the subsequent examinations the accused ad- 
 hered to his first confession, and only repeated his first 
 statements, confirming them by additional details, so 
 that a perfectly consistent account of the whole trans- 
 action could be collected from his various confessions.
 
 GEORGE WACHS. 267 
 
 On one point only the accused attempted to depart 
 from his first confession, somewhat in his own favour. 
 In the first general examination he confessed in so 
 many words that he had assaulted the two children 
 with intent to murder them. " I should have murdered 
 only the shoemaker," said he, " had not the children 
 come in just as I was about to leave the house ; and 
 as they knew me, I was forced to kill them, lest they 
 should betray me : the same thing happened with the 
 shoemaker's wife." It was evidently from shame of 
 his own inhumanity that he afterwards maintained 
 that he wished only to stun the children so that 
 they should not betray him, and that he afterwards 
 killed the little boy out of pity, on seeing that he had 
 hit him too hard. The deed itself, and the motive to 
 it which he had so frequently declared, sufficiently 
 refute this wretched prevarication. In order to pre- 
 vent the children from betraying him, it would not 
 suffice to stun them : the dead alone tell no tales. 
 
 The truth of his assertion that he entered the shoe- 
 maker's shop without any criminal intention, and that 
 it was not until the watch was so temptingly exhibited 
 before his eyes that the idea of murder entered his 
 mind, seems somewhat doubtful. It certainly looks 
 suspicious that the same man should have murdered 
 another for the sake of his watch at five in the after- 
 noon, who on the morning of the same day feasted 
 his eyes on a watch in his comrade's possession. And 
 as it appears by the indictment that he had seen the 
 shoemaker's silver watch hanging in his workshop a 
 fortnight before, it seems natural to conclude that the 
 desire of possessing it was then excited, and subse- 
 quently much increased by the sight of his comrade's
 
 268 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 watch. By this presumption we may also easily ac- 
 count for his suddenly turning back on the road from 
 Vilsbiburg, his unusually long stay at the shoemaker's 
 house, and, lastly, for his wild looks and his strange 
 way of talking. 
 
 These conjectures, however, lose all their weight on 
 closer examination. From first to last the criminal 
 never seems to have acted upon any predetermined 
 plan, but merely to have obeyed the inspiration 
 of the moment, and to have yielded to the temptation 
 of an opportunity created by the coincidence of 
 several accidental circumstances. It is impossible 
 to calculate chances, and least of all a chance made 
 up of a variety of accidents. Whoever lays a scheme 
 for some predetermined object, if he be not less than 
 half-witted, will found it upon circumstances more or 
 less within his control, and not upon events entirely 
 beyond it, and merely dependent upon chance. The 
 shoemaker's cottage, though lonely, was no hermit's 
 cell. One half of it was inhabited by the day-labourer's 
 family as well as by his own : the accused must also 
 have known that the shoemaker was likely to be 
 visited by a number of customers just before the 
 Easter holidays. He could not have entertained the 
 slightest expectation of finding Huber quite alone, or 
 of remaining with him for hours undisturbed by the 
 presence of a third person. When he entered Huber's 
 workshop at about three in the afternoon, he could by 
 no means have guessed that the wife would go to a 
 distant village, or that both the children would 
 leave the house and stop out at play above an hour. 
 A man who goes with the deliberate intention to mur- 
 der is sure to determine beforehand in what manner
 
 GEOKGE WACHS. 269 
 
 and with what instrument he will commit the crime. 
 He does not trust to the chance that when he is 
 on the spot luck will provide him with a knife, a 
 dagger, a pistol, a hammer, or some other instrument 
 of death. The prisoner's statement that he went to 
 the shoemaker's house merely to get his boots mended 
 was by no means a mere pretence. Matthias Hingerl, 
 who accompanied him on his way to and from Vilsbi- 
 burg, saw a hole in his boot, and heard him say 
 that he must get it mended before Easter. Thus his 
 return to the shoemaker's house has in it nothing 
 suspicious. The long stay of a frivolous, lazy young 
 man, willing to idle away his time, is nothing un- 
 usual, especially when we consider that he had already 
 passed the greater part of the day in idleness, drink- 
 ing, gossip, and all sorts of follies, and would not feel 
 disposed to spend the remainder of so glorious a 
 holiday under the eye of his master, and perhaps 
 even at work. The wild look which one witness 
 (James, the miller's boy) says he observed in him 
 from the first, is to be attributed rather to drink- 
 ing and rioting, than to the effect of any wicked 
 design in his mind ; not to mention that a peasant 
 lad's judgment in physiognomy does not deserve 
 implicit confidence. The antipathy which the shoe- 
 maker's wife felt towards him had been shared by 
 others long before he could possibly have had any 
 thoughts of committing murder : indeed, the miller, 
 Hingerl, dismissed him from his service for no 
 other reason. George Wachs, by nature coarse, frivo- 
 lous, and dissolute, and at that moment heated by 
 drinking, brought the uncouth merriment in which 
 he had indulged during his walk from Vilsbiburg
 
 270 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 with him into the shoemaker's house, where he gave 
 a loose to his coarse nature in vulgar loquacity, and in 
 foolish, wanton jokes. This conduct, especially on 
 a sacred day, and in a person who had already 
 wearied her by his long stay, must have been disgust- 
 ing and frightful, rather than laughable, to a quiet, 
 pious mother of a family. 
 
 We may therefore accept his confession exactly as 
 he gave it : all the circumstances agree so well with 
 each other, and form so accurate a picture of the work- 
 ings of his mind, that it would be next to impossible 
 for a mere peasant to invent a statement so perfectly 
 true to nature. 
 
 The events of the forenoon had already rilled his 
 imagination with the idea of a watch. Hingerl 
 had gone to Vilsbiburg on purpose to fetch home his 
 watch from the watchmaker's, and George Wachs had 
 to wait at the public-house while his companion trans- 
 acted this business. When Hingerl rejoined Wachs 
 he naturally talked about the watch, the possession of 
 which gave him double pleasure now that it had been 
 mended and was to go particularly well. In order to 
 make his companion share his pleasure, Hingerl took 
 the watch out of his pocket and allowed him to 
 examine it, boasting of its excellence all the while. 
 George Wachs said nothing, but it was impossible 
 that so vain a young man should not envy his more 
 fortunate companion, and long for the possession of a 
 similar treasure. Thus, without any guilty thoughts 
 or criminal intentions, George Wachs was prepared, 
 by what he had seen, heard, and felt that morning, 
 for the temptation which afterwards met him in the 
 shoemaker's house. An unhappy chance placed before
 
 GEORGE WACHS. 271 
 
 the eyes of one whose thoughts and wishes had on that 
 very morning been directed towards a watch, just 
 such another, and the tempter, opportunity, stood 
 by. This second watch was not merely shown to him 
 and then returned to its case, but was hung against the 
 wall, where it continued to excite his desires : he could 
 not avoid seeing it, and the longer he looked the more 
 inviting did it appear. A silver chain and seal like- 
 wise belonged to this watch, which the shoemaker told 
 
 O * 
 
 him were so fine that he only wore them on holidays. 
 This watch, with its fine chain, was far better than 
 that which he had coveted in his companion's posses- 
 sion. To be the owner of such a treasure, to appear 
 before the women thus adorned, to outshine all his 
 companions, was indeed a tempting vision for a vain 
 lad of nineteen ; and in this vision he indulged until 
 liking became longing, and longing ungovernable 
 passion. For a time his yet undefined wishes hovered 
 round their object ; he took down the watch from the 
 wall, examined it more closely, and talked of buying 
 it. But when the shoemaker agreed to sell him the 
 watch, thus placing it at his disposal, fresh fuel was 
 added to the flames which burned within him. 
 Nothing now intruded itself between his desires and 
 their object but the want of a small sum of money, 
 which he did not possess and could not hope soon to 
 obtain. But was the most intense passion of his heart, 
 the object on which his mind was fixed, and which 
 he already fancied his own, to be resigned for such 
 a trifle ? The passions always choose the shortest path. 
 There hung the watch before his eyes; he had but 
 to stretch out his arm and it was his : no one was 
 there to prevent him but the shoemaker, who must
 
 272 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 quit the room or die. Thus the choice lay between 
 theft and murder ; the former, indeed^ rather than the 
 latter, but he was equally prepared for the one or the 
 other, according to opportunity and circumstances. 
 
 The most striking feature in this case is the 
 fearful spectacle of a sudden passion, which seized on 
 his imagination like a whirlwind and hurried him on 
 to perdition. The blinding, maddening influence of 
 the passions was exhibited in a remarkable manner in 
 his conduct. All his thoughts, wishes, and actions, 
 considered as means for accomplishing his ends, were 
 so foolish and senseless, that we might call them 
 childish but for their extreme cruelty. He was so com- 
 pletely wrapped up in the object of his desires as not 
 to perceive objections which could scarce escape the 
 observation of an ordinary child. He first waited for 
 the momentary absence of the shoemaker in order to 
 seize the watch and run off with it, which would have 
 been much the same thing as to take it before the 
 very eyes of its owner : the thief would have been as 
 certainly known in the first as in the latter case. But 
 this youth was exactly like the stupid savage, who, 
 incapable of resisting a sudden impulse, runs away 
 witli a string of beads before the very faces of 
 the ship's company, and hides behind a tree, where 
 he thinks himself and his booty safe so long as he 
 does not see those by whom he is seen. The 
 murder which George Wachs planned in case the 
 shoemaker should not leave the room, was quite as ill- 
 contrived. None but a man blinded by passion could 
 avoid seeing that detection was as certain as the 
 murder was easy. He was well known to the family, 
 and indeed to the whole neighbourhood : the miller's
 
 GEORGE WACHS. 273 
 
 lad James had met him at the house, and the shoe- 
 maker's wife and children had left him alone with his 
 victim, and must therefore, immediately upon disco- 
 vering the murder, have fixed upon him as the mur- 
 derer. Nothing but the most reckless and blind 
 rapacity, incapable of forethought and reflection, 
 would have perceived the mere physical possibility 
 of the deed and overlooked its real impracticability, 
 and the certainty of immediate detection. 
 
 A strange contrast to the heat of his desires is pre- 
 sented by the coolness and presence of mind with 
 which this youth of nineteen, who probably found 
 himself for the first time exposed to such temptation, 
 conceived, determined on, and performed so frightful 
 a deed. No sooner had it occurred to him to take 
 advantage of the shoemaker's absence in order to ob- 
 tain possession of the watch, or should he not leave 
 the room to murder him, than he was fully prepared 
 with a plan which cost him not a pang to conceive 
 and determine. The very hired murderers sent by 
 Richard to kill Clarence in the Tower shrink back on 
 beholding their victim, and one of them says, " Faith, 
 some dregs of conscience are yet within me." They 
 feel within them " that dangerous thing which makes 
 a man a coward ; a man cannot steal but it accuseth 
 him 'Tis a blushing shame-faced spirit that mu- 
 tinies in a man's bosom ; it fills one full of obstacles."* 
 But George Wachs, though a mere novice in crime, 
 does not appear from his own account to have felt 
 any such " dregs of conscience," or any such " mutiny 
 in his bosom." His continual walking up and down 
 betrayed, it is true, some inward uneasiness; but 
 * King Richard III., Act I. Scene 4. 
 
 T
 
 274 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 this seems to have been caused by nothing but the 
 mixture of hope and fear, the impatience of desire, and 
 anxiety as to the success or failure of his plan. He 
 felt no distress, no hesitation at the thought that he 
 could only gain possession of a miserable watch by 
 destroying a poor father of a family, who had never 
 injured him, and with whom he was at that moment 
 engaged in friendly conversation. It is true that he 
 delayed for a while committing the murder, in the 
 expectation that the shoemaker would quit his work 
 for a moment and leave the room, and in this delay 
 a certain amount of humane feeling may have had as 
 large a share as the very natural dislike of adopting 
 the more troublesome and dangerous mode of proceed- 
 ing, so long as an easier road to his wishes was open 
 to him. The choice between theft and murder by no 
 means depended on his original resolution, for he was 
 equally prepared for either alternative, but simply on 
 the accidental turn of circumstances. On being asked 
 at the final examination how he could murder the shoe- 
 maker for a watch of trifling value, when he must have 
 known that such a crime would be punished with the 
 utmost rigour, he answered, " I certainly did think 
 of it, but I don't know what came over me. I felt all 
 at once the strongest desire for the watch, and in- 
 stantly determined to kill the shoemaker. The watch 
 I must have, and the only question was what to do 
 next : upon this I struck him. The longing after the 
 watch was too strong for me; I struggled all along 
 against my desires, for I knew very well that it was 
 wrong to kill any one for such a cause." However 
 ready we may be to believe that he was aware 
 that murder, especially such a murder as this, was a
 
 GEORGE WACHS. 275 
 
 crime deserving heavy punishment, we much doubt 
 whether this knowledge involved him in any contest 
 between his conscience and his desires. Deep as is 
 the insight given us by the prisoner into the secret 
 origin of crime by repeated and connected statements, 
 we find no circumstance which might induce us to 
 believe that his determination and its execution cost 
 him any particular effort or qualm of conscience. He 
 speaks only of the beginning of his desire, its growth, 
 and final mastery over him. Throughout all these 
 bloody thoughts and deeds, the prisoner retained 
 such perfect coolness and self-possession, that he was 
 able not only to describe the whole tragedy, but 
 even the workings of his own mind, as accurately 
 as could have been done by a dispassionate observer 
 able to look into his soul. Men whose natures have 
 even a moderate share of the milk of human kindness, 
 can seldom bear to look upon a horrid deed so closely : 
 before they can think of it with composure, they must 
 blunt or deceive their natural feelings, unless indeed 
 the struggle between desire and loathing hurries them 
 on to that desperate fury which they are ready to say 
 with Macbeth, 
 
 " Let that be 
 Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see."* 
 
 But George Wachs was not so chicken-hearted as to 
 flinch before any terrors of the imagination ; he was 
 so strong in purpose, that he needed no assistance save 
 that of his own good clear understanding, which 
 served him admirably, so far as pointing out the 
 shortest means to a given end. With deliberate 
 cunning he took up the heavy iron hammer before 
 
 * Macbeth, Act I. Scene 5. 
 
 T2
 
 276 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 the eyes of the shoemaker, tossed it to and fro in his 
 hands as if in play, stood a step or two behind his 
 victim, and "as he had heard that the most certain 
 way was to hit a man on the temple," he aimed 
 directly at that place, which he struck with such a 
 firm and unerring hand, that the murdered man in- 
 stantly fell without speech or motion at his feet. 
 
 His cool rapacity led him at once to his real 
 object, unmoved by the bloody sight before him : he 
 first seized upon the watch, and then sought for the 
 chain in every part of the house ; he broke open 
 and ransacked every chest and cupboard, took 
 whatever could possibly be of use to him money, 
 clothes, silver buckles, even a piece of leather for 
 boots, and concealed them in his pockets. Such 
 was his coolness, that he returned once more to the 
 workshop before quitting the house : such his cruelty, 
 that he completely shattered the head of his victim, 
 who still lay in the death-struggle : such his deliberate, 
 but useless prudence, that he dragged the dead man 
 into the inner room out of sight. 
 
 The other three murders (for the attempt upon the 
 girl was a murder in intention) were necessary con- 
 sequences of the first, and were considered by the 
 criminal as they really were merely supplementary, 
 and forced upon him by an unlucky accident. The 
 shoemaker he sacrificed to his rapacity, the wife and 
 children to self-preservation. A man more accessible 
 to human weakness, if he did the deed at all, would 
 have done it with all the signs of one driven by the 
 pressure of cruel necessity to a state bordering on 
 madness. But Wachs, whom nothing could disturb, 
 nothing unman, saw as soon as the children appeared
 
 GEORGE WACHS. 277 
 
 before him what he must do, and his determination 
 was as quick as thought itself. He murdered the chil- 
 dren without the slightest remorse, and exhibited in 
 the whole transaction a cruelty and hardness of heart 
 only equalled by his coolness and deliberation. 
 
 The poor mother was the next to fall. 
 
 This last action was a mere repetition of the second 
 and third ; only as it was a grown up and vigorous 
 person with whom he had to deal, the murderer dis- 
 played in the execution of his sudden determination as 
 much cunning as cruelty. No sooner did he see her 
 approach, than he resolved how to act. He instantly 
 shut the door, armed himself once more with the 
 bloody hammer, concealed the hand which grasped 
 it, and then opened the door, which he shut upon 
 her as she entered the house with a jest on her 
 lips : the moment she turned her eyes from him, he 
 aimed at the well-known weak place in her head, 
 and at one blow shattered it with the hammer which 
 was already stained with the blood of her husband and 
 her children. 
 
 After murdering the father, mother, and children, 
 Wachs ended this horrid tragedy by carefully carrying 
 the infant of the murdered woman into the chamber, 
 and laying it upon the bed. We can scarcely con- 
 sider this action as the result of any humane impulse, 
 but rather as a fresh proof of the remarkable coolness 
 and self-possession manifested throughout by the mur- 
 derer. No particular sensibility is required to induce 
 a man to remove an infant from a place where it is in 
 danger of falling, especially if this can be done with 
 very little trouble. When Wachs, just before quit- 
 ting the house, rendered this small service to the
 
 278 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 child, whose life could not injure and whose death 
 could not serve him, he merely proved that, in the 
 midst of murder and death, he preserved such per- 
 fect composure as to be able to give his attention to 
 a matter of comparatively trifling importance, and to 
 pass at once from the most horrible deeds to a per- 
 fectly indifferent and common-place action. 
 
 These several murders, which, strangely enough, 
 left no stain on the clothes or person of the murderer, 
 seem to have left as little trace upon his mind, 
 except a perfectly indifferent recollection of the cir- 
 cumstances. After shutting the door of the house of 
 death behind him, he went home with his pockets 
 full of plunder, and at about half-past six presented 
 himself before his master, gave his master's children 
 some apples, and told him with great glee what a 
 happy day he had spent, and how his companion, 
 young Hingerl, had got so drunk that he could neither 
 stand nor walk. He appeared so cheerful and so per- 
 fectly at his ease during the whole of that evening, 
 which he passed with his master and mistress until 
 bed-time, that the former expressed in court his won- 
 der how so young a man could do such deeds, or, 
 when he had done them, behave in such a manner. 
 On the following evening, when his master and mis- 
 tress were talking over the dreadful occurrence at the 
 shoemaker's, Wachs coolly remarked, " that on the 
 day before the murders he had been at the house, and 
 had stayed there some time, while his boots were 
 being mended : he should therefore certainly have to 
 appear before the court, and perhaps people might even 
 think he had done it." He behaved with equal com- 
 posure on the Saturday, when he met some woman
 
 GEORGE WACHS. 279 
 
 with whom he associated, to whom he gave the watch, 
 in order that she might get a glass fitted to it. He 
 told her that his father had given him the watch, 
 and talked with great animation about several in- 
 different matters. When she mentioned what had 
 happened at the shoemaker's house, and asked him 
 whether he had heard who was the murderer, he told 
 her, with the most perfect composure, " that both he 
 and the miller's son, James, had been at the house on 
 the very day of the murder, and would therefore 
 probably be summoned before the court." He then 
 proceeded, without any apparent embarrassment, to 
 talk on other subjects. But nothing more strikingly 
 exhibits his want of common sensibility than the cir- 
 cumstance that it cost him nothing to look out of 
 the window while the funeral of the shoemaker, 
 his wife and child, passed by the public-house at 
 Vilsbiberg, where he was. This he himself con- 
 fessed, and he replied to the judge's question, 
 whether he had, as was commonly reported, followed 
 the funeral procession into the church, to hear the 
 service "No, for I had on my working jacket; 
 otherwise I should have gone to see the funeral. I 
 wished on all accounts to go into the church. I cer- 
 tainly was sorry for the people, but I could have gone 
 and looked on, for all that." He who could do that 
 could do more than other men, and of such a one, one 
 is tempted to say that he was little less than a devil. 
 During the whole trial he preserved the same indif- 
 ference about his crime. Although he acknowledged 
 it to be deserving of punishment, he did not once show 
 the slightest remorse or compassion for his victims. 
 Considered from a merely technical point of view,
 
 280 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 the case presented no legal difficulty. The compre- 
 hensive and repeated confessions made by the pri- 
 soner agreed exactly with the circumstantial evidence, 
 and with the statements of the witnesses. . Most of the 
 articles stolen from the shoemaker's house were found 
 in the criminal's possession ; some were delivered into 
 court by those persons to whom he had given or 
 sold them ; only the silver watch-chain, which had 
 so much contributed to tempt him to crime, was 
 missing, and the accused stedfastly adhered to his 
 assertion that he had not stolen it, for that, in spite of 
 his eager search, he had been unable to find it. There 
 was also a rosary set in silver missing from among 
 the things left in the house ; the prisoner declared 
 that he had not even seen it. 
 
 The defence was necessarily confined to a few un- 
 important formal objections, and to an attempt to 
 prove that the accused was not in the full possession 
 of his faculties, owing to drunkenness. But this plea 
 was contradicted by the direct evidence of several 
 witnesses, as well as by the nature of the crime and 
 by the prisoner's own confession. The advocate would 
 have most effectually served his client, but not the 
 cause of justice, if he had succeeded in convincing 
 the court of the truth of his remark, " that a man 
 who could do such deeds in such a manner from such 
 a motive, could not possibly be in his right senses, 
 and that therefore it was necessary first of all to cause 
 the medical officers of the court to examine into the 
 state of his mind." This plea was, of course, refused, 
 as the court was in full possession of the means of 
 judging whether the criminal were responsible for 
 actions, or not.
 
 GEOEGE WACHS. 281 
 
 The accused was accordingly, by his own confession, 
 pronounced guilty, on the 28th July, 1819, 1st, of a 
 qualified murder (murder accompanied by robbery) 
 on the person of the master shoemaker Huber ; 2nd, 
 of simple murder of his son, aged three ; 3rd, of a 
 simple murder of the wife ; and 4th, of an attempt at 
 the simple murder of the daughter, aged nine, and 
 was sentenced to death by the sword ; which sentence 
 was carried into execution on the 23rd October fol- 
 lowing. 
 
 Notwithstanding the horrid nature of his crimes, 
 Wachs cannot be classed among the criminals of the 
 first rank. Strong and easily excited animal pas- 
 sions, great frivolity, and utter want of cultivation, 
 were the chief elements of his character : in these the 
 horrible deeds of the 8th April had their origin.
 
 GEORGE RAUSCHMAIER; 
 
 OB, 
 THE TELLTALE RING. 
 
 IN the year 1821 a charwoman of the name of Maria 
 Anna Holzmann, aged fifty-five, lodged in a house 
 belonging to the shoemaker Sticht of Augsburg : she 
 underlet a part of her lodging to George Rauschmaier 
 and Joseph Steiner. 
 
 Holzmann disappeared on Good Friday (20th of 
 April). Rauschmaier and Steiner left their lodging 
 some days later, without having given notice to the 
 landlord Sticht, who lived in another street, of Holz- 
 mann's disappearance. They afterwards gave out that 
 she had quitted the house early on Friday morning, 
 leaving behind her all her keys, and had never re- 
 turned. 
 
 It was not till the 17th of May that Sticht informed 
 the police of Holzmann's disappearance. Although 
 Holzmann lived chiefly on charity, she possessed a 
 store of good clothes and other property, and was 
 supposed to have saved money. But when the ma- 
 gistrate went with her brother and sister-in-law to 
 take an inventory of the property, and to seal it 
 up, it was discovered that all the best part of her 
 property was missing. The persons present on this 
 occasion were overpowered by an insufferable stench,
 
 GEORGE RAUSCHMAIER. 283 
 
 which they attributed to the accumulation of dirt 
 in the rooms lately occupied by Rauschmaier and 
 Steiner. 
 
 The search made by the police, and the inquiries 
 of the city magistrates after the missing woman, were 
 fruitless. Holzmann's brother suggested that she 
 might possibly have gone away and destroyed herself, 
 as it was said that she had lately lost some money 
 which she had lent at high interest. Rauschmaier, 
 who was examined on oath before the magistrate on 
 the 25th of June, stated that Holzmann left her home 
 at eight o'clock on Friday morning in company with 
 another woman; that she had never returned, and 
 that he did not know whither she was gone, or what 
 had become of her. The inquiry was then suffered to 
 rest until some discovery should be made. 
 
 The affair remained in this state till the 2nd of 
 January, 1822, when a washerwoman of the name of 
 Therese Beltler, who also inhabited Sticht's house, 
 informed the police that while she and her son were 
 hanging some linen to dry in the loft, they had dis- 
 covered the thigh and trunk of a human body pro- 
 bably those of the missing woman. The usual legal 
 commission immediately proceeded to the house, and 
 found, among some rubbish in a corner of the loft, a 
 human leg and thigh ; about six yards off, wedged in 
 between the chimney and the roof, they discovered a 
 human trunk without head or limbs. In another 
 corner they found an old gown and petticoat, together 
 with a red neckerchief, all much stained with blood. 
 These were recognised by another washerwoman in the 
 house as part of the dress usually worn by Holzmann. 
 On taking up the floor of Rauschmaier's room they
 
 284 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 found the other parts of the body. Among these was 
 the left arm bent double, and wrapped in an old 
 shift. 
 
 The head alone could nowhere be found : but 
 this was soon accounted for. It appeared that at 
 Whitsuntide, 1821, the inspector of a factory, not far 
 from Sticht's house, had found a human skull in the 
 weir belonging to the factory. After showing it to 
 his brother, he threw it back into the river, the stream 
 of which carried it away. The skull, which was de- 
 scribed as small, and as having only two or three teeth 
 in the jaw, was, in all probability, Anna Holzmann's. 
 
 The limbs and body appeared as it were smoke- 
 dried, and were much distorted by pressure in a con- 
 fined space ; but after being washed with water and 
 spirits of wine, and thus restored in some measure to 
 their natural form, the remains were put together, as 
 well as possible, for inspection by the proper officers. 
 The arms and thighs had been removed from the 
 sockets with so much care and skill, that it betrayed 
 a practised hand. While the physician employed by 
 the court examined the left arm, and endeavoured to 
 straighten it, a brass ring fell out of the bend of the 
 elbow. It had in all probability slipped from the 
 murderer's finger while he was in the act of cutting 
 up the body, in the keeping of which it remained as a 
 silent witness against him. 
 
 Holzmann was described by her friends and rela- 
 tions as a small, well-shaped person, with this dis- 
 tinctive mark, that her right foot was considerably 
 thicker than the left, and that one of the toes had 
 been removed many years before. This description 
 exactly corresponded with the body when put together,
 
 GEORGE RAUSCHMAIER. 285 
 
 and her brother and other relations did not doubt its 
 identity with Holzmann. 
 
 The discovery of the corpse in Holzmann's own 
 house threw a strong suspicion on Rauschmaier and 
 Steiner. It was scarcely possible that any one could 
 have had time or opportunity to commit such a 
 murder, save one or both of Holzmann's fellow-lodgers. 
 Their staying so long in the house in which the scat- 
 tered remains of the murdered woman were hidden, 
 without communicating what they must at least have 
 known, was an additional proof of the justice of the 
 suspicion against them, especially against Rauschmaier, 
 who had declared on his oath that Anna Holzmann 
 left her home on Good Friday, 1820, leaving the 
 keys with him, whereas it was quite clear that she 
 had been murdered on that very day, in her own 
 house. Before long it was discovered that during 
 Easter week Rauschmaier and his mistress had pawned 
 or sold much of Holzmann's property. 
 
 Rauschmaier was arrested on the 2nd of January, 
 as soon as the dissevered body was discovered. Among 
 other things found upon him was a tattered pocket- 
 book, containing a remarkable document printed in 
 the form of a patent at Cologne, and adorned with the 
 effigies of a number of saints : it purported to be a 
 letter written from heaven by Jesus Christ himself, and 
 brought down to earth by the archangel Michael, 
 granting full absolution for all sins and crimes, how- 
 ever horrible, in short a patent well worthy to be 
 worn by robbers, thieves, and murderers.* 
 
 * This impious and superstitious document bears the superscrip- 
 tion : " Copia, or copy from a divine epistle writ in God's own 
 hand, and now hanging before the image of St. Michael, on
 
 286 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 On his summary examination Rauschmaier re- 
 peated his former assertion that Anna Holzmann had 
 left the house early on Good Friday, and had never 
 returned. His manner during examination, and when 
 the corpse was shown to him in the churchyard, was 
 cool and unembarrassed. He showed no emotion, and 
 professed ignorance of the body exposed to view. On 
 the 22nd of January he requested an audience, in which, 
 however, he said nothing, but that he wished to be 
 soon released. On the following day he demanded 
 another interview, and this time he confessed that 
 soon after Holzmann's departure he had taken several 
 of her things, which he had given to his mistress to 
 carry away. The judge thought it expedient to exa- 
 mine Rauschmaier merely as to the robbery, without 
 the slightest reference to the murder. Several articles 
 
 St. Michael's Mount in Brittany, and no one knoweth whereon it 
 hangeth ; the which is writ in letters of gold, and was brought 
 thither by the holy angel Michael. Whosoever willeth to touch 
 this document, from him it turneth whosoever willeth to copy it> 
 unto him doth it bend down and unfold itself." Christ then writes 
 in his own person, and first of all impresses upon the faithful the 
 absolute necessity of keeping holy the sabbath, hearing the proper 
 number of masses, never working on saint-days, and the like. He 
 then continues, " I say to you, by the mouth of my mother, by the 
 Christian Church, and by the head of John my Baptist, that I, the 
 true Christ, have writ this epistle with mine own divine hand. This 
 epistle shall be copied the one from the other, and should a man 
 liave committed as many sins as there be sands on the sea-shore, 
 blades of grass on the earth, or stars in the heavens, if he confesseth 
 and repenteth him of his sins, they shall be forgiven him. Whosoever 
 hath such a letter by him or in his house, his prayers will I hear, 
 and him shall no thunder or lightning harm. Whatsoever woman 
 big with child shall carry this letter upon her, shall be in due time 
 delivered of a fair offspring. Keep my commandments, as I have 
 ordained through my holy angel Michael. /, the true Jesus 
 Christ."
 
 GEORGE RAUSCHMAIER. 287 
 
 of dress belonging to Holzmann, which were already 
 in the possession of the court, were shown to the pri- 
 soner, and recognised by him as part of what he had 
 stolen. A pair of ear-rings and two gold rings were 
 then placed before him, together with the brass ring 
 which had been found in the elbow of the murdered 
 woman. On seeing these he exclaimed, " The ear- 
 rings and the gold and brass rings are mine ! The 
 brass ring I always wore until within four or five 
 weeks after Easter, since when I have worn the gold 
 ones. The brass ring fits the little finger of my left 
 hand." It slipped on and off with ease ; had a doubt 
 remained, the telltale ring must have dispelled it. 
 
 On the 1 1th of March, 1822, Rauschmaier, his mis- 
 tress Elizabeth Ditscher, and Steiner, were brought 
 before the court for special examination. 
 
 At his first examination Rauschmaier repeated his 
 former confession, that he had robbed his landlady. 
 He adhered to the same story at his second examina- 
 tion, but answered the searching questions of the judge 
 in monosyllables, and betrayed embarrassment by his 
 confused and hesitating manner, and his changing 
 colour. On his third examination, which took place 
 two days after, he fell upon his knees, and exclaimed, 
 weeping bitterly, " Mr. Commissioner, I see that you 
 are well disposed towards me. You spoke so kindly 
 the other day, that I will confess my guilt to you sin- 
 cerely :" and he kept his word. 
 
 George Rauschmaier, a turner by trade, was born 
 at Augsburg, of Catholic parents. His father was a 
 baker, and his mother a midwife. At the time of the 
 murder he was about four and thirty. His mother and 
 sister said in evidence against him, that his mind had
 
 288 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 been perverted from his youth : he had always been 
 remarkable for coarse, ill-regulated passions, violence 
 of temper, love of dissipation, idleness, and expensive 
 habits. He could neither read nor write, and was so 
 ignorant of the first principles of the Christian religion 
 as to require instruction from a priest before he could 
 receive the Sacrament, towards the end of his trial. 
 
 In his seventh year he was apprenticed to a brick- 
 layer, and during the winter he found employment in a 
 manufactory. In his thirteenth year he learnt turnery 
 at Munich for three years, at the end of which he re- 
 turned, on his father's death, to Augsburg, and in 
 1805 he entered the Austrian service. When the war 
 was ended his regiment was disbanded, and he re- 
 turned to Augsburg. He was occasionally employed, 
 till 1807, both there and at Munich as a turner ; but 
 his employers said that he was an idle, insolent, and 
 dissolute fellow, whom no one could keep long in their 
 service. In 1807 he was drawn for the Bavarian army, 
 but soon deserted to the Austrians; and in 1809 he 
 fought against his own countrymen. In 1809 he again 
 deserted, and re-entered the Bavarian service. In 
 1811 he underwent a military trial and punishment 
 for theft. He passed through the horrors of the Rus- 
 sian campaign in 1812 and 1813, which, together 
 with the observations that he had the opportunity of 
 making in the military hospitals, completely obliterated 
 the slight remaining traces of humanity left in his na- 
 ture. When his regiment was at Warsaw, on its way 
 back in 1814, he stole money and property to the 
 amount of 110 florins from the adjutant, for which he 
 was sentenced to fifteen months' imprisonment on his 
 return to his native country When released from
 
 GEORGE RAUSCHMAIER. 289 
 
 prison, he returned to Augsburg, where he remained a 
 year and a half, until his arrest, earning his bread 
 however he could. He said to the judge, " You see 
 from this account of my life, how neglected I was, and 
 how low I have sunk in consequence." 
 
 He continued : " I was always in want of money, 
 and knew not whence to get it. I wanted to buy clothes, 
 but would not stint myself of meat and drink. The 
 thought struck me that I would kill Anna Holzmann, 
 who, to my knowledge, possessed many good clothes, 
 and who was supposed to have saved some money. 
 I determined to strangle her, as that was easiest, left 
 no trace of blood, and could be done without noise : I 
 had also heard the army surgeons in Russia say that 
 the bodies of persons strangled or suffocated bled 
 but little when dissected. I made up my mind to 
 the murder some six or eight days before Good 
 Friday, and since that time I had no peace from 
 doubting whether I should do it or let it alone. At 
 length, on the morning of Good Friday, the people of 
 the house went to church, even Steiner was out, and 
 by eight o'clock I was left alone in the house with 
 Anna Holzmann. The opportunity overcame me, and, 
 without saying a word I walked straight into her 
 room, rushed upon her as she was going towards the 
 bed, upon which I threw her and squeezed her throat 
 with both hands while I lay upon her with the whole 
 weight of my body. She could make no resistance, 
 and in five minutes she was dead without having 
 uttered a sound, nor could she have suffered much as 
 she was old and weak. When I saw that she was 
 dead I let her body sink upon the floor. 
 
 " I then searched her chest for clothes and money, 
 
 u
 
 290 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 but was much disappointed ; instead of what I ex- 
 pected, I found only eight kreutzers. 
 
 " After the body had lain upon the floor for about 
 an hour and a quarter and was quite cold, I dragged 
 it into the loft which was level with her room. 
 
 <; To get rid of the corpse I determined to cut it up 
 with a large clasp-knife, which I afterwards threw into 
 the Lech. I had frequently seen bodies dissected in 
 the hospitals in Russia." He then gave a minute de- 
 scription of the whole operation, which he seems to 
 have performed in little more than an hour. He de- 
 scribed how he hid the several parts of Holzmann's 
 corpse in the places where they were subsequently 
 found, and threw the head, wrapped in an old apron, 
 into the Lech, after taking off the gold ear-rings. 
 Hereupon he immediately went, at between ten and 
 eleven, to the church of St. Maurice, but could not 
 pray from remorse, fear, and sorrow. In the evening 
 he went to the Calvary. " I knew very well," said 
 he, " that the murder I had committed was a great 
 sin ; but want of money and the desire to possess some 
 blinded me to the heavy consequences of my crime. 
 The murder of Holzmann seemed to me the easiest 
 and most convenient means of obtaining money. I 
 shook from head to foot while I was cutting her up 
 and hiding her remains, and since that time I have 
 had no real happiness, as every one must have seen." 
 When asked about the brass ring, he said he must have 
 lost it while cutting up the body. The judge told him 
 where it had been found, whereupon he exclaimed, 
 " Yes, yes ! nothing more likely. It must have slipped 
 off my little finger while I was bending Holzmann's 
 arm, and been left sticking in the bend of her elbow."
 
 GEORGE RA.TJSCHMAIER. 291 
 
 After this confession, Rauschmaier seemed much 
 more easy, showed great repentance, and frequently 
 shed tears at his examinations. 
 
 While Rauschmaier's example affords a proof that 
 there exist human beings in the heart of Europe as 
 deficient in moral and intellectual culture as the savages 
 of New Zealand, the conduct of the second prisoner, 
 Steiner, shows how little importance can be attached 
 to the statements of a prisoner, more especially when 
 made against another. 
 
 Steiner was thirty-four years old and born at Augs- 
 burg of Catholic parents. He was a woodcutter by 
 trade : his education had been as much neglected as 
 Rauschmaier's, and in intellect he was even below him. 
 When examined in 1820 as to Holzmann's disappear- 
 ance, the authorities were forced to dispense with his 
 taking an oath, as he could not be made to compre- 
 hend its nature and significance. After his examina- 
 tion the judge remarked, that " the witness appeared 
 utterly deficient in culture, and incapable of forming 
 an idea : he was almost an idiot, and an answer could 
 not be obtained from him without extreme difficulty." 
 
 On his first regular examination of the 2nd of 
 January 1821 he asserted not only his innocence, but 
 also his ignorance of the cause of Holzmann's disap- 
 pearance. The judge again observed, that " his beha- 
 viour proved the deficiency of his intellect, and that 
 everything had to be very clearly explained to him 
 before an answer could be obtained from him," He 
 was examined on the 15th of January, merely with 
 regard to his family and to his means of subsistence, 
 when he began suddenly and of his own accord, a long 
 rambling narrative to the following effect : TJiat he 
 
 u2
 
 292 "REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 returned home at about ten or eleven at night on Good 
 Friday, and went to wish his landlady good night, as 
 was his usual custom ; but not finding her in bed, he 
 thought that she would not return that night, and 
 thereupon got into her bed himself. During the night 
 he heard a heavy fall over head, and a noise as if some- 
 thing was being dragged backwards and forwards. On 
 the Saturday he came home at about ten at night : 
 his comrade opened the door to him, and would not 
 allow him to enter his landlady's room, but lighted 
 him at once to his own. He had scarcely lain down 
 when something dropped from the ceiling upon his 
 nose, and when he turned in bed, upon his back. In 
 the morning he found that this was blood. He called 
 Rauschmaier's attention to this, who answered that he 
 could not account for it, but that it was of no conse- 
 quence. At first he thought nothing of it ; but, on 
 seeing Holzmann's remains in the churchyard, the 
 thought struck him that she must have been murdered 
 by Rauschmaier. He himself had never harmed her. 
 The judge remarked that Steiner took great pains to 
 make his story intelligible, gave his evidence without 
 embarrassment or hesitation, and showed that he had 
 more sense than had at first appeared. On the 
 4th of February he requested another audience, and 
 on being asked what he had to say, he replied, 
 " Something has occurred to me : my memory is bad, 
 and I have erred in several matters. Even a horse, 
 which has four legs, sometimes stumbles ; why should 
 not I?" He now modified his former statement: it 
 was not on Friday, but on Saturday, that he had slept 
 in Holzmann's bed, and the blood had dropped upon 
 his nose on the Thursday night, not on Good Friday.
 
 GEORGE RAUSCHMAIER. 293 
 
 He had said to Rauschmaier, early on Friday, " Surely, 
 in God's name, you have not murdered our landlady?" 
 whereupon Rauschmaier threatened to kill him if he 
 said a word about the blood or their landlady. He 
 then showed him a thick knotted club, saying, " I will 
 strike you dead with this if you say a word of the 
 matter !" Steiner continued : " As he thus threat- 
 ened me, and 1 was in fear of my life, I never said a 
 word to any one; but, sir, you may be sure that my 
 comrade, who is a bold strong fellow, murdered the 
 woman." He then proceeded, after some interruption, 
 " It now strikes me that the blood must have been 
 wiped up on Easter Sunday with my shirt, which I 
 found in a corner soaked with blood. No doubt my 
 comrade did this on purpose to throw the suspicion on 
 me. It likewise occurs to me that about a week or a 
 fortnight before Good Friday, my comrade wrestled 
 with Holzmaun, in joke, of course in order to try her 
 strength. He must therefore even then have made 
 up his mind to murder her. Nobody acts a play 
 until the rehearsal has turned out well." He further 
 added, that a week after Easter he was with Rausch- 
 maier at a tavern, and when they were alone his com- 
 rade offered him a silver ring and a pair of ear-rings, 
 to say nothing about the blood or their landlady ; but 
 he would take nothing from him. 
 
 Steiner's statement had every appearance of truth, 
 and agreed in the main with what was already known : 
 and so long as Rauschmaier withheld his confession it 
 appeared of the utmost importance. 
 
 But when the latter was asked, after making a full 
 confession, whether any one was privy to the murder 
 which he had committed, he answered, " No human
 
 294 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 being ; I resolved upon and committed the murder 
 alone, exactly as I have already confessed it, because 
 I trusted no one ; if, perchance, Joseph Steiner or 
 Elizabeth Ditscher are suspected, I hereby attest their 
 innocence ; nor do I believe that Steiner saw anything, 
 at any rate he never gave me to understand that he 
 suspected me." In the following examination when 
 he was told that Steiner asserted that he had disco- 
 vered traces of the murder, and that he had taken 
 Rauschmaier to task about it, the latter replied, " It 
 is a thorough lie ; he never said a word to me of the 
 matter. The fellow does nothing but tell lies from 
 morning till night. Had he discovered anything, he 
 would have informed against me. Why should not I 
 confess this fact, if it were true ?" 
 
 At Steiner's third examination the discrepancy be- 
 tween his statement and Rauschmaier's repentant con- 
 fession was fully explained. The judge called Steiner's 
 attention to some marked contradiction, whereupon 
 he exclaimed, " I am an ass, and have said a great 
 deal that is not true. I must beg pardon for having 
 lied so much. I thought to myself that, perhaps, my 
 comrade murdered the woman, and that I was sus- 
 pected, although I am innocent; I therefore said what- 
 ever came into my head to strengthen the suspicion 
 against Rauschmaier, and to convince you of my own 
 innocence. All that I have said about the blood drop- 
 ping upon my nose, and my shirt, about the noise of 
 one falling and being dragged over head, and about my 
 observations to Rauschmaier, his threatening words, 
 promises, and so forth, are mere inventions. I neither 
 saw nor heard anything ; but I suspected that Holz- 
 mann had been murdered by Rauschmaier. I then
 
 GEORGE RATJSCHMAIER. 295 
 
 considered how it must all have been done, and told it 
 accordingly. I wonder how it all came into my head ; 
 I should soon have believed the story myself. Forgive 
 my stupidity, I am a mere ass. Only think how 
 stupid ! I now begin to see what trouble I have got 
 myself into by my lies ; but I hope I shall not suffer 
 for them, as I did not harm the old woman. I thought 
 I was doing the court a pleasure by saying what I 
 fancied about Rauschmaier, for I still believe him to 
 be guilty." 
 
 Rauschmaier's advocate was led by his sense of jus- 
 tice and propriety to confine the defence of his client 
 to an appeal to the mercy of the court. He did not 
 attempt by legal quibbles to gain an acquittal for a 
 man who had already confessed his guilt, but called 
 the attention of the judge to his client's neglected 
 education. 
 
 On the 9th of May, 1822, Rauschmaier was found 
 guilty of murder, and condemned to death by the 
 sword, with previous exposure for half an hour in the 
 pillory. 
 
 Steiner was acquitted, and Elizabeth Ditscher was 
 condemned to an eight days' imprisonment for receiv- 
 ing stolen goods. 
 
 Rauschmaier's sentence received the confirmation 
 of the superior court on the 18th of June ; but a royal 
 rescript of the 28th of June directed that the exposure 
 previous to execution should be omitted.
 
 ANDKEW BICHEL, 
 
 THE WOMAN-MURDERER. 
 
 IN the summer of 1807 Barbara Reisinger, the 
 daughter of Peter Reisinger, a day-labourer at Loi- 
 senrieth, left her father's house in quest of service, 
 and disappeared. No tidings of her ever reached her 
 parents. 
 
 In the beginning of the year 1808 the same thing 
 happened to another young woman, named Catherine 
 Seidel, of Regendorf. She went out one morning, 
 intending to have her fortune told by a certain An- 
 drew Bichel, and never returned home to her sisters, 
 who inquired after her in vain at Bichel's house. 
 
 The disappearance of these two girls remained for 
 a long time unknown to the local authorities. The 
 parents of Barbara Reisinger comforted themselves 
 with vain hopes ; the sisters of Catherine Seidel wept 
 her loss in silence. A report reached them that Bichel's 
 wife had sold some clothes belonging to Catherine ; 
 but they disregarded these rumours, and contented 
 themselves with inquiring of Bichel himself after 
 their missing sister ; with unsuspecting simplicity they 
 gave full belief to his mere denial of any knowledge 
 of her. At length an accident led to the first judicial 
 inquiry. Walburga, the younger sister of Catherine
 
 ANDREW BICHEL. 297 
 
 Seidel, went by chance into a tailor's shop at Regen- 
 dorf, and found him making a waistcoat for Bichel 
 of some dimity which she recognised as a part of her 
 sister's petticoat. This was too suspicious a discovery 
 to be passed over, and on the 19th of May, 1808, 
 Walburga Seidel laid information to the following 
 effect before the provincial magistrate. 
 
 She stated that while she herself was from home 
 about thirteen weeks before, some woman had come 
 to their house at eight o'clock in the morning with 
 a message from Andrew Bichel to Catherine, to the 
 effect that some one at his house wished to speak with 
 her. Catherine accordingly went to him, but imme- 
 diately returned, and told her elder sister Theresa, that 
 Bichel was going to show her her fortune in a glass, 
 and that she was to take clothes enough to change 
 three several times ; moreover, that the clothes must 
 be good and fine the very best she had. Catherine 
 then packed up her clothes, and went back with them 
 to Bichel, since when she had never been seen or heard 
 of. Two or three days after, Theresa, the elder sister, 
 called at Bichel's house, which she found locked, and, 
 on asking after her sister, Bichel told her (contrary 
 to that which he said to others) that he knew nothing 
 about Catherine save that she had gone away with a 
 strange man, at whose request he had sent for her. 
 Bichel repeated the same tale to her sister and herself 
 about a week since, after they had repeatedly ques- 
 tioned him about their sister. Upon her sister's dis- 
 appearance, it was rumoured throughout the village, 
 that a long time ago a cousin of Bichel's had gone to 
 his house to see her fortune in the glass, that she 
 had disappeared, and that Bichel had sold her clothes,
 
 298 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 saying that she no longer wanted them, as she was 
 now called " my Lady," arid wore French clothes. 
 
 On the following day, which was the 20th of May, 
 the authorities proceeded to Regendorf in order to in- 
 stitute the necessary search in Bichel's house, to arrest 
 Bichel, and to receive evidence on the spot. When 
 the authorities reached Bichel's house, he was absent, 
 but two police Serjeants were sent in pursuit of him 
 into the forest where he was gone. His wife was 
 closely watched in the mean time, while the authori- 
 ties examined Theresa Seidel at the court-house. She 
 confirmed her sister's statement with great precision 
 and minuteness, and gave an accurate description of 
 all the clothes which Catherine had taken with her to 
 Bichel's house. She likewise named the 15th of Fe- 
 bruary, 1808, as the day on which her sister had dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 Theresa Seidel's examination was not concluded 
 when the police brought into court a cotton handker- 
 chief which they had found on Bichel's person on his 
 arrest. He had anxiously endeavoured first to conceal 
 and then to throw it away. As soon as Theresa Seidel 
 saw this handkerchief, she exclaimed, " Jesus Maria ! 
 that belonged to my sister Catherine ! " On examining 
 it more closely, she identified it with certainty. 
 
 Bichel was immediately examined : he affected to 
 be totally ignorant of the cause of his arrest. He as- 
 serted that he had bought the handkerchief in the rag- 
 market at Ratisbon, and the dimity which he had 
 given to the tailor from a strange pedlar. He denied 
 any acquaintance with the sisters of Seidel : and 
 of Catherine he said he knew nothing save that a 
 young man, a stranger to him, had sent for her to his
 
 ANDREW BICHEL. 299 
 
 house : that they had probably gone off together, and 
 that he had since heard that she had been seen at 
 Landshut dressed in French clothes. But his whole 
 manner 'his evasive, improbable, and often hasty 
 answers his hesitation and perplexity his changing 
 complexion, clearly betrayed his guilt. When asked 
 whether he did not possess a magic mirror, he turned 
 scarlet, but denied all knowledge of it, and stated 
 that about a year ago a man with a goitre and a 
 swelled chin had come to his house and had shown 
 the girls their future husbands in a peepshow. 
 
 The officers of the court then searched Bichel's 
 house, and found in his room a chest filled with 
 women's clothes : many more, which were at once 
 recognised as having belonged to Catherine, were 
 found in the loft. Bichel's wife declared that she 
 knew nothing at all of the latter ; those in the chest 
 she said had been given to her by her husband, who 
 had received them from the father of Barbara Reisinger, 
 the other missing girl. Walburga and Theresa Seidel 
 separately recognised a great number of these clothes 
 as their sister's, and many more as Barbara Reisinger's. 
 Several other witnesses proved that Bichel's wife had 
 sold various articles of dress belonging to these two 
 women, and had worn others. It likewise appeared 
 that Bichel, both before and after Catherine Seidel's 
 disappearance, had tried to induce several other girls 
 to go to his house by offering to tell their fortunes ; 
 and on the day of Catherine Seidel's disappearance, 
 she had been seen in the neighbourhood of his house 
 with a bundle under her arm at about two P.M. 
 
 All this indicated some strange and horrible deed, 
 but proof of a murder having been committed was still
 
 300 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 wanting. It was certain that Catherine Seidel had 
 disappeared : it was equally certain that Barbara 
 Reisinger had also disappeared ; and no doubt could 
 exist that some crime had been committed ; but whether 
 this crime was abduction, manslaughter, or murder, it 
 was not easy to discover. No dead bodies were to be 
 found, no stains of blood or other traces of violence 
 were visible. 
 
 The discovery was at length made by means of a dog. 
 Whenever the police serjeant went to Bichel's house, 
 his dog ran towards the wood-shed in the yard, and 
 sniffed at it until repeatedly called off. This ex- 
 cited the attention of his master, who accordingly took 
 with him some other men, and on the 22nd of May 
 they commenced digging within and around the shed. 
 They had scarce turned up the earth in one corner, 
 where a good deal of straw and litter was closely 
 heaped together, before they found several bones, and 
 a foot or so deeper they discovered the lower half of a 
 human body wrapped in some cotton rags. A large 
 heap of logs lay just above the shed near a chalk-pit : 
 when these were removed, and they had dug to a little 
 depth, they came upon a half-decayed head, and the 
 upper part of a body, which the police serjeant imme- 
 diately conjectured to be that of Reisinger. At a short 
 distance they found, after some digging, a second body, 
 which likewise appeared to have been cut in half. This 
 the police and the witnesses present immediately re- 
 cognised by the features and by the pinchbeck ear- 
 rings as the corpse of Catherine Seidel. These re- 
 mains were carefully conveyed into the sitting-room, 
 where they were guarded by four men. 
 
 Andrew Bichel was just about to be examined for
 
 ANDREW BICHEL. 301 
 
 the second time when information of this important 
 discovery reached the court, which immediately pro- 
 ceeded, accompanied by a physician and two sur- 
 geons, to Bichel's house at Regensdorf. The spot in 
 which the bodies had been found, and the remains 
 themselves, were carefully examined. From the ap- 
 pearance of both bodies the physicians were of opinion 
 that they must have been cut up the middle with a 
 sharp knife driven in by a hammer : the arms were 
 still attached to the sides; the feet had been cut 
 off just above the ankles. The physician declared 
 in the report which he drew up for the court on the 
 second dead body, " That he found no reason to sup- 
 pose that the person was dead or even mortally 
 wounded before she was cut up. She might have 
 been stunned by a blow on the head, but it could not 
 have been mortal, neither was the stab in the neck 
 sufficient to have produced death ; he therefore con- 
 ceived that her death was occasioned by cutting open 
 and dividing her body." 
 
 The second dead body was recognised as that of 
 Catherine Seidel. Her two sisters identified the ear- 
 rings and some silver buttons which were found in 
 Bichel's house as her's. Humanity induced the judge 
 to spare the sisters the painful task of identifying the 
 body. 
 
 Bichel was now examined a second time. He began 
 by declaring that he would now speak the truth, where- 
 upon he told a long story of how Catherine Seidel had 
 been murdered by strangers in his house ; he, however, 
 immediately retracted this, and approached somewhat 
 nearer to the truth. Promising to be no longer ob- 
 stinate, and to tell all he knew, provided he were not
 
 302 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 punished, he confessed that in the heat of an angry 
 discussion he had killed Catherine Seidel by striking 
 her with a log of wood. Every succeeding question 
 was answered by a fresh lie, and every lie was fol- 
 lowed by a confession of something approaching the 
 truth, which was again disguised by falsehood and 
 prevarication ; until at length, spite of his determina- 
 tion not to confess even the most indifferent circum- 
 stances, the court with great difficulty arrived at the 
 conclusion that he had murdered Seidel for the sake 
 of her clothes, and that he had then cut her up and 
 buried her remains. 
 
 When he was questioned concerning the other corpse 
 which had been found in his house, he turned pale, 
 trembled, and again reddened, but stoutly denied all 
 knowledge of the body. On further inquiry, he stated 
 that a distant cousin of his, whose Christian name 
 was Barbara (her surname he professed not to re- 
 member), and whose father was a day-labourer at 
 Loisenrieth, had once served as bar-maid at a tavern 
 at Regendorf, that he had lately seen her at Ratisbori, 
 and that she had given him some of her clothes during 
 the past year, partly as a present and partly to sell 
 for her. 
 
 During the whole of this examination, in the course 
 of which ninety-one questions were put to him, his 
 eyes were fixed upon the ground, and his manner 
 betrayed the conflict in his mind between wickedness 
 and confusion : at every fresh admission wrung from 
 him by the force of overpowering evidence, he showed 
 great vexation, but not the slightest feeling of sorrow 
 or contrition. 
 
 At this juncture the judge reminded the court of a
 
 ANDREW BICHEL. 303 
 
 clause in the royal decree of the 7th of July, 1806, for 
 the abolition of torture, directing the conduct to be 
 observed towards criminals who refused to confess ; 
 namely, that the criminal be conveyed to the spot 
 where the murder was committed, and, if possible, 
 examined in the very presence of the corpse.* Bichel 
 was accordingly conveyed to Regendorf. He was first 
 taken to the town-hall, and even there the feeling that 
 he was approaching the scene of his crimes so over- 
 powered him, that he was near fainting, and they were 
 obliged to give him water to drink. The provincial 
 judge then addressed him as follows : " You are now 
 close to your own home the scene of your crimes ; 
 confess the truth at once, or you will be conducted to 
 your own house, where you will behold the bodies of 
 your victims." But as yet his will was stronger than 
 even the powerful feelings which agitated his mind. 
 He steadfastly asserted that he knew nothing of the 
 first corpse which was said to have been found in 
 his house. 
 
 Hereupon he was taken to his own house, where the 
 two dead bodies were laid each upon a board as well as 
 the remains could be put together. On being led 
 up to the first, that of Barbara Reisinger, Bichel 
 trembled in every limb, his face was convulsed, his 
 looks became fearful, and he asked for water. When 
 asked whether he knew the body, he answered with a 
 hollow voice, " No ! I never before saw a corpse which 
 
 * Feuerbach remarks that this proceeding has generally suc- 
 ceeded in Bavaria. A murderer who had obstinately persevered in 
 denial of his guilt for three years, immediately confessed on being 
 conducted to the spot of the murder. He adds that in cases of 
 child-murder this has never failed.
 
 304 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 had lain in the grave." On being taken to the second 
 body, he could no longer stand, but sunk into a chair : 
 all his muscles quivered, and his face was horribly dis- 
 torted. He then declared that he recognised Cathe- 
 rine Seidel in the corpse before him. " I recognise 
 her," said he, " by the hands, and by the way in which 
 the body is cut open." The judge asked him why 
 he was so much agitated on seeing the first corpse. 
 " I only trembled," said he, " at the sight who 
 would not tremble on such an occasion ? " He per- 
 sisted in his former assertions of complete ignorance. 
 
 Meanwhile, however, the impression left on his 
 mind by this scene did not wear off. In his solitary 
 prison the terrors of his imagination overcame his 
 obstinacy. Two days after, Bichel demanded an audi- 
 ence, and confessed himself guilty of the murder of 
 Barbara Reisinger also. He denied that his wife had 
 any share in or even knowledge of either murder. 
 
 After repeated examinations, which in all the cir- 
 cumstances of the murder were completely ascertained 
 by his own confession, .as well as by the evidence of 
 witnesses, the report was sent to the court of appeal at 
 Neuburg, by which judgment was pronounced on the 
 4th of February, 1809, to the following effect: 
 
 " That Andrew Bichel of Regendorf be dragged to 
 the place of execution, there to be broken on the 
 wheel from the feet upwards, without the previous 
 mercy-stroke, and his body to be afterwards exposed 
 on the wheel." 
 
 This judgment was confirmed by the central court 
 to which it was sent for revision. 
 
 Andrew Bichel was forty-eight years of age, a 
 Catholic, and born of peasants living at Wetterfeld :
 
 ANDREW BICHEL. 305 
 
 both his parents were dead. He married at Regen- 
 dorf, where he owned a cottage worth about 200 
 florins. He had no children by his wife, with whom 
 he lived on excellent terms. His reputation was not 
 particularly bad, indeed his faults are best described 
 by negatives. He was not a drunkard, nor a gambler, 
 nor quarrelsome ; nay, more, he was distinguished 
 for piety. On the other hand he was given to pilfer- 
 ing, and was, according to common report, in the 
 habit of robbing his neighbours' gardens. He was 
 employed by the innkeeper at Regendorf for three 
 years; during this time he committed a variety of 
 petty thefts, which his master forgave him, till at 
 length Bichel so far presumed upon his good nature 
 as to steal his hay out of the loft, whereupon mine 
 host discharged him from his service. 
 
 These few traits of character are significant of a 
 covetous and abject nature, shrinking from risk and 
 from punishment, though not from crime. Even his 
 easy behaviour towards his wife and his neighbours 
 did not proceed from a kind but from a cowardly 
 disposition : it was the conduct of a man content 
 quietly to suffer wrong, from want of courage to 
 resist it, who dares not injure others for fear of 
 being injured in return, and who patiently endures 
 insults only because he is too timid to revenge them. 
 The outbreak of ferocity in such a nature is all 
 the more terrible when a secret and safe oppor- 
 tunity presents itself. Cowardice is almost always 
 allied with cunning, and usually with cruelty and 
 malice. To men of this character the innocent and 
 the weak seem fitting objects whereon to wreak their 
 vengeance for the injuries which their self-love has
 
 306 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 received. Nothing is more true than the old saying, 
 that the most abject slave becomes the most cruel 
 tyrant. Another remarkable trait in the character of 
 Bichel was a degree of covetousness which looked 
 upon no booty as too small to be worth obtaining even 
 by the greatest crimes, if they could but be committed 
 without danger. Such a character as Bichel's is made 
 up of cruelty, insensibility, avarice, and cowardice 
 allied to a very limited understanding and to a coarse 
 nature utterly unsoftened by education. A man thus 
 constituted will commit no crimes requiring energy 
 or courage ; he will never venture to rob on the high- 
 way, or to break into a house ; but he would commit 
 arson, administer poison, murder a man in his sleep, 
 or, like Bichel y cunningly induce young girls to go 
 to him, and then murder them in cold blood for the 
 sake of their clothes, or of a few pence. 
 
 The first murder of this sort, at least the first which 
 had been detected, was that committed on Barbara 
 Reisinger of Loisenrieth, soon after Michaelmas, 1806. 
 While out of place she lived with her parents, but left 
 them towards Michaelmas in search of service. For 
 this purpose she went to Andrew Bichel, who had 
 promised to get her a place. She found him at home 
 with his wife, and told him the object of her visit. 
 He replied that he just then knew of no suitable place 
 for her ; whereupon she said that she would go to 
 Ratisbon and try her luck there. While they were 
 talking, Bichel's wife, according to his own account, 
 went away to her work at another village, whence 
 she was not to return till evening. When he was left 
 alone with Barbara Reisinger, the thought struck 
 him (if, indeed, it had not done so long before) to
 
 ANDREW BICHEL. 307 
 
 murder her for her clothes : it is true that she had 
 nothing with her but the gown on her back ; but 
 her father had all her clothes in his keeping, and as 
 he knew that his children were acquainted with 
 Bichel, and that Barbara was gone to Bichel's house 
 in the hope of hearing of a place, nothing could be 
 easier than to obtain these clothes under some specious 
 pretext. 
 
 Bichel turned the conversation with Barbara Rei- 
 singer upon witchcraft, and told her that he possessed 
 a magic mirror, in which every young woman could 
 see her future fate, her lover, her destined husband, 
 and the like ; all, in short, that is most interesting to 
 the female heart. The poor girl readily fell into the 
 snare, and was filled with curiosity to look into this 
 magic mirror. Bichel left the room for a few minutes, 
 folded a white cloth round a board, and returned with 
 this pretended mirror, and a small common magnify- 
 ing glass. He placed them both on the table, desiring 
 her on no account to touch these sacred objects : he 
 then told her that she must allow her eyes to be ban- 
 daged, and her hands to be tied behind her back, in 
 order to prevent her from even making the attempt. 
 The deluded girl consented to everything, and Bichel 
 bound a handkerchief over her eyes, tied her hands 
 together, and then stabbed her in the neck with 
 a knife ; she fetched one sigh, and instantly fell. He 
 then cut her open, chopped her body to pieces, in 
 order the more easily to conceal it, and buried the 
 remains in and near the shed where the corpses were 
 subsequently found. He then washed the room, which 
 was deluged with blood, and strewed sand and ashes 
 over it to conceal the stains. He told his wife on her 
 
 x2
 
 308 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 return, when she remarked how wet the room was, 
 that he had spilt a bucket of water. 
 
 Neither his peace of mind nor his outward demeanour 
 were the least disturbed by this act. He went on 
 with his usual avocations, and in due time contrived 
 in the most cold-blooded manner to reap the reward 
 of his labour. He started during the Christmas 
 holidays for Loisenrieth, in order to fetch the mur- 
 dered woman's clothes. On his way he was met by 
 Barbara's father going to Regendorf to inquire after 
 his daughter. " Well, how is this ? have you not yet 
 sent her clothes ?" exclaimed Bichel. " I have already 
 despatched several messages to you desiring you to 
 forward your child's clothes to me. She is in service 
 with an ambassador she is married, and she and her 
 husband have an estate to manage. She commis- 
 sioned me to send her clothes after her." The father 
 maintained that he had received no message. " Well, 
 then," continued Bichel, "since I am so far on the 
 way I will return with you and fetch them." He 
 did so. The mother carefully packed up all her 
 daughter's clothes, and gave them to Bichel. The 
 father accompanied him to some distance, carrying 
 the booty for him as far as a certain public-house, 
 where they separated. Old Reisinger afterwards heard 
 that Bichel was selling some of his daughter's clothes. 
 He went three several times to Ratisbon to inquire 
 after his daughter, but of course obtained no informa- 
 tion about her. At last he went to Bichel himself at 
 Regendorf, reproached him, and called him a rogue. 
 But Bichel drove him away with threats and told 
 him not to trouble himself any further about his 
 daughter, who was well provided for.
 
 ANDREW BICHEL. 309 
 
 The length of time during which this crime re- 
 mained undiscovered, can only be accounted for by 
 the ignorance and boundless simplicity of Barbara 
 Reisinger's parents, and of the other persons to whom 
 so many suspicious circumstances were known. 
 
 Meanwhile, Bichel sought for fresh victims. The 
 first murder was so easily perpetrated, and so richly 
 rewarded, that he determined to make a trade of it. 
 A man who has once deliberately committed an ill- 
 human action will not, so long as the same motives 
 to crime exist, rest content with his first exploit. 
 Once acquainted with horrors, he will soon become 
 familiarised with them. 
 
 Bichel now looked about for other girls whom he 
 might delude by superstition and entice into his 
 power, and within reach of his knife. It is not 
 exactly known upon how many he tried his cunning : 
 the legal authorities, however, heard of several. About 
 Christmas, 1807, he cast his eyes upon a girl of one 
 and twenty, called Graber : he turned the conversation 
 upon her absent lover, and asked if she had lately 
 heard from him. She answered that she had not; 
 and he said, " Well, if you will say nothing about it 
 to any one, you may come to me, and I will then let 
 you look in my magic glass, which will show you 
 whether your lover be alive or dead. But in order 
 to see this you must put on a boddice, which is so 
 holy that it can only be touched with a cloth." He 
 added that she must bring her best clothes, and her 
 finest shift. She promised to go to him, but did 
 not keep her word, and Bichel sent a woman to her 
 a few days before his arrest, to bid her hasten her 
 visit. He also endeavoured by similar representations
 
 310 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 to induce a certain Juliana Daweck to go to him 
 with her clothes, and repeatedly used the most pressing 
 entreaties to prevail upon her to do so. He laid the 
 same snare for a girl called Margaret Heimberger. 
 These women were saved, some by their want of faith 
 in the wonderful properties of the magic mirror, others 
 by a secret dread of Bichel, and others again by mere 
 accident. Nothing, however, happened to rescue the 
 unfortunate Catherine Seidel, the discovery of whose 
 murder put an end to his wicked deeds. 
 
 Some nine months before, Seidel's fine clothes had 
 attracted his attention, while he was coming from 
 Ratisbon with her : he at once resolved to murder her, 
 and immediately began to prepare the means. He 
 entered into conversation with her, boasted of the vir- 
 tues of his magic mirror, and invited her to come and 
 see it. Why she did not then go, whether he re- 
 peated his invitation several times, and why the plan 
 was not executed until some months afterwards, is 
 not stated in any of the official documents. We will 
 now proceed in the criminal's own words, which are 
 too remarkable and characteristic to be omitted : 
 
 '* On the day of the murder," said he, " I sent for 
 Catherine, and when she arrived I said to her, since we 
 are quite alone I will let you look in my magic mirror. 
 But you must go home and fetch your best clothes, so 
 that you may be able to shift yourself several times. 
 When she had returned in her common working 
 clothes, carrying her other things in her apron, I rolled 
 a white napkin round a board, and brought a spy- 
 glass, both of which I laid upon the table, forbidding 
 her to touch either that or the mirror. I then tied 
 .her hands behind her with a bit of pack-thread, the
 
 ANDREW BICHEL. 311 
 
 same which I had before used for Barbara Reisinger, 
 and bound a handkerchief over her eyes. I then 
 stabbed her in the throat with a knife which I had in 
 readiness. I had a desire to see how she was made 
 inwardly, and for this purpose I took a wedge, which 
 I placed upon her breast bone, and struck it with a 
 cobbler's hammer. I thus opened her breast, and cut 
 through the fleshy parts of her body with a knife. 
 I began to cut her open as soon as ever I had stabbed 
 her ; and no man, however quickly he may pray, could 
 get through his rosary, or say ten Ave Marias in the 
 time it took me to cut open her breast and the rest 
 of her body. I cut up this person as a butcher does 
 a sheep, chopping the corpse with an axe into portions 
 which would go into the pit which I had already dug 
 for it on the hill. The whole time I was so eager 
 that I trembled, and could have cut out a bit and 
 eaten it. When Seidel had received the first stab, 
 she screamed, struggled, and sighed six or seven 
 times. As I cut her open immediately after stabbing 
 her, it is very possible that she may still have been 
 alive when I began cutting. I buried the fragments 
 of the body, after having carefully locked the doors. 
 I washed the bloody shift and gown belonging to 
 Seidel twice, and hid them from my wife, as a cat 
 tries to hide its young, carrying them about from one 
 place to another. I put the other bloody things 
 into the stove, and burnt them. 
 
 " My only reason for murdering Reisinger and 
 Seidel was desire for their clothes. I must confess that 
 I did not want them ; but it was exactly as if some one 
 stood at my elbow, saying, ' Do this and buy corn,'
 
 312 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 and whispered to me that I should thus get some- 
 thing without risk of discovery." 
 
 The sentence of breaking on the wheel from the 
 feet upwards, which had been pronounced in accord- 
 ance with the laws still in force, was commuted to be- 
 heading. This was done, not for the sake of sparing 
 the criminal, whose crimes deserved the extremest 
 punishment, but out of regard to the moral dignity 
 of the state, which ought not, as it were, to vie with 
 a murderer in cruelty.
 
 JOHN HOLZINGER. 
 
 MANSLAUGHTER, MURDER, AND SUICIDE, FROM LOVE AND JEALOUSY. 
 
 JOHN CONRAD HOLZINGER, a Lutheran, was born in 
 1790, at Ansbach, where he carried on the trade of a 
 vintner. He possessed a couple of houses, mortgaged 
 to half their value, an acre of land, and a wine shop, 
 worth about 1200 florins. By his first wife he had four 
 children. 
 
 He was a tall strongly-made man, with a somewhat 
 repulsive countenance. His health was equal to his 
 muscular strength, and he had never suffered from any 
 illness, although he frequently complained of determi- 
 nation of blood to the head, and of nervous agitation. 
 He had received the usual education of his class, and 
 possessed a fair understanding ; he was cheerful, 
 obliging, and ready to talk, which made him a gene- 
 rally welcome guest. He was, however, subject to 
 sudden but transient fits of passion, during which he 
 frequently smashed the glasses and crockery, but had 
 never been known to proceed to personal violence. 
 
 His friends, relations, and servants were unanimous 
 in their praises of the goodness of his heart. His maid- 
 servants described him as " a kind-hearted man, who 
 would not offend even a child ;" and his apprentice 
 said that he was " an excellent fellow, who would do 
 whatever he was asked," The district physician said 
 the same thing, and asserted that Holzinger's wife had
 
 314 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 more than once described her husband as " a kind 
 good man, from whom everything was to be got with 
 proper management." This sort of praise is doubtful 
 at best, and is generally bestowed upon those who are 
 wanting in real moral worth, and whose easy good- 
 nature is but the sign of a weak and yielding dispo- 
 sition. 
 
 In Holzinger this facile temper was rendered still 
 less estimable by being combined with unmanly 
 cowardice, and worse than childish terrors. If any 
 one opposed him with firmness he instantly sank into 
 abject submissiveness, even in the midst of the most 
 violent fits of anger. If roughly addressed, he started 
 in affright. As a child he ran away when his comrades 
 fought, and he did not dare to walk alone after dark in 
 the fields, much less in a wood. A man not half his 
 size once in jest pretended to attack him on meeting 
 him in the dark, whereupon Holzinger ran away in 
 terror. 
 
 Lastly, Holzinger was beyond measure licentious 
 and inconstant. 
 
 After his wife's death, which took place in June, 1818, 
 her sister Christiana, the divorced* wife of a clergyman, 
 a handsome woman of about thirty, undertook the di- 
 rection of his household. The most intimate connection 
 was soon formed between them, and Holzinger seriously 
 intended to marry her. He passionately loved her, and 
 became so accustomed to her society as never to be 
 easy without her. He did nothing without first con- 
 sulting her, and was completely under her dominion. 
 
 * The reader must keep in mind that divorce a vinculo matri- 
 monii is permitted by law in Protestant Germany for causes far 
 lighter than those in which the English legislature interferes. A 
 divorce, therefore, does not necessarily imply adultery. Transl.
 
 JOHN HOLZINGER. 315 
 
 According to the testimony of the authorities, her 
 conduct was blameless ; but those who knew her inti- 
 mately spoke of her capricious and quarrelsome dispo- 
 sition. Whenever Holzinger did anything to displease 
 her ; if, for instance, he stayed too long at the public- 
 house, or drank too freely, she reproached him in 
 coarse and violent language. These misunderstand- 
 ings did not, however, at all disturb the connection 
 subsisting between them, and were always quickly 
 over. Holzinger always gave way to her, and endea- 
 voured to appease her anger by fair words and pro- 
 mises of amendment. One of his common phrases 
 was, " Christiana, are you fond of me ?" She gene- 
 rally answered him with a kindly " Yes/' or with an 
 impatient " What is the matter now ? Why should I 
 not be fond of you .?" He scarcely ever addressed her 
 without pressing her hand, or putting his arm round 
 her neck in an affectionate manner. 
 
 Although Christiana granted every favour to her 
 lover, she steadily refused to give him her hand in 
 marriage, declaring that she had determined once for 
 all not to marry again. This arose perhaps from a 
 desire to indulge her inclinations without restraint, or 
 perhaps her penetration had detected under Holzin- 
 ger's apparent good nature, qualities \\hich made her 
 shrink from a more permanent union with him. 
 
 Thus constantly refused by his mistress, Holzinger 
 was compelled by his position as the father of a family 
 and as a tradesman to look round for another wife, and 
 when his connection with Christiana had lasted about 
 
 six months, he selected a certain Johanna R of 
 
 Weissenburg, a woman of forty, who had been twice 
 married, and was then divorced from her second hus- 
 band. This choice did not in the slightest degree
 
 316 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 interrupt the intimacy subsisting between Holzinger 
 and Christiana. Everything was done by her advice, 
 and it was agreed that the new marriage should not 
 supersede the old love. Christiana was to stay and 
 manage his household until after the wedding, when 
 she was to return to her own home at Wassertriidingen, 
 where her lover was to visit her regularly once a fort- 
 night. 
 
 Holzinger fetched his bride home from Weissenburg 
 a week before the wedding-day, which was fixed for 
 the 3rd of January, 1819. It is more easy to imagine 
 than to describe what he must have felt on seeing this 
 woman of forty or more, contrasted with Christiana 
 who had rejected his suit, and on remembering that 
 the former would remain while the latter would 
 shortly leave him ; his passion for Christiana was 
 now mingled with resentment against a woman who 
 could first refuse the hand of her lover, and with per- 
 fect indifference see him married to another. 
 
 The hope of occasionally visiting Christiana was a 
 poor satisfaction : he placed little confidence in her con- 
 duct when absent from him, and foresaw that another 
 lover would soon share his mistress with him, or per- 
 haps entirely supplant him. Indeed, he thought that 
 the favoured lover was already chosen, in the person 
 of Carl Schulz, his future wife's nephew, a youth of 
 twenty, who had accompanied his aunt to Ansbach. 
 Christiana frequently talked with him, seemed greatly 
 pleased with his company, and invited him to visit her 
 at Wassertriidingen. Schulz became the object of vio- 
 lent jealousy to Holzinger, who determined to get him 
 out of Christiana's way. He accordingly endeavoured 
 by marked incivility to force him to leave his house, 
 even before the marriage. But to Holzinger's great
 
 JOHN HOLZINGER. 317 
 
 annoyance Schulz stayed, and Christiana's manner 
 towards him remained unaltered. 
 
 Christiana rendered the evening before the wedding 
 doubly painful to him by harsh behaviour, which, con- 
 trasted with the attentions which she paid to young 
 Schulz, increased his agitation, and entirely got the 
 better of his usual patient good humour. Holzinger 
 had been at the tavern from six to eight, when Chris- 
 tiana wrote him an insulting note, in which she called 
 him " a good for nothing drunken fellow," and desired 
 him to come home immediately. The maid met him 
 on his way thither, and gave him the note in the street. 
 He read and then tore the letter in the presence of 
 Christiana, who scolded and abused him the while. 
 He endeavoured as usual to appease her by soft words 
 and excuses, and was so much hurt as to shed tears ; 
 but on her continuing to reproach him, he was seized 
 with sudden fury, dashed a stone jug to pieces on the 
 floor, cursed and swore, and tossed his arms wildly in 
 the air. Christiana was ill-natured enough to repre- 
 sent his conduct in the most hateful colours to the 
 bride elect, whom she dissuaded, even at this stage of 
 the affair, from marrying him. Holzinger saw in this 
 a mark of the contempt and dislike with which he be- 
 lieved that Christiana now looked upon him. 
 
 At six o'clock on the following morning the 
 wedding was celebrated in the presence of Christiana 
 and other relations. After the ceremony they went to 
 Holzinger's house, where they sat round a table drink- 
 ing arrack, and all appeared to be in the best humour. 
 The misunderstanding of the preceding day seemed 
 entirely forgotten, and Christiana's manner to him be- 
 tokened complete forgiveness and reconciliation.
 
 318 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 The forenoon passed without any unusual occur- 
 rence. Holzinger appeared cheerful and good-hu- 
 moured, but was observed to drink more than was his 
 habit. Besides two glasses of arrack on returning 
 from church, he drank beer and wine, and, according 
 to the accounts given by his friends, was intoxicated 
 before midday. Nevertheless, the quantity he had 
 drunk was by no means sufficient to deprive him of 
 reason ; he acted and talked like one excited by drink, 
 but was perfectly aware of what he was about, and in 
 full possession of all his faculties. 
 
 At about one they dined : Holzinger ate nothing but 
 some soup. After dinner, Christiana, who was bidden 
 to a christening, sent for the hair-dresser, and when he 
 arrived she took him by the arm, and went into the 
 nursery to have her hair curled. 
 
 Holzinger, whose jealous suspicions were roused, 
 soon followed them, and, looking through the glass- 
 door, saw the hair-dresser's arm round Christiana's 
 waist. Holzinger burst into the room, gave the hair- 
 dresser a violent box on the ear, and asked him what 
 he was about. Christiana, enraged at his behaviour, 
 abused him, calling him a coarse drunken fellow. He 
 immediately left the room, and went down to the 
 cellar to fetch some wine for the christening. While 
 there he again drank some wine, and then returned to 
 the dining-room, where he found Schulz, and with 
 him Christiana smartly dressed for the christening. 
 Holzinger went up to her, and putting his arm round 
 her neck, as was his custom, said, " Come here, I 
 have something to tell you." But she, who had not 
 yet forgotten the scene with the hair-dresser, pushed 
 him away, and left the room with the words, " Let me
 
 JOHN HOLZINGEK. 319 
 
 go ; you are an ill-conditioned drunkard ; I will have 
 nothing more to say to you," Schulz observed no 
 agitation, or anything unusual in Holzinger, who left 
 the room soon after. 
 
 " A few minutes after Holzinger had gone out of 
 the room" these are Schulz's words " I heard a 
 noise over head. I thought it might be Holzinger 
 and Christiana, who had made up their quarrel and 
 were romping. But before long, in the midst of the 
 noise, I heard groans ; I ran upstairs, and on opening 
 the door I saw Christiana lying on the floor. Hol- 
 zinger was bending over her, in the act of cutting her 
 throat with a knife he had in one hand, while with 
 the other he held her chin, and the blood spouted up 
 from her like a fountain. As I entered, Holzinger 
 started up, and holding the bloody knife high over his 
 head, exclaimed, ' I am the murderer of this harlot ! ' 
 He then flung the knife upon the ground. I stood a 
 short time aghast at the sight, and then ran down 
 stairs and out of the house followed by Holzinger's 
 wife, sister, and maid-servant, who had come into the 
 room in the meantime. Holzinger followed us, bran- 
 dishing the knife which he had again seized, and 
 repeatedly exclaiming, ' I am the murderer of this 
 harlot ! ' Christiana gave no sign of life : she had 
 ceased from groaning, and her arms had sunk upon 
 the floor." 
 
 Holzinger, meanwhile, ran about the house and 
 yard like a madman, accusing himself of the murder 
 to every one, and lamenting the fate of his wife and 
 children. When the physician, who had been sent 
 for, arrived, Holzinger fell upon his knees in despair, 
 and repeated his self-accusation, attributing his crime
 
 320 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 to sudden anger at Christiana's reproaches. He be- 
 haved in the same manner before the police, adding 
 that he had been driven to murder her by jealousy. 
 
 On examination Christiana's throat was found to be 
 cut almost from ear to ear, and the knife, which was 
 one commonly used at table, was found concealed in 
 the bed. It had been carried upstairs to cut the 
 wedding cake. 
 
 At his first examination Holzinger made a full con- 
 fession in the following words : " I will confess every- 
 thing of which I am conscious. I am well aware that 
 I have committed a dreadful crime, but such a com- 
 bination of circumstances urged me to it, that in the 
 opinion of any unprejudiced person I must stand to a 
 great degree excused. My heart is good, and I never 
 in my life injured any one in cold blood." 
 
 He then repeated what the reader already knows, 
 adding that, after the scene with the hair-dresser, he 
 had gone upstairs intending to reproach Christiana 
 with her conduct. " She was very angry, and said, 
 ' You wicked man, I will make you burst with jealousy ; 
 I have a good mind to stab you with this knife,' with 
 these words she pointed to a common carving-knife 
 which lay on the table beside the cake. At the same 
 time she spat in my face. I was drunk, and in my rage 
 lost all control over myself, and could no longer calcu- 
 late the consequences of my actions. My sister-in-law 
 struck me on the breast, upon which I snatched up the 
 knife, and, throwing her on the floor, cut her throat. I 
 was drunk, and so much enraged by Christiana's beha- 
 viour, that I lost all command over myself, and was 
 in such a state as not to be accountable for my actions. 
 My sister-in-law was to blame for my drunkenness ;
 
 JOHN HOLZINGER. 321 
 
 she made me drink half a bottle of arrack besides two 
 bottles of wine and two quarts of beer." 
 
 Holzinger, who cried and sobbed during the whole 
 examination, did not seem to be aware that Christiana 
 was dead, and asked with great emotion, whether she 
 could not be saved by medical help. On being told 
 that he was suspected of having drunk the wine and the 
 arrack in order to increase his courage for the crime 
 which he had determined beforehand to commit, he 
 answered, " I had no evil intentions, and I loved my 
 sister-in-law so dearly, that God knows I could never 
 have harmed her on purpose." In the subsequent 
 examination he again referred to the state of his mind 
 when he committed the murder. " I was beside my- 
 self; my body acted, but it was without the consent of 
 my will. I behaved like a madman, and knew not 
 what I was doing. I was not even aware that I held 
 the knife in my hand, and it was not till my sister-in- 
 law lay bleeding before me that I came to my senses. 
 Had not the unlucky knife lain on the table I should 
 not have been in this trouble." He did not know that 
 Schulz had seen him in the act, nor did he remember 
 hiding the knife. He denied all recollection of having 
 seen his sister-in-law in the parlour, and of what took 
 place there. He said that owing to the drunken state in 
 which he then was he could remember nothing. 
 
 Holzinger had in his confession insinuated so 
 strongly and with so much ingenuity that at the time 
 of the murder he was scarcely accountable for his 
 actions, that the advocate charged with his defence 
 founded his hopes of acquittal on this plea. But in 
 order to ensure success it was necessary that the matter 
 should be taken out of the province of legal jurisdic-
 
 322 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 tion, and referred to the medical faculty. Holzinger's 
 advocate accordingly asserted " That his client's brain 
 and nervous system were completely disorganised, and 
 that he was in a state of raving madness when he com- 
 mitted the murder." He therefore demanded a con- 
 sultation of physicians. 
 
 This was not properly a case for reference to a 
 medical board, and the demand ought to have been 
 refused. " In all cases," says Heinroth, " where the 
 motive to the deed is evident, it is more than superfluous 
 to consult the medical faculty. Nor can the assertion 
 of the criminal, or the conjectures of the advocate 
 that the deed was committed from blind impulse, or in 
 the confusion of the moment, be a valid reason for 
 medical examination, when the motives for the action 
 are apparent." * In this case the motive was manifest 
 according to his own confession, and the evidence of 
 other competent witnesses. 
 
 It was obvious that Holzinger had killed his sister- 
 in-law in a fit of violent fury, excited by love and 
 jealousy ; and the excuse that the gratification of these 
 passions is a proof of deranged intellect, is inadmis- 
 sible. Yet in endeavouring to show that he was not 
 accountable for his actions, Holzinger could refer to 
 no derangement of intellect save that arising from 
 those very passions which impelled him to the deed. 
 Among a hundred men who commit murder, man- 
 slaughter, &c., there will be found scarce one who will 
 not describe, and describe with perfect truth, his state 
 during the commission of the crime as one of passing 
 
 * Uber das falsche artzliche verfahren bei criminal gerichtlichen 
 untersuchungen zweifelhafter Gemiithszustande. Hitzig Zeitschrift. 
 1828, 1 vol. f. 125.
 
 JOHN HOLZINGER. 323 
 
 madness. But the madness of passion and of crime 
 cannot absolve a criminal of guilt either in law or in 
 conscience, for it is a madness that does not begin 
 until the criminal intention is already formed. 
 
 But what proved beyond doubt that Holzinger 
 was accountable for his actions was the fact that he 
 gave the Court a connected and detailed account of 
 the origin and growth of the passions which drove 
 him to commit the crime, and of the state of his mind 
 when he committed it, and entered into a minute ana- 
 lysis of the derangement of his intellect, drawn from 
 his own observation. Holzinger remembered what he 
 had done, and knew that it was a crime. A madman, 
 on the contrary, either rejoices in his deed, or speaks 
 of it as an indifferent event, and, should his insanity 
 leave him, the whole thing appears to him as a dream. 
 That a madman should give an account of his mad- 
 ness from his own sensations is as incredible as that a 
 blind man should relate that which he has seen, or a 
 deaf man that which he has heard. 
 
 Nevertheless, the demand made by the advocate was 
 conceded, and both the district physician and Holzin- 
 ger's usual medical attendant were separately called 
 upon for their opinions as to the state of his mind. 
 
 The latter admitted that he had never perceived any 
 symptoms of insanity in the prisoner either before or 
 since the commission of his crime, and that although 
 it was proved that both his mother and grandmother 
 had for many years suffered from hypochondria, it 
 could not thence be inferred that he was actually 
 afflicted with the same disease, but only that, in all 
 probability, he had a tendency towards it. This phy- 
 sician, nevertheless, concluded his opinion by saying 
 
 Y 2
 
 324 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 that Holzinger was deprived by drunkenness, by the 
 passion of jealousy and by anger, of consciousness and 
 self-controul, and that he was not a free and account- 
 able agent when he committed the murder. The dis- 
 trict physician, on the contrary, gave it as his opinion 
 that there were no certain, or even probable, reasons 
 for supposing that Holzinger's brain and nervous sys- 
 tem were disorganised and himself insane at the time 
 of the murder. 
 
 In spite of this difference, however, the two opinions 
 tended towards the same legal result ; both denied the 
 existence of actual insanity in Holzinger's mind, and 
 according to both he was accountable for the death of 
 his sister-in-law. 
 
 Nevertheless, the report of the case was sent for con- 
 sideration to the College of Medicine, which, on the 20th 
 of April, 1819, sent in a wordy and incoherent opinion, 
 which concluded by saying " that at the time of the 
 murder he was in a state of mental derangement, arising 
 partly from violent passion, and partly from latent here- 
 ditary tendencies, which made him irresponsible for his 
 actions." 
 
 According to this opinion, then, the innocent and 
 unfortunate prisoner ought to have been fully ac- 
 quitted nor was there in it anything which could 
 even justify his confinement in a madhouse for the 
 sake of public security ; for the Medical College itself 
 admitted that he had been in the full possession of his 
 reason during the whole course of his life, with the 
 sole exception of a few moments, during which he went 
 mad in order to murder his sister-in-law, after which 
 he immediately returned to his usual health and sanity. 
 
 One of the arguments used by the Medical College
 
 JOHN HOLZINGER. 325 
 
 to prove Holzinger's insanity was, that he committed 
 the murder in a place, at a time, and under circum- 
 stances which none but a madman would have chosen 
 According to this then, every man who suffers himself 
 to be impelled by passion to commit crimes which he 
 has not carefully planned beforehand, is a madman. 
 
 Again, the college strongly insisted on the fact, that 
 after seizing the knife, Holzinger remembered nothing 
 more. Now, even if Holzinger actually made such a 
 statement the truth of it might very fairly be ques- 
 tioned, but his own words were as follows : " I could 
 no longer command myself, and do not know what I 
 did while in that condition; I only remember thus 
 much, that I snatched up a knife which lay upon the 
 table, seized my sister-in-law, threw her upon the floor, 
 and cut her throat." 
 
 Among the arguments by which the Medical Col- 
 lege sought to establish the fact of the prisoner's in- 
 sanity, it adduced the prisoner's seeming ignorance of 
 his sister-in-law's death up to the moment when the 
 body was shown to him in Court, contrasted with his 
 frantic behaviour after the deed, and his loud and public 
 self-accusations. Far from being a psychological phe- 
 nomenon, this was the mere invention of a criminal 
 who from the very beginning artfully endeavoured 
 to represent himself as irresponsible for his actions. 
 After the murder Holzinger twice returned to the room 
 where Christiana lay weltering in her blood ; he told 
 his household that he had killed her, and when the 
 physicians arrived he showed them the corpse himself, 
 but expressed no hope that her life could possibly be 
 saved. Unless, then, his subsequent ignorance of her 
 death was, as we believe, affected, we must suppose
 
 326 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 that he was sane immediately after committing the 
 murder, and was afterwards seized with a monomania, 
 under the influence of which he believed the murdered 
 woman to be still living, and entertained hopes of her 
 recovery, while on every other subject he was in the 
 full possession of his faculties. 
 
 As the foregoing medical opinions failed to establish 
 the fact which they were intended to prove, and were 
 directly at variance with experience and common 
 sense ; as, moreover, they contained every defect 
 which deprives a medical opinion of legal authority,* 
 and as the deed itself was fully proved, the Court was 
 now called upon to decide whether the prisoner was 
 guilty of murder or only of manslaughter. 
 
 The following circumstances appeared to indicate a 
 murderous intention : In the first place, Holzinger 
 did not kill his sister-in-law by a single blow, stab, or 
 shot, as is usually the case in a completely unpreme- 
 ditated murder committed in sudden anger. A certain 
 degree of preparation was necessary, and her resistance 
 had to be overcome before her death could be effected ; 
 and though these actions occupied a very short space 
 of time, that was sufficient to throw a suspicion of 
 design upon him. It also looked suspicious that Hol- 
 zinger excused his unusual drunkenness on the day of 
 the murder by falsely stating that every day since 
 Schulz's arrival he had drunk enough to intoxicate 
 himself, in the hope of dispelling his jealous vexation. 
 No less so is the forgetfulness which he professed of 
 the scene in the parlour, when on endeavouring to con- 
 ciliate Christiana, he was repulsed by her with hard 
 words, and immediately after which he followed her 
 
 * Art. 264, Nos. 3, 4, Part II., of the ' Strafgesetzbuch.'
 
 JOHN HOLZINGER. 327 
 
 into the upper room, and there murdered her. One is 
 naturally led to the supposition that this forgetfulness 
 was affected by the prisoner, that this very scene de- 
 termined him to commit the murder, and that he fol- 
 lowed her up-stairs with that intention. His account 
 of her behaviour to him, of her striking him, spitting 
 in his face, and threatening to stab him, seemed, to say 
 the least, exaggerated, and, moreover, he made no men- 
 tion of any such provocations until some time after the 
 murder the only motives he at first assigned were 
 jealousy and resentment of her reproaches. 
 
 These arguments were counterbalanced by others of 
 equal weight. A premeditated murder is generally 
 committed secretly, so that the very publicity of Hol- 
 zinger's crime renders it highly probable that the idea 
 first occurred to him when he had reached the upper 
 room, and that it was executed in the heat of the 
 moment: it is also certain that Holzinger followed 
 Christiana unarmed, and used no weapon but the 
 knife which accident threw in his way. His beha- 
 viour after committing the deed, his wild despair and 
 loud lamentations over his dead mistress, were an addi- 
 tional confirmation of the supposition that the murder 
 was unpremeditated. 
 
 These last-mentioned arguments outweighed the 
 preceding ones in the judgment of the Court, and 
 Holzinger was accordingly found guilty of manslaugh- 
 ter on the person Christiana R . 
 
 The proper punishment for manslaughter is impri- 
 sonment in the house of correction for an unlimited 
 time ; * but this may be shortened to twelve or even to 
 eight years, if the deceased had provoked the attack 
 * Art. 157, Part I., of the ' Strafgesetzbuch.'
 
 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 by extraordinary insults, or if the deed was committed 
 in a state of drunkenness. In Holzinger's case both 
 these excuses obtained, in consideration of which he 
 was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment in the 
 house of correction. 
 
 On the 2nd December 1816, Holzinger was con- 
 veyed to the fortress of Lichtenau, where he was treated 
 with unusual indulgence. He had some years before 
 lost the use of one eye from a shot, which procured 
 for him from the surgeon a certificate to the effect that 
 he could not be employed in the work usually imposed 
 upon the prisoners, without endangering his sight. He 
 enjoyed as much liberty as is consistent with confine- 
 ment within the walls of the fortress, and was employed 
 only in easy tasks. His punishment, in fact, consisted 
 only in the ignominy attached to it, and this he seemed 
 to feel as little as he felt remorse. He accosted his 
 fellow-citizens who came to visit the prison without the 
 slightest shame, either for his crime, or for his prison 
 dress. 
 
 Holzinger's conduct while in the house of correc- 
 tion was, however, so good in all other respects, that 
 at the end of six years, when three-fourths of his term 
 of imprisonment had expired, he obtained his dis- 
 charge, on the favourable report of the governor of the 
 fortress.* 
 
 The governor described him as a man of limited 
 intellect and defective education, physically and mo- 
 rally enfeebled by dissolute habits. Six years' residence 
 amongst criminals had done more to harden and 
 degrade, than the punishment had done to amend him. 
 
 Holzinger came back amongst his fellow-citizens 
 * Art. 12, 13, Part L, of the Strafgesetzbuck'
 
 JOHN HOLZINGER. 329 
 
 thoroughly indifferent to his crime, which he looked 
 upon as a matter completely settled, and with which 
 his conscience had nothing further to do. He unblush- 
 ingly forced himself into the society of his fellow- 
 citizens, and even delighted in turning the conversation 
 upon his deed, in order to show how little it weighed 
 upon his mind. He considered that a few years' im- 
 prisonment had completely cleansed him from all 
 guilt. 
 
 The trial and imprisonment had utterly ruined him, 
 and he was forced to maintain himself by driving a 
 hired carriage (Lohnkutsche). His wife died during 
 his imprisonment, and he was now at liberty to follow 
 his inclinations. He was scarcely out of prison before 
 he formed a violent attachment to a certain Rosina 
 Ott, a well-conducted girl of five-and-twenty. From 
 love towards the daughter he lodged with the mother, 
 who was a washerwoman, and by unceasing attentions 
 and apparent good humour, he succeeded not only in 
 overcoming her repugnance to a one-eyed murderer, 
 but even in gaining her affections. Rosina Ott was 
 endeared to him by the very labour it had cost him to 
 win her, and he soon gave fatal proof how fierce a pas- 
 sion for her had taken possession of him. 
 
 Rosina was penniless ; a marriage with her was, 
 therefore, out of the question. As Holzinger wanted 
 money, he sought and obtained in marriage a woman 
 of nine-and-thirty, named Margaret Heimstadt, who 
 possessed 600 florins; no inconsiderable sum for a 
 man in his circumstances. He now thought that he 
 had so arranged matters as to gain from a wife what 
 was wanting; in the mistress, while the mistress would 
 
 O ' 
 
 be to him what the wife could never become. This,
 
 330 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 however, rested upon the supposition that his wife 
 would allow him to frequent Rosina, and that the 
 mother of the latter would suffer her daughter's con- 
 nection with the husband of another woman. In both 
 these expectations Holzinger was disappointed. Mar- 
 garet Heimstadt, who had lived with him as his wife 
 ever since the banns had first been published in church, 
 and had already surrendered the greater part of her 
 property to him, forbade him all further communication 
 with Rosina Ott. On the other hand Rosina's mother 
 interdicted him from any future intercourse with her 
 daughter. As Holzinger paid no attention to the 
 commands of his betrothed wife or of Rosina's mother, 
 they both went before a magistrate at Ansbach, where 
 they met though without previous concert the latter 
 to claim protection against Holzinger's importunities 
 to her daughter, the former to break off the marriage, 
 and forbid the third publication of the banns. Matters 
 were, however, privately arranged by the mediation of 
 their mutual friends. Holzinger promised his future 
 wife that he would give up all connection with Rosina, 
 whereupon she consented to retract her declaration 
 with regard to the publication of the banns. 
 
 The banns were accordingly published for the third 
 and last time on Sunday, 18th February 1827, and 
 Holzinger now found himself in the same predicament 
 as on the 3rd January 1819. On the one hand a 
 middle-aged woman with whom he must live without 
 affection, on the other a far younger woman, whom he 
 passionately loved, and whom he was forced to resign. 
 His bridal day eight years before had been marked by 
 the death of his beloved Christiana, and now the festive 
 Sunday was destined to be celebrated in a like manner.
 
 JOHN HOLZINGER. 331 
 
 On the evening of the 18th February it was ru- 
 moured in the town of Ansbach that Holzinger had 
 killed Rosina Ott by a pistol shot. The aunt of the 
 unfortunate girl, who was an eye witness of the murder, 
 hastened to inform the police of it. The corpse was 
 found lying in the snow close to a shed in a field just 
 beyond the suburbs ; the clothes were still burning in 
 places, and the fragments of a pistol which had been 
 discharged and then broken, and the lock of which 
 was covered with blood and human hair, were found 
 close by. 
 
 Holzinger had been in the habit of visiting Rosina 
 at her aunt's house after her mother had forbidden him 
 her own. On the 18th Februarv he went to this aunt 
 
 */ 
 
 and told her that his wife suspected his meetings with 
 Rosina, and watched him accordingly, so that he could 
 no longer meet her at the usual place, but that he 
 must have a last interview with his mistress, to whom 
 he wished to present a small farewell gift on taking- 
 leave of her. He, therefore, requested that she would 
 meet him in the evening at a place outside the town. 
 Rosina, on being informed by her aunt of his request, 
 likewise begged to be allowed this last interview, 
 adding that after this " she would have nothing more 
 to say to Holzinger," Her aunt went with her at 
 half-past five to the appointed place, where they found 
 Holzinger waiting for them. The aunt said that 
 " their meeting was quite that of two lovers. He 
 kissed and pressed her in his arms, saying, Mine 
 you are, and mine you must be.' ' 
 
 On their way home, as they approached the town, 
 Holzinger desired the aunt to leave them, as he wished 
 to give the present which he had brought for Rosina
 
 332 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 to her alone. At first she refused, and even Rosina 
 did not seem to like the idea of being left alone with 
 Holzinger. At length, however, she gave way, and 
 Holzinger and Rosina walked towards the open fields. 
 
 The aunt pretended to remain behind, but from dis- 
 trust of Holzinger she followed the loving couple, and 
 saw them ascend a hillock. She presently heard loud 
 talking, and Rosina's voice exclaiming in a tone of dis- 
 tress. She hurried up the hill, calling out in alarm, 
 Rosina, Rosina ! " Oh, aunt," answered the girl, " he 
 is going to shoot me ! " At the same moment he fired, 
 and Rosina fell to the ground. The aunt not only saw 
 the flash and heard the report, but distinctly saw Hol- 
 zinger take aim at Rosina. She screamed aloud at the 
 sight, whereupon Holzinger turned towards her, and 
 called out in a threatening voice, " If you cry out I 
 will serve you the same." This frightened her so 
 much that she ran away. 
 
 After, as it would seem, completing his deed by 
 shattering the head and face of his mistress with the 
 butt end of his pistol, Holzinger went to the village 
 of Schalkhausen, about two miles from Ansbach. He 
 got there at about ten o'clock, and went into a tavern 
 where he seated himself at a table in a distant and 
 dark corner, saying that he had come from Langenfeld 
 by a very bad road, asked for a quart of beer, which 
 he drank in two or three draughts, then for a glass of 
 brandy, then another quart of beer, and finally for 
 a bed. The host, to whom such a guest was not very 
 welcome, advised him to go on to the town of Ansbach, 
 but he said that he was very tired, had drunk too much, 
 and that the cold was so intense that he was afraid he 
 might be frozen to death if he went any farther so late
 
 JOHN HOLZINGER. 333 
 
 at night. The host accordingly gave him a room up- 
 stairs, to which Holzinger retired, carrying with him a 
 third quart of beer. On the following morning, at nine 
 o'clock, Holzinger had not made his appearance, and 
 the host sent his daughter upstairs to look after him. 
 She returned, saying, that she had peeped through the 
 key-hole, and had seen the stranger standing by the 
 window. At eleven o'clock the host went upstairs 
 himself, and on opening the door he saw to his horror 
 that his guest had hung himself on the iron handles 
 of the upper window, and that he was already dead. 
 
 The host immediately gave information of the event 
 to the proper authorities, who at once repaired to the 
 spot. On examination it appeared that Holzinger had 
 attempted t'o cut his throat, and also to stab himself, 
 but it was evident from the appearance of the wounds 
 that the instrument with which he had inflicted them, 
 and which could nowhere be found, was too blunt, and 
 that failing in his endeavours, he had ended by hanging 
 himself with his braces. Holzinger had by his suicide 
 escaped the sword of the executioner, from which, in 
 this instance, not even the physicians could have 
 saved him. 
 
 This time there could be no doubt that both the 
 murder and the suicide were premeditated. Holzinger 
 had betrothed himself with a woman who was not only 
 indifferent, but even disagreeable to him, for the sake 
 of her money, of which he had already received and 
 spent the greater part. This woman's jealousy, and 
 the determination of Rosina's mother to suffer no in- 
 tercourse between her daughter and a married man, 
 at once frustrated the scheme by which Holzinger had 
 hoped to combine the pleasures of love and avarice.
 
 334 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 When Holzinger had been summoned before the ma- 
 gistrate at the suit of Rosina's mother, and forbidden 
 all further communication with the daughter, he, 
 nevertheless, went to her house, and when she refused 
 to admit him, he said with a threatening voice and 
 gesture, " You have played me a pretty trick ; but I 
 don't care for the magistrate, and you shall see that 
 Rosina will be mine in spite of you." 
 
 Six days later the real meaning of these words was 
 explained. While he was leading Rosina to death he 
 pressed her in his arms, saying, " Mine you are, and 
 mine you must be."
 
 CASPAK F RISCH, 
 
 THE MURDERER FROM VANITY. 
 
 ON the 17th of July, 1809, the Jew Parnas Samuel 
 informed the court at Harburg, in the principality of 
 Wallerstein in Bavaria, that Joseph Samuel Landauer 
 had gone the day before to Briinnsee, and that, con- 
 trary to his usual custom, he had not returned home. 
 David Levi, his servant, and Andrew Bonlander had 
 gone out to seek him, and had at last found him near 
 the old castle of Wollwarth quite stiff and cold. The 
 unfortunate man had been conveyed to Harburg, where 
 the physician pronounced him to be dead. 
 
 On inspecting the corpse on the following day, great 
 part of the skull and brow were found to be beaten in, 
 and the nose and upper jaw broken ; but no injuries 
 were discovered on any other parts of the body, except- 
 ing on the third finger of the left hand, the middle joint 
 of which was broken and the skin abrased. The phy- 
 sicians pronounced the injuries quite sufficient to cause 
 death, and conjectured them to have been inflicted with 
 a large stone weighing above six pounds, which was 
 found on the spot covered with hair and blood. 
 
 On the very same day distinct traces of the murderer 
 were discovered. It seemed that the murdered man 
 had been seen, on the afternoon on which he was mur-
 
 336 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 dered, at the house of a certain Caspar Frisch. One 
 George Keck had seen a man prowling about the castle 
 of Wollwarth soon after, and had recognised him by 
 his lameness to be Caspar Frisch, who was crooked and 
 always walked with a stick. This same witness saw 
 another person, whom he did not know, go to this spot 
 about the same time, and perceived from a distance 
 that two persons were beating a third. A young girl 
 of about thirteen, who also witnessed the struggle from 
 a distance, spoke of these two persons one wearing a 
 black smock frock and a peasant's hat, the other a 
 white frock and a black cap. She also heard the man 
 whom they had beat groaning for some time after. 
 
 They found on the murdered man two acknowledg- 
 ments of debt, signed by Caspar Frisch, relating chiefly 
 to some transaction about a watch. His widow made the 
 following statement concerning Frisch. That " about 
 ten days previous to the murder, he came to their 
 house and told her husband that he had buried his 
 savings some years ago, and for a long time had been 
 unable to find the spot. But that lately as he was 
 going to bury something else he had accidentally dis- 
 covered the first money, consisting of Bavarian kreut- 
 zers, which, after paying his debts, he wished to ex- 
 change. Frisch then appointed her husband to meet 
 him on the following Sunday, the 16th July, and to 
 bring with him some money and two watches which 
 he wished to buy. He also charged him to say nothing 
 of all this to his cousins, who would otherwise want the 
 money to pay their debts with. Her husband at first 
 thought the whole affair suspicious, but as Frisch pro- 
 tested that he had earned the money by honest labour 
 he was at last induced to go to meet him on the ap-
 
 CASPAR FRISCH. 337 
 
 pointed day, and to take with him a large sum of money 
 and two silver watches, one of which was a repeater." 
 
 The court immediately summoned Frisch and his 
 cousins with whom he lived to appear before it, but 
 only as witnesses. Frisch stated as follows : " The 
 murdered man came to me at one o'clock, partly in 
 order to bring a couple of watches which he had sold 
 me a week before, and partly to fetch a saucepan lid. 
 About two years before I had bought two silver 
 watches of the Jew for ninety-six florins, which I 
 had agreed to pay in six instalments. I had paid 
 a part of this debt, but not all, as I had never been 
 able to find a sum of two hundred florins which I had 
 buried about five years since during the French inva- 
 sion. I most unexpectedly found this sum about a 
 fortnight ago while I was new laying the threshold of 
 the old shed, and immediately went to the Jew and 
 offered to pay him the remainder of his debt. On 
 this occasion the Jew proposed to sell me two watches 
 which he then wore, and we agreed that the Jew was 
 to take back the w r atches which he had formerly sold 
 me, and to let me have the two others in exchange 
 upon payment of an additional sum of thirty-six 
 florins. The Jew came to me yesterday to settle .the 
 matter : everything was done as we had agreed, and 
 the Jew then changed what little money was left for 
 twelve-kreutzer pieces. All this was done in about 
 twenty minutes, after which the Jew went away. I 
 stayed at home for a short time, and then went to 
 several places and talked with different persons, from 
 whom I heard that three people had been fighting up 
 at the old castle." 
 
 At the conclusion of his examination the judge asked
 
 338 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 him how he got the scratches upon his face, which 
 looked as though they had been made by some one's 
 nails. He answered that he had got the scratch 
 over his eye on Saturday, while thatching his cousin's 
 house, and that those about his mouth had been done 
 in shaving. 
 
 This evidence was thought sufficient to warrant 
 Frisch's provisional imprisonment. 
 
 A number of suspicious circumstances soon ap- 
 peared against him. Several witnesses were examined 
 as to whether they had seen the scratches on his face 
 on the Saturday or on the Sunday morning : some 
 said they could not remember, but the greater number 
 confidently asserted that at that time there were no 
 such marks upon his face. The wife of a certain 
 Schwerdberger stated that Frisch had come to her 
 while her husband was out, at about six o'clock in the 
 afternoon of Sunday, the day of the murder, and, 
 on entering the house, said that his legs trembled so 
 violently and he was so tired, that he must beg her to 
 give him a glass of water. She then observed that 
 there were fresh and bleeding scratches upon his face. 
 On asking him the cause of them, he told her that he 
 had been in the wood to catch squirrels, and had 
 fallen from a tree and scratched his face with the 
 prickly leaves of a fir-tree. Another witness stated 
 that " Frisch had been with him on that very Sunday, 
 at one o'clock, when he observed no marks on his face ; 
 but that at six o'clock, when Frisch again called upon 
 him, he saw the scratches, and said to him, * You, too, 
 must have been fighting up at the old castle, to get so 
 scratched.' But he denied this, and again attributed 
 the marks to a fall while trying to catch squirrels."
 
 CASPAR FRISCH. 339 
 
 Finally, the physician who examined his face declared 
 that the wounds were evidently produced by a man's 
 nails, and added that on the prisoner's left hand, more 
 especially on the middle finger, there were similar 
 wounds, inflicted beyond doubt with the nails. 
 
 Such strong grounds for suspicion induced the court 
 to have Frisch brought before it for special exami- 
 nation on the 19th of July, that is, four days after the 
 murder. It would be useless to recapitulate all the 
 lies and contradictions in which he persisted during 
 the first examination ; but scarce had he returned to 
 his cell when he demanded a fresh audience, and con- 
 fessed his guilt. 
 
 Caspar Frisch, a Protestant, was at this time five and 
 twenty ; his mother had been dead about seven years, 
 but his father was living and had married a second 
 wife. Frisch could not live with his step-mother, who 
 was a well-conducted but severe and violent woman, 
 and who made greater demands on her step-son's in- 
 dustry than he was either able or willing to satisfy. 
 Frisch's right leg was quite stiff, his loins were para- 
 lysed, and four of the fingers of his right hand wanted 
 a joint. He could only walk with the assistance 
 of a stick, and was unable to perform common field 
 labour. To make up for this he was very expert in 
 wood-carving and in all kinds of work that did not 
 require much exertion. The incessant contention be- 
 tween his step-mother and himself drove him to seek 
 refuge with his cousins, who willingly received him. 
 He served them as well as his deformity permitted 
 him, as a carter, and in repairing the house and the 
 outhouses, and in his leisure hours earned a little 
 money by his carvings. His cousins were always 
 
 z2
 
 340 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 indulgent towards him ; and his neighbours had no 
 serious fault to find with him. The prominent defect 
 of his character was vanity, and a desire to outshine 
 his fellows in dress and trinkets. In these he sought 
 some compensation for the deformity with which 
 nature had afflicted him. As he could not please by 
 his person, he wished to do so by the splendour of his 
 exterior. His crippled body rendered him an object 
 of pity or contempt ; but he endeavoured by dress and 
 ornament to turn the scorn of his associates into envy. 
 
 More than a year before, he had bought of the Jew, 
 Joseph Samuel Landauer, first one silver watch, then 
 another, a silver hat-buckle and a silver watch-chain, 
 for which he owed him one hundred and thirty-two 
 florins. This sum greatly exceeded his means, but the 
 possession of such ornaments was so tempting, and the 
 term of payment so distant, as to silence all doubts and 
 fears. Frisch could not, however, always pay the in- 
 stalments when they became due, and the thought 
 would then occur to him that the Jew had cheated 
 him, and had asked more, than the things were worth. 
 
 About a fortnight before the murder he saw in the 
 Jew's possession a silver repeater, which took his fancy. 
 The Jew offered to exchange it against his old watch 
 and four carolins. Frisch returned home with his head 
 full of this new temptation, and of the old debt. " The 
 repeater is so handsome! I cannot pay for it; and the 
 Jew is a cheat." Such were the ideas which filled his 
 mind, and which soon suggested to him a contrivance 
 for getting rid of the debt without paying it, and for 
 becoming at the same time the happy possessor of the 
 two new watches : the Jew was to be induced to 
 bring both watches to Frisch's house ; and, under pre-
 
 CASPAR FRISCH. 341 
 
 tence of payment, to be persuaded to accompany 
 him to the old castle, where he would pretend to 
 have buried his money and there the Jew was to be 
 murdered. Frisch declared that his conscience was 
 disturbed, and that he could neither sleep, eat, nor 
 drink during the whole week. This did not, how- 
 ever, alter his determination. He heard an owl hoot 
 one night, and thought that it was intended as a 
 warning to him ; but he only said, " Hoot as much as 
 you will, you carrion ; I will do it spite of all your 
 hooting." The scheme, engendered by covetousness, 
 fed by pecuniary embarrassment, and strengthened 
 by the idea that Landauer had cheated him, found a 
 powerful apology in his contempt for the Jewish race. 
 " He is but a Jew ! there is no harm done : what 
 business had he to charge so much and to take away 
 all my money ?" 
 
 About a week before the murder, Frisch went to the 
 Jew's house and told him that he had at length found 
 the money which he had buried in the shed in 1805, 
 when the French entered Germany, and that he would 
 now pay his debt, and give ready money down for the 
 repeater. The Jew then produced not only the repeater, 
 but another small watch besides, which he praised 
 excessively, telling him that it was a most excellent 
 watch, so good a one, that if he bought it, he would 
 thank him for it all his life : that there were not two 
 other such watches in all the country round. He 
 agreed to purchase the repeater, and also a larger and 
 flatter watch, instead of the other, but at the same price, 
 Frisch made an appointment with the Jew for the fol- 
 lowing Sunday afternoon, when the one was to receive 
 the watches and the other the monev.
 
 342 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 The Jew came as appointed at about one P.M., when 
 Frisch's cousins were from home, bringing with him 
 the two watches. He desired Frisch to give him a 
 written assurance to the effect that the money was 
 really his, and the same which he had formerly buried. 
 The Jew then demanded payment of his debt, but 
 Frisch told him that the money was concealed up in 
 the old castle between two rocks, and that he must go 
 with him to get it. This was in itself suspicious, and 
 directly at variance with Frisch's former statement, 
 according to which the money was buried in the shed. 
 Nevertheless, the simple Jew, infatuated by love of 
 gain, merely exclaimed, " What ! upon the hill ! only 
 think !" and went on his way thither. He sat down 
 beside the stream at the foot of the hill to wash his 
 feet while waiting for Caspar Frisch, who went up 
 the other side of the castle hill, and beckoned to the 
 Jew, whom he saw sitting below, to come up. The 
 Jew, eager to possess the money, ran up, repeatedly ex- 
 claiming, " Caspar, where is it? where is it, Caspar?" 
 In answer to this question Frisch led him to a spot 
 where three fragments of rocks formed a sort of cavern, 
 in which he told him that the money was buried. 
 Frisch now began to tremble in every limb. He was 
 himself astonished at the blindness of the Jew in not 
 taking alarm at his strange demeanour. At length 
 Frisch stooped to the ground, and began to remove 
 some stones; but he soon ceased, saying that it hurt 
 his crippled fingers, and that the Jew must kneel 
 down and scrape out the earth and stones himself. 
 The Jew complied, and while he was busily employed 
 in clearing away the stones, and thinking of nothing 
 but the treasure which was soon to appear, Frisch
 
 CASPAR FRISCH. 343 
 
 snatched up a stone, weighing, as he said, about three 
 pounds, and with it struck the Jew on the head as 
 hard as he could. His victim fell backwards, but 
 quickly recovered himself, and attacked his murderer, 
 striking at his face, and exclaiming in a broken voice 
 " Caspar, let me go ! " Frisch now seized him by 
 the body, or, as he afterwards said, by the leg, threw 
 him down and fell upon him. Even then the Jew, 
 who was undermost, struggled hard for his life, and 
 would have overpowered Frisch, had not the latter got 
 one finger of the Jew's left hand between his teeth, 
 thus depriving him of the use of the hand. The stones 
 which lay scattered around afforded ready instruments 
 of murder. Frisch struck the wretched man about the 
 head and brow ; and although at each blow the stone 
 dropped from his crippled hand, he quickly seized 
 another, and continued the attack. He gave the Jew 
 ten or eleven blows, until his head was crushed, and 
 Frisch perceived that he was dying : he then robbed 
 the dying man of his watches and money and left 
 him. 
 
 The accused repeatedly confessed the deed as it has 
 now been related. As his confession agreed with the 
 circumstances stated by the witnesses, and was perfectly 
 consistent in itself, it needs no further comment. 
 
 There was, however, one difficulty which must be 
 noticed. The accused asserted that he committed the 
 murder alone. It, however, seemed incredible that a 
 feeble cripple who could scarce walk without the 
 help of a stick should have overpowered a strong 
 man in the full use of his limbs. This doubt was 
 further increased by the statement of two witnesses, 
 John Keck and Anna Vogt, who affirmed that they
 
 344 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 had seen two men attacking a third. But when we 
 consider the rapidity of the motions of those engaged 
 in conflict, one while struggling on the ground, at 
 another standing ; and moreover, that the witnesses saw 
 the fight from a considerable distance, it appears very 
 probable that they may have been deceived. Another 
 witness, John Low, who first called Keek's attention to 
 the contest, stoutly maintained that he had seen only 
 two persons ; moreover, Keck refused to repeat his 
 statement as to three people, on oath. The doubt 
 arising from the disproportion in bodily strength be- 
 tween the murderer and his victim vanishes when we 
 consider that the first blow fell upon the Jew unawares, 
 and apparently stunned him : that fear often paralyses 
 the strong, while passion bestows unwonted strength 
 and activity upon the weak. Finally, there was not 
 the slightest clue that could lead to the discovery of 
 this third person, and it is not conceivable that Frisch, 
 who might gain much, and could lose nothing, by 
 giving him up, should take the whole blame upon 
 himself, and persist in the assertion, frequently and 
 solemnly repeated, that he had no accomplice. 
 
 The district court, and subsequently the central court 
 of appeal at Munich, found Frisch guilty of robbery 
 and murder, and sentenced him to be beheaded. 
 
 According to the strict letter of the law, he should 
 have been broken on the wheel, but the openness of 
 his confession induced the judges to award the milder 
 punishment. 
 
 There were no reasons for recommending the ac- 
 cused to the royal mercy. He endeavoured to excuse 
 himself as follows : 
 
 " I could never get rid of the idea that the Jew had
 
 CASPAR FRISCH. 345 
 
 overreached me : but I always intended to satisfy his 
 demands. It was not until one day when I was at work 
 in the shed that it suddenly occurred to me to murder 
 the Jew, and thus to free myself from my debt. I 
 could never shake off this thought, which constantly 
 troubled and disturbed me. After the first blow I 
 repented, and the Jew might have escaped if he had 
 but gone away, or asked me during our struggle to 
 let him go; besides, I could not have pursued him. 
 But when the Jew attacked me, I thought he would 
 do to me what I had intended to do by him." 
 
 This apology affords no excuse or even palliation 
 of his crime. The trouble and confusion which he 
 described must arise in every mind during the contest 
 between desire for any object and the scruples of 
 conscience. The repentance to which he alluded must 
 have been slight indeed, for he confessed that after the 
 first blow the Jew did actually entreat him to spare 
 his life. Nevertheless he again threw him on the 
 ground, and completed the murder. Assuming even 
 that Frisch, according to his own statement, killed 
 the Jew outright only in self-defence, no apology can 
 be made for his crime, as he struck the first blow 
 with a murderous intent.
 
 LUDWIG STEINEE, 
 
 THE MURDERER FROM REVENGE. 
 
 AT about three o'clock in the afternoon, on the 26th of 
 June, 1821, the magistrate Elsperger, of Ratisbon, left 
 his court in the town-hall to take his evening walk. 
 He was crossing the market-place, when he was met 
 by the shoemaker Ludwig Steiner, carrying a piece of 
 leather under his arm. Several bystanders saw that 
 an angry discussion took place between them : Els- 
 perger raised his stick against Steiner ; some persons 
 even asserted that he struck him with it ; whereupon 
 Steiner drew a pistol from his pocket, and fired at the 
 magistrate, who fell to the earth. The murderer re- 
 placed the pistol in his pocket with a contemptuous 
 air, and walked slowly past the astonished spec- 
 tators until he reached the corner of a street, when, 
 after once looking back at the dead body, he ran 
 towards his own house, which the report of his crime 
 had reached before him. He told his apprentices that 
 he had shot the magistrate Elsperger, laid down the 
 piece of leather in the shop, and hastily left the room, 
 in order, as he said, to give himself up to justice. 
 Before, however, he could leave the house, he was 
 seized by a bricklayer, and after a violent but in- 
 effectual struggle, was delivered by him into the 
 custody of two police Serjeants. To these men he said,
 
 LUDWIG STEINER. 347 
 
 " I have accomplished my purpose, and my conscience 
 is now clear : I have long pursued him." He quietly 
 suffered himself to be taken to the police-office, where 
 two pistols were found in his pocket : the prisoner 
 himself warned the police that one was loaded, " lest 
 any one should be hurt." He said to the police ser- 
 jeant Speiser, who handcuffed and conducted him to 
 prison, " Elsperger utterly ruined me ; he made me 
 miserable ; and at last I have revenged my wrongs on 
 him." 
 
 Steiner's demeanour was that of a man who had the 
 most perfect conviction of having performed a glorious 
 deed. On seeing the crowd assembled before the 
 window of his prison, he changed his position, saying, 
 " I must turn about in order that the people may see 
 me ; for although many know me by name, all do not 
 yet know me by sight." 
 
 The wounded man, who had instantly fallen speech- 
 less on the pavement, was carried to the nearest police 
 station, where he died within ten minutes after he was 
 shot. The bullet had penetrated the brain, so that there 
 could be no doubt as to the cause of his death. When 
 Steiner was brought into the presence of the corpse, 
 he showed not the slightest emotion, and merely ob- 
 served, " That is the magistrate Elsperger, of this 
 place." He signed the papers which were presented 
 to him with a firm hand, and in his first examination 
 confessed that he had done the deed. 
 
 At the time of the murder Ludwig Steiner was fifty- 
 three years of age : he was born of Catholic parents at 
 Alpendorf, in the province of Glatz, in Silesia, and 
 had been settled for many years as a master shoemaker 
 at Ratisbon. He had been twice married, but had no
 
 348 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 children. He was of the middle size, thin, pale, and 
 of a nervous excitable temperament. His fellow- 
 citizens described him as an honourable man, a peace- 
 able good citizen, a skilful workman, and an active 
 orderly tradesman, who contrived to make a good 
 living out of a moderate business, and still employed 
 a few apprentices, notwithstanding his business had 
 lately declined owing to various causes. Even as an 
 apprentice he despised the common Sunday amuse- 
 ments of his companions, and passed his leisure hours 
 in reading : he set great value on his good name, and 
 had a very strong sense of honour and justice. 
 
 In the year 1817 the shoemakers' guild of Ratisbon 
 was split into rival factions on occasion of the election 
 of a master. Steiner took the part of one whom he 
 thought unjustly oppressed, and in a quarrel with the 
 leader of the opposite party so far forgot himself in his 
 zeal, as to accuse his opponent of a theft in the pre- 
 sence of the whole guild. An action for defamation 
 was brought against Steiner, who was condemned on 
 the 30th of September, 1818, to make an apology to 
 the man whom he had insulted, to twenty-four hours' 
 imprisonment, and to costs. This sentence, against 
 which he appealed, was confirmed on the 25th of 
 November of the same year, and Elsperger was the 
 magistrate who had to pronounce judgment, and to 
 see it carried into execution. Meanwhile Steiner was 
 fully convinced of the righteousness of his own cause. 
 His self-love explained a sentence so much at variance 
 with his own convictions and so injurious to his pride 
 by the supposition that the real papers on which the 
 judgment should have been founded must have been 
 suppressed, and false ones substituted for them. When,
 
 LUDWIG STEINER. 349 
 
 therefore, the judgment confirming the first sentence 
 was made known to him on the 8th of December, he 
 announced his intention of appealing to the central 
 court at Munich. Notwithstanding his eager repre- 
 sentations, the magistrate Elsperger would not allow 
 of any delay, but at once proceeded to carry the judg- 
 ment into execution. Steiner then begged for permis- 
 sion at least to return home before his imprisonment 
 that he might set his house in order, and cut out 
 work for his apprentices ; but Elsperger with, per- 
 haps, unnecessary severity, denied this trifling favour, 
 and sent him at once to prison. Steiner came out of 
 prison sick in body, and still more disordered in mind 
 by the injury done to his pride, to his good name, 
 and to what he considered his just rights. He main- 
 tained then, and afterwards, that he had undergone 
 excruciating torments from the pestiferous smell of the 
 prison, and the overheating of a stove. This, or more 
 likely his excitable imagination, tended not a little to 
 confirm his belief of the injustice sustained in his per- 
 son, arid to increase his bitter animosity against the 
 magistrate whose duty it had been to pass judgment 
 upon him. But the worst was yet to come : the 
 apology was still due. " The apology which I had to 
 make," said Steiner, " hurt my feelings most of all. I 
 had to apologize against my own perfect conviction, 
 whereas no apology was due ; for I had seen with my 
 own eyes the master shoemaker do the very things of 
 which I accused him." Elsperger had also to see this 
 part of the sentence carried into execution ; but sum- 
 monses, admonitions, and fines were ineffectual for 
 some months. Steiner undertook a journey to Munich 
 in order to obtain a revision of his sentence, at any
 
 350 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 rate of that part which related to the apology : he 
 came back to Ratisbon after a fruitless journey, but 
 still obstinately refused to obey the orders of the court. 
 At length, however, when threatened with a fine of six 
 reichs thalers, he was induced to deliver into Elsper- 
 ger's hands an apology written by his attorney. From 
 that time forward Elsperger became the object of his 
 deadly hate, and he determined either to obtain com- 
 plete satisfaction for all that he had endured, by an 
 appeal to the law, or to murder Elsperger in revenge 
 for the unnecessary harshness and contemptuous 
 insolence with which, as Steiner imagined, he had 
 carried an unjust sentence into execution. 
 
 Henceforth he thought of nothing but his cause. 
 His head could only contain the idea of the sentence, 
 and of the means of obtaining a reversal of it, com- 
 pensation for his losses, and satisfaction for the injus- 
 tice he had suffered. These thoughts, on which his 
 mind was constantly brooding, deprived him of all 
 peace of mind, and completely altered his nature. He 
 had no rest at night, and by day he was melancholy 
 and silent, unless some one touched, however remotely, 
 upon the subject of his lawsuit, whereupon he imme- 
 diately broke out into a long-winded statement of the 
 whole proceeding, pouring out all the vials of his 
 wrath upon Elsperger and the whole bench of magis- 
 trates, calling them rogues, thieves, murderers, &c., 
 accompanying these epithets with the most violent 
 gestures, now looking up to heaven, now crying or 
 laughing ; in short, behaving like a mad man. His 
 friend Rubin, who was attached to him by gratitude 
 for numerous benefits he had received from him, at 
 length ceased to come near him, as he could no longer
 
 LUDWIG STEINER. 351 
 
 endure to hear the incessant recital of his imaginary 
 wrongs, and the threats and abuse which he poured 
 forth upon the magistracy. A master shoemaker of 
 the name of Magritzer, his benefactor and friend of 
 many years' standing, incurred his hatred by refusing 
 to give evidence in his favour in the law-suit. From 
 this time Steiner, forgetful of the kindness he had 
 received from him, treated him as his bitterest enemy. 
 In like manner as he hated the whole magistracy for 
 Elsperger's sake, he now detested the whole guild 
 of shoemakers on Magritzer's account. He chose to 
 imagine that every master shoemaker was his foe, 
 and accordingly behaved to them with marked cold- 
 ness or rudeness, and even passed them in the street 
 without greeting. Every one who attempted to make 
 him hear reason about his suit received the same 
 treatment. He was so firmly convinced of the justice 
 of his cause, which was so closely bound up with his 
 honour, nay, with his very existence, that in his ob- 
 stinate conceit he looked upon every attempt to con- 
 vince his judgment as a personal injury. 
 
 The hatred and vengefulness which were working 
 in his mind, ever since the unfortunate termination of 
 his law-suit, made him neglect his business : he 
 sought diversion and repose in reading or in drinking, 
 dissipated his property, lost many of his customers, 
 and was compelled to borrow money. Although he 
 had only himself to blame for these misfortunes, he 
 looked upon them as entirely the result of the machi- 
 nations of his enemies, more especially of the accursed 
 Elsperger. If his apprentices were taken up for any 
 offence they had committed, he attributed it not to 
 any fault of theirs, but to the enmity of the magistrate
 
 352 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 Elsperger towards himself. If he happened to meet 
 the burghermaster, or any of the magistrates in the 
 street, he imagined that he saw contemptuous sneers 
 or sarcastic laughter in their faces. 
 
 In March, 1819, he sent a petition to one of his re- 
 lations at Munich, requesting him to present it to the 
 supreme court. His relation returned it to him, say- 
 ing that he could not meddle in any such matters. 
 In May, 1820, he himself undertook the journey to 
 Munich, and laid before the privy council a statement 
 of his grievances. He returned to Ratisbon full of 
 hope and joy, fully persuaded that if there were any 
 justice on earth, the privy council would decide in 
 his favour. He expected nothing less than that the 
 magistrates of Ratisbon would be compelled to give 
 him full compensation for his losses, and to make 
 him an ample and public apology. Soon after his 
 return from Munich, he said to his friend Rubin, 
 whom he met in the street, " My suit must soon take 
 quite a different turn, or else you will hear of my doing 
 something that will make the whole world stare." 
 Rubin could not doubt what he meant by this expres- 
 sion, as Steiner had said to him some months before, 
 while abusing the magistrates, " If the sentence against 
 me be not reversed, my enemy" (meaning Elsperger) 
 " must die ; for whoever robs me of my honour, and 
 of my property, shall not live." 
 
 As might have been anticipated, Steiner's petition 
 to the privy council was rejected on the 8th of Sep- 
 tember, 1820. His hatred against the magistracy, and 
 especially Elsperger, was now turned into rage. In 
 the refusal of the privy council he saw a fresh proof 
 of systematic persecution, oppression, and insolence on
 
 LTJDWIG STEINER. 353 
 
 the part of the magistracy towards himself. His dis- 
 eased vanity made him imagine that the whole magis- 
 tracy were leagued together for his destruction. He 
 believed, or affected to believe, that they meant to 
 seize his person, to confine him in a madhouse, and 
 thus to get rid of his claim upon them for satisfaction 
 and compensation for his losses. He said to his ap- 
 prentice Bezold, that he saw by the answer he had 
 received that all protection was refused him, that he 
 was as good as outlawed, and that as any one might 
 shoot or stab him, he must carry some weapon for his 
 own defence. Thenceforward he always went armed 
 with a brace of loaded pistols, for the double purpose 
 of protecting himself from any attack, and of shooting 
 Elsperger. For months these pistols were his constant 
 companions, and he made no secret of it. He occa- 
 sionally fired them off in the presence of his appren- 
 tices, for the sake of practice, at some mark in the fields. 
 It was well known in the taverns which Steiner fre- 
 quented that he carried loaded pistols, and many per- 
 sons avoided his company on that account. About 
 fourteen days before the murder, he related his story 
 to the master tailor Heimbrand, and, taking a pistol 
 out of his coat pocket, he said, " If my law-suit does 
 not turn out to my mind, I will shoot some one." He 
 had frequently uttered the same threats to his appren- 
 tice Keitel, and to a shoemaker of the name of Scheidel, 
 some seven or eight weeks before the murder. At the 
 time when Sand was executed for killing Kotzebue, he 
 said to Dr. H , who had been his medical atten- 
 dant for years, " I have lost my honour and part of 
 my property by this law-suit : I have nothing more 
 to lose, and will now die like Sand." 
 
 2 A
 
 354 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 The magistrates, more especially Elsperger, were 
 informed of the threats uttered by Steiner; but no 
 notice was taken of him, as they imagined that the 
 very publicity of his menaces afforded security against 
 his carrying them into execution. 
 
 A few months before the murder Steiner was sum- 
 moned to appear before the magistrates for nonpay- 
 ment of the rent of his shop. The creditor happened 
 also to be a magistrate. Steiner obstinately refused 
 to appear, giving as his reason that this was a mere 
 pretext for delivering him into the power of his ene- 
 mies. The magistrate, his creditor, who learnt from 
 the physician in what an excited state Steiner then 
 was, behaved towards him with the greatest considera- 
 tion, and requested the physician to persuade him 
 to lend a willing obedience to the commands of the 
 court. This the physician attempted to do with the 
 assistance of Steiner's wife, but with no success. 
 Steiner now imagined that the physician and his own 
 wife had joined in the general conspiracy against 
 him : he therefore turned his wife out of his house as 
 his bitterest enemy. From that time forward she 
 lived separate from him ; and Steiner without a wife 
 and without friends, all of whom he had ere now 
 alienated from himself, lived alone in the world, 
 which, in his belief, had not only deprived him of all 
 happiness, but had even conspired to destroy the mi- 
 serable existence which was all it had left to him. 
 
 On the unlucky 26th of June he appeared un- 
 usually disturbed and melancholy. Elizabeth Fischer, 
 his maid-servant, saw him sitting at work cutting out 
 
 o o 
 
 a pair of boots, and heard him say to himself with tears 
 in his eyes, " They have made me so poor that I have
 
 LUDWIG STEINER. 355 
 
 not enough leather to make a pair of boots, or money 
 to pay for some." This was literally true, and he was 
 forced to procure some leather on credit. At about 
 three P.M. he went to the leather-seller at Stadtamhof, 
 to whom he already owed a good deal, as usual with 
 his pistols in his pocket. Two of his acquaintance met 
 him on the bridge across the Danube : he passed them 
 without greeting, and stared so wildly that one of 
 them said to the other, " Look ! there goes that 
 wronghead, that madman, Steiner." He returned 
 home with the borrowed leather under his arm, filled 
 with anger and grief at the thoughts of his reduced 
 fortunes, and furious against the supposed authors of 
 his humiliation, above all, against his arch enemy 
 Elsperger, whom he pictured to himself as rejoicing 
 in his disgrace and misfortunes. The resolution 
 which he had long cherished but had not yet dared 
 to execute, now became stronger than ever. He 
 longed to meet Elsperger : and if he should meet him 
 he determined to speak to him, and, unless he ob- 
 tained a satisfactory answer, to shoot him. Brooding 
 over these feelings and resolves, Steiner reached the 
 market-place, when his evil destiny threw Elsperger 
 in his way. " Mr. Magistrate," said Steiner, accord- 
 ing to his own confession, " Mr. Magistrate, shall I 
 have much longer to wait before I receive compensa- 
 tion for my losses?" Elsperger replied, "What do 
 you want ? Go away, you foolish fellow." " What do 
 I want?" answered Steiner; " I am no longer able to 
 support myself." Elsperger then raised his stick and 
 said, "Get along, you fellow!" Steiner now drew 
 out his pistol, pointed it at Elsperger, and attempted, 
 but in vain, to pull the trigger, while Elsperger warded 
 
 2 A2
 
 356 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 off the pistol with his stick. Meanwhile Steiner re- 
 turned the useless weapon to his pocket, and quickly 
 drew out the second pistol, which he instantly dis- 
 charged, exclaiming, according to the testimony of a 
 bystander, " Wait, you villain !" and the deed was 
 done. 
 
 In the fullness of his joy at the death of his mortal 
 foe, and in the first triumph of gratified revenge, Stei- 
 ner boasted of his long-cherished intentions of murder. 
 But before the court he carefully recalled all expres- 
 sions of the kind, and endeavoured for some time, with 
 great prudence and skill, so to describe the circum- 
 stances attending his crime as to take from it all ap- 
 pearance of premeditation. He did not deny that he 
 bore a deep hatred against Elsperger on account of 
 the unfortunate turn of his law-suit, and the harshness 
 with which he had been treated, more especially with 
 regard to his hasty committal to prison, the heat and 
 stench of which, he said, had nearly killed him. But 
 during several examinations he denied that he carried 
 pistols about him with any particular reference to El- 
 sperger ; he wore them, he said, as a protection against 
 any illegal violence which might be offered to his own 
 person ever since there had been a conspiracy among 
 the magistrates against him. At his first examination 
 he described the fatal occurrence which happened in 
 the market-place as the result of sudden and violent 
 anger, and denied that, he even at the moment wished 
 to inflict death. Elsperger's insulting language, and 
 the blow which he aimed at him with his stick in the 
 public streets, were so irritating as to cause him to 
 seize first one pistol, and then the other, and to shoot 
 the man who had insulted him. " It was not my
 
 LUDWIG STEINER. 357 
 
 intention to kill, but only to wound him," continued 
 Steiner ; " I did not expect it to end so fatally." 
 At his second examination he stated that he did not 
 even intend to wound him. " I presented the se- 
 cond pistol to prevent him from attacking me ; it 
 suddenly went off, I know not whether I pulled the 
 trigger or not." At his third examination he said, 
 " When Elsperger reviled me, I took the pistol out 
 of my pocket. When he saw it in my hand, he 
 raised his stick and struck at the hand whicn held 
 the pistol, till his stick split. He then looked at 
 his stick. In the mean time I returned the one 
 pistol to my pocket, pulled out the other, and 
 cocked it, that I might be able to defend myself 
 should Elsperger again attack me. My hand must 
 have trembled as I held the pistol and made it go off 
 I had no intention of firing." He afterwards returned 
 to his first statement. " I took aim only at Elsperger's 
 leg. I had no intention to kill, but only to wound 
 him, and cannot conceive how I chanced to hit him 
 in the head ; I can only account for it by supposing 
 that I must have trembled fearfully." When charged 
 with having uttered threats of murder before several 
 witnesses, he confidently answered that these accusa- 
 tions were impudent lies; that such assertions were 
 really laughable. " It is perfectly true that I have at 
 times been angry with the authors of my misfortunes; 
 who would not ? But I never thought of commit- 
 ting murder. It is a sheer invention that I ever said I 
 would shoot such a one, or do something to make the 
 whole world stare : people often talk among each 
 other, and end by really believing some tale which 
 they have invented themselves. I cannot think what
 
 358 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 folks would have ; the thought of shooting a man 
 dead never entered my head, so help me God." In 
 the fourth examination, he was reminded that he 
 had once said to his friend Rubin, " Some one must 
 die if my law-suit does not take a more favourable 
 turn." He clasped his hands, and looked towards 
 heaven, exclaiming, " Merciful God ! I know not 
 whether I said so to Rubin or not. I cannot be cer- 
 tain one way or the other." When reminded that he 
 had once told Rubin that if he lost his cause he would 
 do something to make the world stare, he replied, 
 " Blessed Lord ! can folks talk of nothing but mak- 
 ing the world stare ? It is possible that I may have 
 uttered complaints before Rubin : I may have said 
 that I should be ruined by my suit, and have no 
 compensation awarded me ; that it was galling to me 
 to be no longer able to earn my livelihood, and pay 
 ready money for the articles required for my business. 
 When a man is forced to be bankrupt, that is what I 
 call making the world stare. The other shoemakers 
 were envious of me, because formerly I could always 
 pay ready money." He could not help, however, con- 
 fessing, in answer to repeated questions, that he had 
 frequently expressed himself to several persons to 
 the following effect : That he carried the pistols about 
 with him in order to shoot some one if he lost his suit ; 
 but that he would not shed blood except at the last 
 extremity. The judge exhorted him to say, distinctly, 
 whom he had then alluded to. He answered, " I must 
 confess that it was none other than the magistrate 
 Elsperger, whom I conceived to be the chief cause of 
 my misfortunes." He then recommenced the detail of 
 his griefs : " At length," he continued, " I met El-
 
 LUDWIG STEINER. 359 
 
 sperger on the day of the murder. I spoke to him, 
 and he answered me with insults ; I lost all power 
 over myself; my blood boiled, and the deed was done." 
 This answer was almost a confession of intentional 
 murder. 
 
 At length in his fifth examination he plainly declared 
 that he had long been determined to shoot Elsperger 
 out of revenge. This admission he afterwards quali- 
 fied by saying that on the 26th of June he had, in a 
 sudden fit of just indignation, shot his bitter foe, not 
 only without any previous plot, but in spite of his 
 determination to the contrary. " It was certainly my 
 intention, if I could not obtain legal redress, to kill 
 him ; but I intended first to go once more to Munich. 
 Had not Elsperger insulted and struck me publicly on 
 the 26th of June, I should not have fired at him, be- 
 cause I fully expected to obtain justice at Munich. 
 I will not, however, deny that I had made up my 
 mind to shoot him if I did not obtain justice. 
 
 With these ingenious excuses and half confessions 
 he managed to baffle the judge for months, until at 
 length, after a fresh judge had been appointed to in- 
 vestigate the case, he made the following confession 
 in the seventh and two subsequent examinations : 
 
 "The cause of my deed was the sentence which 
 Elsperger pronounced and executed against me. The 
 judgment was unjust, as other papers were fraudu- 
 lently inserted in lieu of the original documents, in 
 consequence of which the sentence, notwithstanding all 
 my representations, was passed and carried into effect. 
 By this sentence I lost honour and property, whereupon 
 I swore to kill Elsperger unless I could obtain justice. 
 I did not make this determination while I was in
 
 360 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 prison, nor indeed until Elsperger summoned me to 
 make the apology within three days, under pain of 
 fine and imprisonment. I went to the advocate Eg- 
 gelkraut, who entreated me to carry my apology to 
 the magistrate. I did so ; and this was the cause of 
 my hatred towards Elsperger, and of my determina- 
 tion to kill him, so that he might not rejoice and exult 
 in my misfortunes. I resolved to shoot Elsperger 
 wherever I might meet him, in the event of my not 
 obtaining justice from the crown. 
 
 " First, however, I endeavoured to get justice done 
 me by legal means ; bloodshed was my last resource. 
 From my youth up I could never find it in me to 
 injure any one. When a boy, I was grieved when a 
 bird which I had hit lay dead before me. As soon as 
 my arrest was at an end, I went to Munich, but re- 
 turned without success. In 1820 I again went to 
 Munich, fully resolved to kill Elsperger if I again 
 failed in my object, as I could no longer bear his 
 tyranny. On the 4th of June, 1820, when I returned 
 from Munich, I heard that my suit was prospering, 
 but could learn nothing certain. I then went to the 
 burghermaster." He repeated a long conversation 
 with him, which we need not insert. " I afterwards 
 went to the police-office, where the registrar told me 
 that no answer had come, and that I must write again 
 about it : a week later came the refusal. 
 
 " I related all this and my opinion on the matter to 
 various people whom I thought my friends, in order 
 to excite their sympathy: and then began the con- 
 spiracy against me. They wanted to drive me mad, 
 and then to shut me up in a madhouse. It is easy 
 enough, if many conspire together, to declare a man to
 
 LUDWIG STEINER. 361 
 
 be mad. They say to each other, ' See ! see ! how he 
 mixes up one thing with another, and what nonsense 
 he talks ! ' Every one asked me about my law-suit, 
 and I told it to them all, in detail ; and then they gos- 
 sipped about me, and called me a madman, and yet I 
 
 was no more mad than I am now. Even Dr. H 
 
 helped them to drive me mad, and threatened, if I 
 would not give way, to say that I was a madman, if his 
 
 opinion were asked. The magistrate H , too, said 
 
 publicly that my excellent wife ought to be protected. 
 
 " Ever since the conspiracy against me began I 
 have carried pistols, not quite every day, but usually, 
 so as to have some means of defence in case of my 
 being attacked, and also in order to use them against 
 Elsperger. 
 
 " The rent which I owed to F was made a 
 
 new subject of persecution to bring me before the 
 police. Had I gone to the office, some harsh expres- 
 sions on my part would have afforded a sufficient pre- 
 text to the police to lay hold of me and shut me up as 
 a madman. For this reason I did not go, but lived in 
 constant dread of arrest, and of being dragged out of 
 my own house and thrown into prison. 
 
 " I still hoped to obtain justice against Elsperger 
 from higher quarters. But when all means had failed, 
 and my money was exhausted, so that I could neither 
 write another petition nor go to Munich when even 
 my wife turned against me, and I was compelled to 
 put her away, and was left alone in the world, then 
 it was that, should I meet Elsperger, who had used me 
 so ill, and spoken to me so harshly, I determined to 
 shoot him and succeeded. 
 
 " During the whole day I had been sorrowful, be-
 
 362 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 cause I was forced to provide myself with leather, and 
 had no money wherewithal to buy it. In the afternoon 
 I went to Stadtamhof to fetch some leather, and put 
 the loaded pistols in my pocket, in case of being at- 
 tacked or of meeting Elsperger. I was much excited, 
 as I knew not what would become of me : I could not 
 beg, and was unable to earn my bread as a day- 
 labourer. I thought within myself, ' If I see him I will 
 speak to him, and shoot him dead if he refuses to help 
 me.' I was desperate. I had taken a piece of leather 
 on credit from the leather-merchant. It grieved me 
 to remain in his debt for the leather, but I could not pay 
 him, for I wanted even a little money for the maid who 
 cooked my daily food. That I, who had been a man 
 of property, should be so reduced as to owe more than 
 I could pay, enraged me. In this frame of mind I 
 returned to Ratisbon, on my way to my own house." 
 
 He then related how he unexpectedly met his 
 enemy in the market-place, and on addressing him 
 received a harsh reply, whereupon he shot him. 
 When asked why he had addressed Elsperger in the 
 public street, he replied, " I would have spoken to him 
 about my business wherever I might have happened 
 to meet him, have told him my condition, and have shot 
 him on his refusing to satisfy me. I had nothing left 
 to live on, and was determined that he should not live 
 to exult over my misfortunes. I thought to myself I 
 will shoot him, as he will neither give me compensa- 
 tion nor restore my lost honour ; at any rate he shall 
 not rejoice at my misfortunes. 
 
 " I well know that it is unlawful to kill a man : I am 
 as fond of life as other men ; but I would rather die 
 than submit to such oppression as I have endured from
 
 LTTDWIG STEINER. 363 
 
 the magistrate Elsperger. Had any one four years 
 ago foretold to me that I should have done such a 
 deed, I should have laughed in his face, for murder is 
 hateful to me, and I well know that it is the worst 
 thing that a man can do." 
 
 This short account of one of his examinations suffi- 
 ciently shows the coolness, dexterity, and cunning 
 with which Steiner evaded making a full and true 
 confession. He distinctly saw what was dangerous, and 
 either denied all suspicious circumstances, or adroitly 
 gave them such a turn as would make his crime 
 appear to be no more than manslaughter. He well 
 knew that he had committed murder, and what would 
 be the consequence if his crime were proved. We see 
 in his confession a disturbed and excited imagination, 
 but we also perceive the existence of a clear sound un- 
 derstanding, perfectly conscious of what he had done, 
 and of his motives for doing it : he analysed the 
 thoughts, feelings, and passions which had first excited 
 his desire for vengeance ; and he so accurately described 
 their origin and progress until the fatal murder, that 
 if Steiner was mad, it is impossible to say who is sane. 
 If a madman can act with so much discretion, who is to 
 point out the difference between a man of sound and 
 one of unsound mind ? There can be no doubt that 
 Steiner had for several years brooded over his imagi- 
 nary wrongs, that he had long made up his mind to 
 murder his oppressor, and that he went armed with 
 loaded pistols for the purpose. 
 
 There can be no legal doubt that Steiner was guilty, 
 and that he fully deserved death. But since physicians 
 have exercised their ingenuity in endeavouring to 
 prove criminals insane, there is scarce any one be
 
 364 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 his guilt as clear as the noon-day to whose assistance 
 the physicians do not bring a store of mental ailments, 
 and such assistance was not wanting to the litigious 
 and revengeful, though honest Steiner. 
 
 Steiner's family physician, Dr. H , who was ex- 
 amined as a witness, could not assign to his patient 
 any particular infirmity of mind : he confined himself 
 within the proper limits. " Steiner," he said, " was 
 of an excitable, nervous temperament : of late I seldom 
 visited him ; but when I did see him, I remarked that 
 his mind was occupied with but one idea his unfor- 
 tunate law-suit. He narrated the whole case to me, 
 and I endeavoured to bring him to a better frame 
 of mind, but entirely lost his confidence. I always 
 believed him to be a man of plain good sense ; but 
 after his law-suit, malice and revenge took such com- 
 plete possession of his mind that he lost all control 
 over himself. I will also add that his is a case in 
 which violent excitement might possibly end in mo- 
 mentary madness." 
 
 What Steiner's medical attendant suggested as a 
 possible explanation, the physician employed by the 
 legal authorities asserted as a positive fact. In a long 
 written statement which he presented to the court on 
 the 25th of October, 1821, he stated that Steiner had 
 been suffering from partial madness and melancholy 
 ever since his imprisonment. He concluded that on 
 every point, save his unfortunate law-suit, Steiner's 
 intellect was sound ; but on this subject his ideas 
 were so distorted, his language so exaggerated, and his 
 actions so eccentric, that Steiner was, in his opinion, 
 a madman, who could not properly be held responsible 
 for the crime of murder.
 
 LUDWIG SJEINER. 365 
 
 According to this theory, the number of those who 
 are irresponsible for their actions is enormous : there 
 are few men who have not some particular crotchet, 
 some ruling idea, ludicrous or melancholy, which 
 they carry with them to the grave. Fortunately, 
 however, for society, neither law nor public opinion 
 affords indulgence and impunity to all who are led by 
 their erroneous impressions to overstep the limits at 
 which self-control ends and madness begins. 
 
 All that the physician adduced as evidence of 
 Steiuer's madness merely proved that he had for years 
 suffered his mind to be completely swayed by impulse 
 and passion. Inasmuch as violent emotions tend to 
 disturb the balance of the mind, and to endanger the 
 authority which should be exercised by the reason over 
 the passions, they may indeed be looked upon as dis- 
 eases, but these moral diseases are beyond the power 
 of medicine. For them, when the restraints of rea- 
 son, religion, and morality, and even the fear of 
 transgressing the laws, have been ineffectual, the 
 proper cures are the prison, and finally the scaffold. 
 
 Steiner's ruling passion was a stubborn adherence 
 to his own opinion a passion which had its origin in 
 his overweening self-esteem and which caused him 
 to persevere to the utmost in his endeavours to obtain 
 his imaginary rights. There is a large class of men 
 who, like Steiner, are so fully convinced of the justice 
 of their cause, and so determined to have what they 
 call their rights, that they cannot rest until these 
 fancied rights are obtained. They cannot conceive 
 that anything can be otherwise than as they believe 
 it to be, and as they imagine the justice of their claims 
 to be as evident to others as it is to themselves, they 
 look upon all that is said or done contrary to their
 
 366 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 own conviction as an intentional and manifest injus- 
 tice. If their sentence be adverse, they attribute it to 
 the hatred or partiality of the judge, or to the bribery 
 the opposite party : they are persuaded that the wit- 
 nesses have been tampered with, and that their case 
 has been most unfairly tried, as they must otherwise 
 infallibly have gained their suit. They consider every 
 one concerned, from the judge to the crier of the 
 court, as their personal foes, and their anger vents 
 itself, according to their several dispositions, in scornful 
 and intemperate language, or sometimes, as in the pre- 
 sent instance, in desperate deeds. 
 
 It was perfectly natural that Steiner should visit 
 upon Elsperger the whole weight of his anger : El- 
 sperger had refused to wait while Steiner could appeal 
 to a superior court, from which he confidently ex- 
 pected a revision of the sentence against him, and he 
 therefore considered this magistrate as the real cause 
 of his imprisonment, which he looked upon as unjust. 
 The loss of his law-suit, and the stain which he ima- 
 gined to rest upon his character all the misfortunes 
 which subsequently befell him were laid to El- 
 sperger's charge. The more he thought over the loss 
 of his suit, the more convinced was he of Elsperger's 
 injustice and oppression, and the more intense grew 
 his hatred and his desire for revenge. 
 
 Steiner had always expected ultimately to obtain a 
 favourable decision, and to receive some reparation from 
 the whole magistracy : nothing short of this could sa- 
 tisfy his obstinate self-will, his wounded pride, and the 
 hatred he felt towards the whole body of magistrates. 
 
 The court of appeal to which Steiner's case was sent, 
 again referred it to several medical colleges, according 
 to the opinion of which learned bodies, given on the
 
 LUDWIG STEINER. 367 
 
 22nd of January, 1822, Steiner " was in a state of me- 
 lancholy madness, and therefore not responsible for his 
 actions, when he planned and committed the murder." 
 According to this opinion, all crimes arising out of 
 passion, that is to say, about seven-eighths of those that 
 are committed, must be altogether withdrawn from 
 legal jurisdiction, and referred to the medical faculty, 
 unless, indeed, the passions can be schooled into a be- 
 haviour as cool, measured, and rational as if they were 
 no passions at all. 
 
 The central college of medicine contradicted the 
 opinions of the physician attached to the court, and of 
 the district college of medicine, and gave the following 
 opinion : 
 
 " That at the time of the murder committed on 
 Elsperger, Steiner was not affected either by mono- 
 mania or by melancholy madness, to such a degree as 
 to render him unaccountable for his actions, as stated 
 by Dr. N , and confirmed by the college of medi- 
 cine." 
 
 By this opinion it was determined that Steiner was 
 free from mental disease ; the medical college properly 
 had nothing further to say in the matter, and Steiner's 
 conduct had now to be judged by the legal autho- 
 rities ; nevertheless, the medical board continued as 
 follows : " That although Steiner was by no means 
 insane when he committed the murder, or utterly un- 
 accountable for his actions, his mind was so much 
 troubled and affected, that his freedom of action was 
 impaired or limited, in consideration of which his 
 sentence ought unquestionably to be mitigated." 
 
 A medical opinion exceeds its proper functions by 
 making use of the expression that a criminal is respon- 
 sible or not responsible for his actions, as that is a
 
 368 REMARKABLE GERMAN CRIMINAL TRIALS. 
 
 question for legal decision, and does not come within 
 the competence of a physician; still less can it fall 
 within the province of medicine to prescribe to the 
 judge where he is to seek for extenuating circum- 
 stances. Furthermore, if once this doctrine of a 
 limited freedom of action be admitted, there is no 
 saying where it is to stop, and under what circum- 
 stances a man is to be considered wholly accountable 
 for his actions, and under what others he has only a 
 half, a third, or a fourth share of responsibility. As 
 far as human experience reaches, every crime that 
 has been committed was not only an immoral and 
 illegal, but also an unwise action. And in by far the 
 greater number, the very passions by which the free- 
 dom of action has been limited and impaired, can be 
 distinctly traced in their origin, growth, and final 
 effects ; notwithstanding which, most great offenders 
 have very properly been executed. 
 
 The three medical opinions failed to convince the 
 court of appeal, which, on the 9th of July, 1822, pro- 
 nounced Steiner guilty of the murder of the magistrate 
 Elsperger of Ratisbon, and sentenced him to death by 
 the sword. 
 
 The advocate charged with Steiner's defence deter- 
 mined to carry his case before a second court of appeal, 
 and after a second reference to physicians, and a more 
 detailed defence, the papers were sent to the* second 
 court of appeal, which, on the 31st of August, 1824, 
 pronounced Ludwig Steiner guilty of murder, and sen- 
 tenced him to imprisonment for life. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 London : Printed by W. CLOWES and SONS, Stamford-street
 
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 By LORD MAHON, M.P. With a Map, 8vo, 12*. 
 " A valuable contribution to the history of a most inte- 
 resting era." London Magazine. 
 "An. able and valuable performance." Monthly Review. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 LIFE OF EDWARD GIBBON, 
 
 With Selections from his Correspondence, &c., and Notes. 
 By Rev. H. H. MILMAN, Minister of St. Margaret's, and 
 Prebendary of Westminster. Portrait. 8vo, 9*. 
 
 "The present volume is a valuable and necessary com- 
 panion to the Decline and Fall. No one who desires to be 
 informed in the most engaging and dignified manner of 
 the most important eras in the world's annals can allow 
 himself to remain unacquainted with the life and corres- 
 pondence of its very remarkable author." Monthly Review. 
 
 LIVES OF GALILEO, TYCHO BRAKE, 
 AND KEPLER, the MARTYRS OF SCIENCE. By Sir DAVID 
 BREWSTER, LL.D. 12mo, 7*. 
 
 " A pleasant contribution to our scientific biography." 
 Atheneeum. 
 
 "A very delightful performance, containing gem-like 
 portraitures of three extraordinary geniuses." Literary 
 Gazette. 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE' OF DR. BENTLEY, 
 
 Master of- Trinity College, Cambridge. By the Rev. CHRIS- 
 TOPHER WORDSWORTH, D.D., Prebendary of Westminster. 
 With Notes and Illustrations. 2 vols. 8vo, 42*. 
 
 " Maintains Bentley's high character for erudition." 
 Atheneeum. 
 
 MEMOIR OF WILLIAM SMITH, LL.D., 
 
 The Geologist, Author of the Map of the Strata of England 
 and Wales. By his Nephew and Pupil, JOHN PHILLIPS, 
 F.R.8. 8vo, 7*. 6d. 
 
 " A grateful and gratifying recollection of the Father of 
 English Geology." Literary Gazette. 
 
 LIFE OF LORD BYRON, WITH HIS 
 
 LETTERS AND JOURNALS. By THOMAS MOORE, 
 Esq. New and cheaper Edition. Portrait and Vignette. 
 Complete in one volume, royal iivo, 15*. 
 
 LIFE OF CRABBE THE POET, 
 
 With his Letters and Journals. By his SON. New Edition. 
 Plates, fcap. 8vo, 7*. 6d. 
 
 LIFE OF JAMES WATT. By M. ARAGO. 
 Translated from the French, by J. P. MUIRHKAD, M.A. 
 8vo, 8*. 6<l.
 
 MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF BOOKS. Seiigion. 
 
 RELIGIOUS LITERATURE. 
 
 CATHOLIC SAFEGUARDS AGAINST 
 THE ERRORS, CORRUPTIONS. AND NOVELTIES 
 OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. Selected from Emi- 
 nent Divines of the Church of England. By JAMES 
 BKOGDEN, M.A. 4 vols. 8vo. 
 
 THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER, 
 CAREFULLY ANNOTATED. "With Illustrations, Illumi- 
 nations, Initials, Borders, Vignettes, &e. By Owns 
 JONES, Architect. 8vo. A'eurly lieu<ly. 
 
 The Historical Illustrations are selected from the Works 
 of the Pure Artists of the early I talian and German Schools. 
 With Useful aud Instructive Notes by a careful Editor. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE LITURGY 
 AND RITUAL OF THE CHURCH, being Sermons and 
 Discourses of eminent Divines of the Seventeenth Cen- 
 tury. By JAMES BBOODBN, M.A. 3 vols. post 8vo, 27*. 
 
 " A most valuable addition to every parochial clergy- 
 man's, and indeed to every churchman's library." Bishop 
 of Exeter's Charge. 
 
 " Mr. Brogden's useful Collection of Discourses on the 
 Liturgy and Ritual of the Church." Bishop of London's 
 Charge. 
 
 SERMONS PREACHED AT WHITEHALL. 
 By the Rev. W. J. CONYBEARE, M.A., Principal of the 
 Collegiate Institution, Liverpool, and one of her Majesty's 
 Preachers. 8vo, 9*. 
 
 BIBLICAL RESEARCHES IN PALES- 
 TINE, MOUNT SINAI, AND ARABIA PETRJ3A, 
 being a Journal of Travels, undertaken in reference to 
 Biblical Geography. By the Rev. Dr. ROBINSON and Rev. 
 ELI SMITH. With new Maps and Plans. 3 vols. 8vo, 45*. 
 
 " We have found more solid and important information 
 on the geography and topography of the Holy Land, than 
 has accumulated since the days of Reland." Quarterly 
 Review. 
 
 " The most important contribution to Biblical Geography 
 which has appeared since the days of St. Jerome." 
 Athenaeum. 
 
 " By far the most important contribution to Biblical 
 History and Geography made in our time." Examiner. 
 
 " To the religious world and the Biblical Scholar this 
 work will be one of high interest." Spectator. 
 
 EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. By 
 
 WILLIAM SEWELL, B.D., late Professor of Moral Philoso- 
 phy at Oxford. Fcap. 8vo, 7*. 6d. 
 
 " Ably, and in general satisfactorily, treated; the style 
 animated aud eloquent.' 1 Gentleman's Magazine. 
 
 THE BOOK OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 With Notes containing References to the Authorities, and 
 an Index. By ROBERT SOUTHEY, LL.D. F(flh Edition. 
 8vo, 12*. 
 
 " I offer to those who regard with love and reverence the 
 religion which they have received from their fathers, a 
 brief but comprehensive record, diligently, faithfully, and 
 conscientiously composed, which they may put into the 
 hands of their children." Preface. 
 
 Till. 
 
 THE THEOGONY OF THE HINDOOS, 
 
 with their system of Philosophy and Cosmogony. By 
 COUNT BJORNSTJKRNA, 8vo. 
 
 HYMNS FOR THE CHURCH SERVICE, 
 
 arranged for every Sunday. By BISHOP HEBEB. Eleventh 
 Etiilion. lo'mo, 2*. 
 
 The public estimation of the Plan of this little work is 
 shown by the fact of Elevfn Editions having been called 
 lor, and the sale of upwards of 2'u'dae Th-jusund Copiet, 
 
 PARISH SERMONS ; 
 
 On the Lessons, the Gospel, or the Epistle, for every 
 Sunday and Principal Festival in the Year. By the Utlo 
 BISHOP UEBEB. fi/tfi Edition. 2 vols. post 8vo, lit*. 
 
 " I believe that these Sermons will add a new interest 
 and lustre to the name of Reginald Heber, and will awaken 
 a fresh regret for his loss." Sir Robert Inglm't Pnfu.ce. 
 
 XI. 
 
 SERMONS PREACHED IN ENGLAND. 
 
 By the late BISHOP HEBER. Second Edition. 8vo, U*. Ctf. 
 
 XII. 
 
 JOURNEY THROUGH ARABIA PETRyEA 
 to MOUNT SINAI, and the EXCAVATED CITY OK PETBA, 
 the EDOM of the Prophecies. By M. LKON DB LABORDE. 
 Second Edition. With, 65 Plates, Woodcuts, and Maps. 
 8vo, 18*. 
 
 "A publication of extreme value and interest to every 
 Christian." British Critic. 
 
 " All ministers and students should possess themselves 
 of this splendid volume." Evangelical Magazine. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 A CHARGE DELIVERED TO THE 
 CLERGY of the Diocese of Exeter, at his Triennial 
 Visitation, in July, August, and September, 1842. By the 
 BISHOP OF EXBTCR. Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo, 2s. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 A LETTER TO HIS CLERGY ON THE 
 OFFERTORY, especially with reference to the Mission- 
 ary Exertions of the Church, and to tho State of Spi- 
 ritual Destitution in the Manufacturing Districts of 
 England. By the BISHOP OF EXETEB. 8vo, 6d. 
 
 xv. 
 
 A SERMON PREACHED at a General 
 Ordination holden in the Cathedral Church of Exeter. 
 By the BISHOP OF EXETER, 12mo, 1*. 
 
 "A brief and earnest manual of sound church doctrine." 
 Morning Post. 
 
 xvi. 
 
 THE WIDOW'S MITE ; a Sermon preached 
 in behalf of the National Society ; with a Pastoral Letter to 
 the Inhabitants of Plymouth. By the BISHOP OK EXBTER. 
 12mo, Gif, 
 
 XVII. 
 
 ON THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH 
 By HENRY EDWARD MANNING, Archdeacon of Chichester 
 Second Edition. 8vo, 10*. 6d, 
 
 XVIII.' 
 
 A CHARGE DELIVERED AT THE ORDI- 
 NARY VISITATION of the Archdeaconry of Chichester 
 in July 1841, 1842, and 1843. By HKNRY EDWARD MAN- 
 NINO, Archdeacon of Chichester. 8vo, 2*. each. 
 
 xix. 
 
 A SERMON PREACHED ON TRINITY 
 SUNDAY, at an ORDINATION held by the Lord Bishop 
 of Chichester. By HENRY EDWARD MANNING, Archdea- 
 con of Chichester. Uvo, 1*. 
 
 A CHARGE TO THE CLERGY AT THE 
 ORDINARY VISITATION, together with a Form of 
 Prayer. By ROBERT ISAAC WILBERFORCE, Archdeacon of 
 the East Riding. 8vo, 3d. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 LECTURES ON THE BOOKS OF THE 
 OLD TESTAMENT. By the Rev. H. LINUSAY, M.A 
 Rector of Croydoa. 2 vols. fcap. Uvo, 1C*.
 
 Mn. MURRAY'S LIST OF BOOKS. Voyages and Travels. 
 
 THE NESTORIAN CHRISTIANS, on LOST 
 
 TRIBES OP ISRAEL settled in Ooroomia, Koordistan, 
 Ancient Assyria, and Media. With Illustrations of 
 Scripture Prophecy. By ASAHEL GRANT, M.D. With 
 Map. Third Edition. Fcap. 8vo, G*. 
 
 " An important accession to our stores of geographical 
 knowledge." Church of England Review. 
 
 " Much curious and interesting information of which 
 its name gives no previous warning." Athenceum. 
 
 HULSEAN LECTURES FOR 1831. 
 THE VERACITY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. From the Con- 
 clusion of the Pentateuch to the Opening of the Prophets. 
 By Rev. J. J. BLUNT. Post 8vo, 6*. 6d. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 HULSEAN LECTURES, 1832. 
 Principles for the Proper Understanding of tho MOSAIC 
 WRITINGS, stated and applied, together with an Incidental 
 Argument for the Truth of the Resurrection of our Lord. 
 By Rev. J. J. BLUNT. Post 8vo, 6*. 6<J. 
 
 VERACITY OF THE FIVE BOOKS OF 
 
 MOSES, argued from the undesigned Coincidences to bo 
 found in them when compared in their several partf. 
 By Rev. J. J. BLUNT. Post 8vo, 5*. 6d. 
 
 "Mr. Blunt has signalised himself as a very successful 
 disciple of Dr. Paley in the management of that species of 
 Christian evidence, which arises from the discovery of un- 
 designed coincidence of revealed truth." Evangelical 
 Magazine. 
 
 PSALMS AND HYMNS FOR PUBLIC 
 WORSHIP, selected, arranged, and adapted to tho 
 various Solemnities of the Church. By AV. B. HOLLAND, 
 M.A., Perpetual Curate of Walmer. 24mo. 1*. 6d. 
 
 *** Clergymen wishing to introduce this Selection will 
 be allowed a discount. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 HISTORY OF JOSIAH. By the Author of 
 ' GIDEON, THE MAN OF MIGHTY VALOUR." Fcap. 8vo,4*.6<J. 
 
 " A pleasing scripture history, accompanied by many 
 moral and religious reflections." Literary Gazette. 
 
 VOYAGES AND TKAVELS. 
 
 India and China. 
 
 A JOURNAL OF THE DISASTERS IN 
 AFFGHANISTAN. By LADY SALE. Eighth Edition. 
 Plans. Post 8vo, 12*. 
 
 "The journal of one whose very name lightens up the 
 eye, and gladdens the spirit of one, whose ' story shall 
 the good man tell his son' the journal of our high- 
 minded noble countrywoman, Lady Sale." Athenaeum. 
 
 " Lady Sale evinces a degree of strong sense, judgment, 
 and familiarity with details, which might do credit to a 
 veteran general." Naval and Military Gazette. 
 
 TRAVELS TO BOKHARA, AND VOYAGE 
 UP THE INDUS. By SIR ALEXANDER BURNES. Second 
 Edition. Map and Plates. 3 vols. fcap. 8vo. 18*. 
 
 " The admirable publication of Sir Alexander Burnes." 
 Literary Gazette. 
 
 " The author is evidently a man of strong and mascu- 
 line talents, high spirit, and elegant taste, and is in every 
 respect well qualified to tread in the steps of our Malcolms 
 and Elphinstones." Quarterly Review. 
 
 JOURNEY TO CABOOL, AND RESIDENCE 
 IN THAT CITY. By Sir ALEXANDER BURNES. Second 
 Edition. Portrait and Plates. 8vo, 18*. 
 
 "The charm of the book is in its buoyant style. Personal 
 character, domestic scenes, and oriental manners, are 
 painted with vivacity, ease, and lightness of touch." 
 Spectator. 
 
 VOYAGE UP THE INDUS TO THE 
 
 SOURCE OF THE RIVER OXUS, by Kabul and 
 Badakhshan. By Lieut. JOHN WOOD, Indian Navy. Map. 
 8vo. 14*. 
 
 " The valuable geographical details which Lieut. Wood 
 has collected, and his clear sketches of society, render his 
 volume one of the most agreeable and instructive of its 
 class." Athena-urn. 
 
 " Extremely well written ; full of natural pictures of 
 icenery and character. "Examiner. 
 
 TRAVELS IN THE 'HIMALAYAN PRO- 
 VINCES OF UINDOSTAN AND THE PANJAB, in 
 Ladakh and Kashmir, in Peshawar, Kabul, Kunduz, and 
 Bokhara. By Mr. WILLIAM MOORCROFT and Mr. GEORGE 
 TRKBECK. 2 vols. flvo, 30*. 
 
 " A most valuable narrative." Quarterly Review. 
 
 BRITISH SETTLEMENTS TN THE STRAITS 
 OF MALACCA, including Penang, Malacca, and Singa- 
 pore. By Lizux. NKWBOLD. 2 vojs. Oyo, 26;. 
 
 JOURNAL OF AN AFFGHAN PRISONER, 
 
 with a Narrative of the Military Operations at Cabul, 
 which ended in the Retreat and Destruction of the British 
 Army. By Lieut. VINCENT EYRE, Bengal Artillery. 
 Seventh Edition. Plan. Post 8vo, 12*. 
 
 " A volume of thrilling interest." United Service 
 Gazette. 
 
 "The public has cause to be thankful to Mr. Eyre, for 
 so excellent and so valuable a narrative." Times. 
 
 "One of the most enchaining narratives we have met 
 with for a long time." Spectator. 
 
 A GEOGRAPHICAL,'STATISTICAL, AND 
 HISTORICAL DESCRIPTION OF HINDOST AN, AND 
 THE ADJACENT COUNTRIES. By WALTER HAMIL- 
 TON. Maps. 2 vols. 4tO, 4/. 14*. Gd. 
 
 LETTERS FROM MADRAS, or First Im- 
 pressions of Manners and Society in India, described 
 from a Three Years' Residence. By a LADY. Post 8vo, 
 9*. Gd. 
 
 x. 
 
 NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY FROM 
 CALCUTTA TO EUROPE, by Way of Egypt. By the 
 late Mrs. CHARLES LUSHINGTON. Second Edition. Post 
 8vo, 8*. 6d. 
 
 SIX MONTHS IN CHINA. 
 
 By LORD JOCELYN, late Military Secretary to tho Chinese 
 Expedition. Sixth Edition. Plans. Fcap. 8vo, 5*. (M. 
 
 "Lord Jocelyn supplies us with some striking facts and 
 unknown particulars." Literary Gazette. 
 
 CLOSING EVENTS *()> THE CAMPAIGN 
 IN CHINA. The OPERATIONS in the YANG-TzE-KrAM), 
 and TREATY of NANKING. By CAPTAIN GRANVILLE G. 
 LOCH, R.N. With Map. Post 8vo, 8*. 6d. 
 
 " One of the best books that the War has produced." 
 Spectator. 
 
 " The sketches of Chinese character are the most strik- 
 ing and the most graphic, we have met with." Naval 
 and Military Gazette. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 JAPAN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 Described from the Accounts of Recent Dutch Travellers. 
 Post 8vo, 9*. 6d. 
 
 " Containing all the information about Japan which has 
 been obtained ; well arranged and well put together." 
 Literary Gaxette. 
 
 " This useful account of a ycry curious people." 
 Spectator.
 
 MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF BOOKS. Voyages and Travels. 
 
 NOTICES ON CHINA, and our Commercial 
 
 Intercourse with that Country. By Siu GEORGE STAUNTON, 
 Bart. Second Edition, 8vo, 12f. 
 
 Mediterranean, and Asia Minor. 
 
 NARRATIVE OF A YACHT VOYAGE IN 
 THE MEDITERRANEAN, during the Years 184041. 
 By the COUNTESS GROSVENOB. With 26 Plates. 2 vols. 
 post 8vo, 20*. 
 
 A CLASSICAL TOUR IN ATTICA, AND 
 RESIDENCE IN ATHENS. By the Rev. CHRISTOPHER 
 WORDSWORTH, D.D., Prebendary of Westminster. Second 
 Edition. Maps and Plates. 8vo, 12*. 
 
 A SHORT VISIT TO THE IONIAN ISLANDS, 
 ATHENS, AND THE MORE A. By EDWARD GIFFARD, 
 Esq. Plates. Post 8vo, 12*. 
 
 " Whether as a guide to the traveller, or as amusing 
 summer reading to those who stay at home Mr. Giffard's 
 work is very creditable to its author. 1 ' Quarterly Review. 
 
 TRAVELS]* CRETE. 
 
 By ROBERT PASHLBV, A.M., Fellow of Trinity College, 
 Cambridge. Maps, Plates, and Woodcuts. 2 vols. 8vo, 
 21. 2*. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 A JOURNAL OF AN EXCURSION IN ASIA 
 
 MINOR IN 1838. Including a Visit to several unknown 
 
 and undescribcd Cities. By CHARLES FELLOWS, Esq. 
 
 Second Edition. Plates and Woodcuts. Imperial 8vo, 28y. 
 
 xx. 
 
 DISCOVERIES IN ANCIENT LYCIA ; 
 being a Journal kept during a Second and more Recent 
 Excursion in Asia Minor in 1840. By CHARLES FELLOWS, 
 Esq. Plates and Woodcuts. Imperial 8vo, 21. 2t. 
 
 " Our author has discovered eleven ancient Lycian cities, 
 and has allowed the learned world to perceive that Lycia 
 is a mine of antiquarian treasures, of which he has only 
 scraped the surface." Athenaeum. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE XANTHIAN 
 MARBLES, discovered by CHARLES FKLLOWS, Esq. In 
 Asia Minor, and now deposited in the British Museum. 
 Plates. Imperial 8vo, 5*. 
 
 RESEARCHES IN ASIA MINOR, PONTUS, 
 AND ARMENIA ; with some Account of the Antiquities 
 and Geology of those Countries. By W. L. HAMILTON, 
 Esq., M.P., Secretary to the Geological Society. Map, 
 Plate;. 2 vols. 8vo, 38*. 
 
 " Mr. Hamilton's archaeological researches and his nar- 
 rative in general, have our warmest commendations." 
 Athenaeum. 
 
 Egypt and the East. 
 
 MODERN EGYPT AND THEBES: being 
 a Description of Egypt ; with Information for Travel- 
 lers in that Country. By Sin GARDNER WILKINSON. 
 Woodcuts and Map, 2 vols. 8vo, 42*. 
 
 " No one should visit Egypt, or take the overland pas- 
 sage to India, without availing himself of this work as his 
 travelling Companion. It should be used as a Hand book 
 by all who travel to India, or make the Tour of Egypt and 
 Thebes." Evangelical Magazine. 
 
 "An invaluable guide to all who visit the valley of the 
 Nile." Athenaeum. 
 
 xxiv. 
 
 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE 
 ANCIENT EGYPTIANS, derived from Hieroglyphics, 
 Sculpture, Paintings, &c., still existing, compared with 
 Ancient Authors. By SIR GARDNER WILKINSON. Second 
 Edition. With 600 Illustrations. 6 vols. 8vo, Gl. 8*. 
 
 " Sir Gardner Wilkinson has done more to make the 
 people of the Pharaohs known to us moderns than any 
 contemporary writer." Athenaeum. 
 
 CAIRO, PETRA, AND DAMASCUS; 
 from Notes made during a Tour in those Countries. By 
 JOHN G. KINNBAR, Esq. Post 8vo, 9*. 6<f. 
 
 " Short, pleasant, and interesting ; we find ourselves, 
 when we close the book, in a tolerable state of familiarity 
 with Eastern manners." Times. 
 
 " Mr. Kinnear writes extremely well, and his descrip- 
 tions proclaim him a good observer." Examiner. 
 
 Polynesia and South Seas. 
 
 VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY AND RE- 
 SEARCH, IN THE] SOUTHERN AND ANTARCTIC 
 SEAS ; during 1839-40-41-42-43. By CAPTAIN SIR JAMES 
 CLARK Ross, Knt. Plates and Maps. 2 vols. 8vo. In the 
 Prett. 
 
 " These volumes will contain an Account of Kerguelen 
 Island, Van Diemen's Land, Campbell and Auckland 
 Island, New Zealand, Falkland Islands, Cape Horn, and 
 New South Shetland. The Discovery of a Southern Con- 
 tinent named Victoria Land, and determination of the 
 South Magnetic Pole." 
 
 TRAVELS IN NEW ZEALAND, 
 
 By Routes through the interior. With contributions to 
 the Geography, Geology, Botany, and Natural History of 
 the Islands. By ERNEST DIEFFENBACH, M.D., Naturalitt 
 to the New Zealand Company. Plates. 2 vols, 8vo, 24*. 
 
 " Incomparably the best work which has yet appeared." 
 Christian Remembrancer. 
 
 " A book from which the reader will draw a vast deal of 
 information and amusement." Glasgow Argus. 
 
 Africa. 
 
 FIFTY DAYS ON BOARD A SLAVE- 
 VESSEL IN THE MOZAMBIQUE CHANNEL. By 
 REV. P. G. HILL, Chaplain of H. M. S. Cleopatra. Map. 
 Fcap. 8vo, 3*. 6d. 
 
 " We hope this little book will have a wide circulation. 
 We can conceive nothing so likely to do good to the 
 righteous cause it is intended to promote." Examiner. 
 
 " Mr. Hill is a pleasant, unaffected, and elegant writer, 
 with a fund of good sense, and his brief and popular work 
 is well adapted for public circulation." Spectator. 
 
 Central and South America. 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL IN YUCATAN. 
 Being a Second Visit to the Ruined Cities of CENTRAL 
 AMERICA. By JOHN L. STEPHENS, Esq. 120 Engravings. 
 2 vols. 8vo, 42*. 
 
 INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL IN CENTRAL 
 AMERICA, CHIAPAS, AND YUCATAN. By JOHN 
 
 L. STEPHENS, Esq. 78 Engravings. 2 vols. 8vo, 32*. 
 
 "At once so amusing in their details and so instructive 
 in their inquiries." Literary Gazette. 
 
 " These delightful volumes ! It is grievous to quit a 
 store so brimful to overflowing of what we like best." 
 Athenaeum. 
 
 "The pleasantest and best work that has lately ap- 
 peared." Spectator. 
 
 0/thete Travels 15,000 copiet have been told. '. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 LETTERS ON SOUTH AMERICA; Com- 
 prising Travels'on the Banks of the Parana and Rio do 
 la Plata. By J. P. and W. F. ROBEKTSON. 3 vols. post 
 8vo, 28*. Gd. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 RAPID JOURNEYS ACROSS THE PAM- 
 PAS and among the Andes. By SIR FRANCIS B. HEAD, 
 Bart. Third Edition, post 8vo, 9*. 6rf. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 BUENOS AYRES, AND THE PROVINCES 
 OF RIO DE LA PLATA. By SIR WOODBINE PARISH 
 K.C.H. Map. 8vo, 18*.
 
 MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF BOOKS. Voyages and Travels. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 JOURNAL OF A PASSAGE FROM THE 
 
 PACIFIC TO THE ATLANTIC, crossing the Andes in 
 the Northern Provinces of Peru, and descending the great 
 River Maranon. By HENRY LISTKR MAW, B.N. 8vo, 12s. 
 
 Horth America. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 ' TOUR THROUGH THE SLAVE STATES, 
 
 from the River Potomac, by Baltimore in Maryland, to 
 Texas and the Frontiers of Mexico. By G. W. FBATHER- 
 STONHAUGH, Esq. With Plates. 2 vols. 8vo, 26*. 
 
 "His notices of the natural history of the districts through 
 which he passed are novel and interesting, particularly his 
 nccount of the mines, and his other geological memoranda : 
 and his occasional pictures of theheroes of thejbowie knife, 
 the gentleman slave breeders, and various strange species 
 of the genus homo he met with during his travels are re- 
 markably characteristic and entertaining." New Monthly 
 Magazine. 
 
 xxxv r. ' 
 
 ' A YACHT VOYAGE TO TEXAS, AND 
 THE GULF OF MEXICO, during the Year 1843. By 
 Mrs. HOUSTOUN. With Plates. 2 vols. post 8vo. 21*. 
 
 "Worth a cart-load of modern travels." Morning 
 Chronicle. 
 
 " A work which every one should read." Times. 
 
 FOREST SCENES AND INCIDENTS IN 
 THE WILDS OF CANADA. By SIR GEORGE HEAD. 
 Second Edition. Post 8vo, 10. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 BACKWOODSMAN'S ACCOUNT OF UP- 
 PER CANADA: for the Use of Emigrants. Third 
 Edition. Fcap. 8vo, 1*. 6rf. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 EXCURSIONS IN NEWFOUNDLAND; 
 With an Account of the Cod Fishery Fog Banks Sealing 
 Expedition, &c. ; and a Geological Survey of the Island. 
 By J. B. JUKES, Esq. Map. 2 vols. post 8vo, 2J*. 
 
 LETTERS FROM CANADA AND THE 
 UNITED STATES. Written during a Journey in North 
 America. By J. R. GOD LEY, Esq. 2 vols. post 8 vo. 16*. 
 
 " Here is at least one English book of which the Ame- 
 ricans cannot reasonably complain." Athenaeum. 
 
 " The production of a sensible and intelligent traveller." 
 .Eclectic Review. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 OREGON, CALIFORNIA, AND OTHER 
 
 TERRITORIES ON THE N.W. COAST OP AMERICA. 
 By ROBERT GRBENHOW, Librarian to the Department of 
 State of the United States. Map. 8vo. 16*. 
 
 Europe. 
 
 ' RUSSIA UNDER NICHOLAS THE FIRST. 
 From the German. By Capt. A. C. STERLING. Fcap. 8vo. Bt. 
 
 " Lively and comprehensive." Atheneeum. 
 
 " A record of worth and utility." Literary Gazette. 
 
 xun. 
 
 DOMESTIC MANNERS OF THE RUSSIANS. 
 Described from a Year's Residence in that Country, chiefly 
 in the Interior. By the Rev. R. LISTER V ENABLES, M.A. 
 Post 8vo, 9*. 6d. 
 
 xuv. 
 
 NORWAY AND HER LAPLANDERS; 
 with a Few Hints to the Salmon Fisher in Norway. By 
 JOHN MILFORD, Esq. 8vo, 10*. 6d. 
 
 PORTUGAL AND GALLICIA, 
 
 Described from Notes made during a Journey to these 
 Countries. By the EARL OK CARNARVON. Second Edition. 
 2 vols. postlivo, 21*. 
 
 " A work of superior ability, interest, and value." 
 Unilfd Service Journal. 
 
 "These lively and various pages." Athenaeum. 
 
 XLVI. 
 BIBLE IN SPAIN; 
 
 Or the Journeys, Adventures, and Imprisonments of an 
 Englishman in an Attempt to circulate the Scriptures 
 in the Peninsula. By GKORGE BORROW, Esq. Jfourlh 
 Edition. 3 vols. post 8vo, 27*. 
 
 " Mr. Borrow has come out as an English Author of 
 high mark. We are reminded of Gil Bias, in the narratives 
 of this pious, single-hearted man." Quarterly Review. 
 
 Alto a Cheap Edition for the Coloniet. Post Svo,5t. 
 
 XL VII. 
 
 GYPSIES OF SPAIN ; 
 
 Their Manners and Customs, Religion and Language. By 
 GKORGB BORROW, Esq. Third Edition. 2 vols. postSvo, 18*. 
 
 " A curious, a very curious work, and contains some of 
 the most singular, yet authentic descriptions of the gipsy 
 race which have ever been given to the public." Literary 
 Gazette. 
 
 " Evidently the work of a man of uncommon and highly 
 interesting endowments." Quarterly Review. 
 
 XLVIH. 
 
 NARRATIVE OF TRAVELS IN AUSTRIA. 
 With Remarks on the Social and Political Condition of that 
 Country. By PETER EVAN TURNBULL, Esq. 2 vols. 8vo, 24*. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 TOUR IN AUSTRIAN LOMBARDY, 
 NORTHERN TYROL, AND BAVARIA. By JOHN 
 BARROW, Esq. Woodcuts. PostBvo, 10*. M. 
 "Agreeably written, faithful and minute." Athenceum. 
 
 BUBBLES FROM THE BRUNNEN OF 
 
 NASSAU. By AN OLD MAN. Sixth Edition. IGmo, 5*. 
 " Just suited for the pocket and for the Khine Travel- 
 lers." Athenaeum. 
 
 DATES AND DISTANCES; 
 
 Showing what may be done in a Tour of Sixteen Months 
 upon the Continent of Europe. Post 8vo, 8*. 6d. 
 
 LETTERS FROM THE PYRENEES ; OR, 
 
 THREE MONTHS' PEDESTRIAN WANDERINGS 
 amidst the wildest Scenes of the FRENCH and SPANISH 
 MOUNTAINS. By T. CUJTON PARIS, B.A. Woodcuts. 
 PostSvo, 10*. 6d. 
 
 "Contain better descriptive passages, strikingly pic- 
 turesque, and without the least strain and effort, than we 
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 the Channel Islands and Isle of Man. By Sir GEOKGB 
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 MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF BOOKS. Hand-books. 
 
 HAND-BOOKS FOR TRAVELLERS, 
 
 Giving detailed and precise Information respecting Steamers, Passports, Moneys, Guides and Servants, 
 toith Directions for Travellers, and Hints for Tours. 
 
 12. 
 
 HANDBOOK FOR EGYPT AND THEBES. 
 
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 PRUSSIA, NORTHERN GERMANY, AND THE RHINE, 
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 HAND-BOOK FOR SOUTH GERMANY. 
 
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 HAND-BOOK FOR LONDON, PAST AND 
 
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 In preparation. 
 
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 HAND-BOOK FOR THE PUBLIC GAL- 
 
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 Notices. By MRS. JAMESON. Post 8vo. 
 
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 HAND-BOOK FOR HAMPTON COURT 
 
 and NEIGHBOURHOOD ; a Road-Book to the Palace 
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 8vo, 2*. 6d. 
 
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 a Guide to the Palace, Picture Gallery, and Gardens. By 
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 Ovo, 2*. Grf. 
 
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 ABBEY ; its ART, ARCHITECTURE, and ASSOCIA- 
 TIONS. By PETER CUNNINGHAM, Esq. Woodcuts. Fcap. 
 8vo, 2*. 6d. 
 
 Crtttwl 
 
 an 
 
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 POETRY, THE DRAMA, &c. 
 
 LIFE AND WORKS OF LORD BYRON : 
 
 (3Librarp (CDttfon,) 
 
 Comprising his Poetry, Letters, and Journals. Collected 
 and arranged with Notes by Scott, Jeffrey, Wilson, Heher, 
 Lockhart, Ellis, Campbell, Milman, &c. By THOMAS 
 MOORE, Esq. Plates. 17 vols. fcap. 8vo, 5s. each. 
 
 11. 
 POETICAL WORKS OF LORD BYRON. 
 
 (Uocfect Uition.) 
 With Plates. 10 vols. 18mo, 25*. 
 
 POETICAL WORKS' OF LORD BYRON. 
 
 (Crawling CUttlon.) 
 
 With Portraits and Views. New and cheaper Edition. 
 Royal 8vo, 15*. 
 
 LORD BYRON'S CHILDE HAROLD. 
 
 (Illustrates C-Bttion.) 
 
 With Sixty Vignette Engravings by eminent Artists 
 from Sketches made on the spot, expressly to illustrate 
 the Poem. A New Edition. Demy 8vo, 21*. 
 
 " A splendid work worth illustrating, and worthily 
 illustrated." Athentevm. 
 
 "A volume of rare excellence." Literary Gazette. 
 
 LORD BYRON'S TALES. 
 
 (Docket EBition.) 
 
 1. GIAOUR. 
 
 2. BRIDK OF ABYPOS. 
 
 3. CORSAIK. 
 
 4. LARA. 
 
 5. SIEGE OP CORINTH. 
 
 6. BEPPO. 
 
 7. MAZEPPA. 
 
 8. ISLAND. 
 
 9. PARISINA. 
 
 10. PRISONER of CHILI/ON. 
 
 2 vols. 241110, 5*., or separately, 6d. each. 
 
 LORD BYRO V N'S DRAMAS. 
 
 03 ocfcet ismtion.) 
 
 1. MANFRED. 5. Two FOSCAIU. 
 
 6. DEFORMED TRANSFORMED. 
 
 7. CAIN. 
 
 8. WERNER. 
 
 2. MARINO FALIERO. 
 
 3. HEAVEN AND EARTH. 
 
 4. SAKDANAPALUS. 
 
 1 vols. 24mo, 7*-i or separately at Gd. and 1*. each. 
 
 LORD BYRON'S CHILDE HAROLD. 
 
 (Docket (Coition.) 
 With an Engraved Title. 24mo, 2*. Gd. 
 
 POETICAL WORKS OF CRABBE. 
 His Life, Letters, and Journals. By his SON. 
 
 Plates. 8 vols. fcap. 8vo, Ss. each. 
 
 "Nature's sternest painter, yet the best." Lord Byron. 
 
 " Crabbe's delineations of the passions are so just." 
 
 Cifford. 
 
 IX. 
 
 BEAUTIES OF THE BRITISH POETS; 
 
 With Biographical and Critical Notices, and an Essay 
 on English Poetry. By THOMAS CAMPBELL, Esq. Portrait 
 and Plate. New Edition. Royal 8vo, 15*. 
 
 "A volume rich in exquisite examples of English 
 poetry, and suggestive of delightful thoughts beyond any 
 similar volume in the language." Atlas. 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF PAINTERS. 
 
 By HENRY RKKVE, Esq. Post 8vo, 4*. 
 Mr. Reeve's graceful production." Athenauin. 
 
 ANCIENT SPANISH BALLADS ; HISTORICAL 
 and ROMANTIC. Translated by J. G. LOCKHART, Esq. 
 Third Edition, with illuminated Titles, Coloured Borders, 
 Vignettes, &c. 4to. 21. 2*. 
 
 The very fine and animated translations of Mr. Lock-: 
 hart." Hallam's Literary History. 
 
 "A more appropriately as well as beautifully embellished 
 volume never was offered to the world." Edinburgh 
 Review. 
 
 "The illustrations are carried throughout with a luxury 
 of decoration unexampled in this country." Athenaeum. 
 
 XII. 
 
 POETICAL WORKS OF BISHOP HEBER, 
 including PALESTINE EUROPE THE RED SEA, &c. 
 Third Edition. Portrait. Fcap. 8vo, 7*. Gil. 
 
 " Bishop Heber has taken a graceful station among the 
 favoured bards of the day." Literary Gazette. 
 
 FALL OF JERUSALEM S AMOR, MAR- 
 TYR OF ANTIOCH AND OTHER POEMS. By the 
 Rev. H. H. MILMAN. Second Edition. Plates. 3 vols. 
 fcap. 8vo, 18*. 
 
 "A fine, classical, moral, and religious poet." Literary 
 Gazette. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 PROPHECY OF BALAAM THE QUEEN'S 
 CHOICE AND OTHER POEMS. BY HELEN Lows. 
 Fcap. 8vo, 6*. 
 
 REJECTED ADDRESSES. 
 
 By JAMES ' and HORACE SMITH. With Notes by the 
 Authors. Twentieth Edition. Portraits. Fcap. 8vo. 6*. 6d. 
 " The happiest jeu d' esprit of its kind in our day, has its 
 merits attested by the extraordinary words, 'Twentieth 
 edition.' " Literary Gazelle. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 FRAGMENTS IN PROSE AND VERSE. 
 By the late Miss ELIZABETH SMITH. With a Memoir by 
 H. M. BOWDLER. New Edition. Post 8vo, 10*. 6d. 
 
 FRAGMENTS FROM GERMAN PROSE 
 WRITERS. With Biographical Notices. By SARAH 
 AUSTIN. Post 8vo, 10*. 
 
 "A delightful volume." Athentcum. 
 
 " Mrs. Austin has done good service to English litera- 
 ture by the publication of these fragments." Examiner. 
 
 TRANSLATIONS FROM THE GERMAN, 
 IN PROSE AND VERSE. By EDWARD REEVK, and JOHN 
 EDWARD TAYLOR. Fcap. 8vo, 2s. 6d. 
 
 "Translated with elegance." Spectator. 
 
 DIBDIN'S POPULAR SEA SONGS. 
 Selected and Edited by his SON. Plates by CRUIKSHANK. 
 Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo, 5*. 
 
 CLASSICAL AND SCHOOL BOOKS. 
 
 MULLER'S DORIANS ; 
 
 THE HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES OP THE DORIC 
 RACE. Translated from MULI.BR, by TUPNBL and LEWIS. 
 Second Edition. Maps. 2 vols. 8vo, 2C*. 
 
 " We close the volumes in admiration of the author's 
 unwearied industry and great knowledge." New Monthly 
 - 
 
 HOMERUS. 
 
 By the Rev. JOHN WILLIAMS, Rector of the Edinburgh 
 Academy, and Archdeacon of Cardigan. 8vo, Id*. (>il. 
 
 ESSAY ON THE ORIGIN AND FORMATION 
 OF THE ROMANCE LANGUAGES. By GEORGB CORNJS- 
 WALL LEWIS, A.M. New Edition. 8vo, 12*.
 
 MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF BOOKS. Art, Science, &.c. 
 
 GRAMMAR OF THE GREEK LANGUAGE. 
 By AufiusTUS MATTIII.TC. Translated from the German by 
 BLOMFIELD. Fifth Edition. Revised by KKNRICK. 2 vols. 
 8vo, 30*. 
 
 ' The Fifth Edition of Matthix's Greek Grammar exhi- 
 bits by far the most complete system of grammatical rules 
 and examples that have yet been given to the world, em- 
 bodying the latest results of the scholarship of the present 
 age." 
 
 INDEX OF QUOTATIONS FROM GREEK 
 AUTHORS contained in the FIFTH EDITION OF 
 MATTHLfS GREEK GRAMMAR. Sewid Edition. 
 8vo, "it. 6d. 
 
 BUTTMAN'S LEXILOGUS ; 
 
 A Critical Examination of the Meaning and Etymology of 
 various Greek Words and Passages in Homer, Ilesiod, 
 and other Greek Writers. Translated with Notes by 
 FISHLAKB. Second Edition. 8vo, 14*. 
 
 " A most able disquisition. It contains a deeper and 
 more critical knowledgeof Greek, moreextensive research, 
 and more sound judgment, than we ever remember to 
 have seen in any one work before." Quarterly Review. 
 
 BUTTMAN'S CATALOGUE OF THE IR- 
 REGULAR GREEK VERBS ; with all the Tensfis that 
 are Extant their Formation, Meaning, and Usage, ac- 
 companied by a Complete Index. Translated with Notes, 
 by FISHLAKK. Second Edition. 8vo, 7*. GiJ. 
 
 " Buttman's Catalogue contains all those prominent 
 irregularities so fully and fundamentally investigated, that 
 I was convinced a translation of them would prove a va- 
 luable assistant to every lover and student of Greek lite- 
 rature." Preface. 
 
 PLAYS OF ARISTOPHANES. 
 Edited, with English Notes, by THOMAS MITCHELL, Esq. 
 8vo, l(i*. each. 1. WASPS. 2. KNIGHTS. 3. CLOUDS. 
 4. FROGS. 8vo, 15*. 
 
 CHOEPHORCE OF AESCHYLUS. 
 A New Edition of the Test, edited with English Notes, by 
 T. WILLIAMSON PKILE, D. D., Head Master of Repton 
 School. Second Edition. 8vo, 9*. 
 
 AGAMEMNON OF AESCHYLUS. 
 A New Edition of the Text. Edited, with English Notes, 
 by T. WILLIAMSON PEILK, D.D. Second Edition. 8vo, 9*. 
 " By far the most useful edition ever puU.ished in this 
 country." Oxford Herald. 
 
 ESSAYS ON THE BIRDS, CLOUDS, &c. 
 OF ARISTOPHANES. By J. W. SUVERN. Translated 
 by W. R. HAMILTON, F.R.S. 2 vols. post 8vo, 4*. &*. each. 
 
 XII. 
 
 PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LIFE OF THE 
 ANCIENT GREEKS. Translated from the German of 
 HENRY HASE. Fcap. 8vo, 5s. 6d. 
 
 "Some work appeared to be wanting on Grecian Anti- 
 quities, which, without being unnecessarily diffuse, should 
 give a notion of the discoveries of modern scholars, and 
 particularly of German scholars." Preface. 
 
 ESSAY ON THE PRONUNCIATION OF 
 THE GREEK LANGUAGE. By G. 3. PBNJJINGTON, M.A. 
 
 Late Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, 8vo. 7*. <Jd. 
 
 SPECIMENS AND ' FAC-SIMILES OF 
 ANCIENT WRITINGS discovered on the WALLS and 
 STREETS of POMPEII. By the Rev. CHIUSTOPHER WORDS- 
 WORTH, D.D. AVith Woodcuts. 8vo, 5*. 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF 
 THE GREEK CLASSICAL POETS. By HBNRY NELSON 
 COLERIDGE, M.A. Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo, 7*. Grf. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 LATIN GRAMMAR FOR SCHOOLS, * 
 or KINO EDWARD THE SIXTH'S LATIN GRAMMAR. New 
 Edition, reviled. 12mo, 3*. 6d. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 GREEK GRAMMAR. FOR SCHOOLS. 
 Abridged from MATTHI.E by BLOMFIELD. New Edition, 
 revised by EDWARDS. 12mo, 3s. 
 
 " The Editor has endeavoured to substitute shorter and 
 more simple definitions and explanations than those which 
 are contained in the original work." Bishop of London's 
 Preface. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 GRMCM GRAMMATICS RUDIMENTA 
 MINORA. 12mo, I*. &i. Part 2, including the Syntax. 
 12uio, 2*. 
 
 ENGLISH NOTES roii LATIN ELEGIACS j 
 designed for early proficients in the Art of Latin Versifica- 
 tion, with Prefatory Rules of Composition in Elegiac 
 Metre. By the Rev. W. OXENHAM, M.A,, Second Master 
 of Harrow School. 12mo, 4*. 
 XX. 
 
 GREEK VERBS, THEIR FORMATIONS, 
 IRREGULARITIES, AND DEFECTS. By A. N. CAR- 
 MICHAEL, Classical Master in the Edinburgh Academy. 
 Second Edition. Post 8vo, 8*. 6d. 
 
 " The author has displayed much industry and scholar, 
 ship, and left few sources of information unexplored. To 
 the authorities for particular verbal forms, he has contri- 
 buted largely, and has rendered his book a storehouse of 
 facts of the utmost value to the student and critic." 
 Tail's Magazine. 
 
 " Little less than a complete lexicon of the language, in 
 so far as the verb is concerned. Those who possess it will 
 scarcely require any other dictionary to explain the mean- 
 ing or unfold the parts, or discover the different construc- 
 tions of this the most essential element of speech." Scot- 
 tish Literary Gazette. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 SIMPLIFIED LATIN GRAMMAR, 
 Including Exercises and Vocabularies. By the Rev. 
 WALTER p. POWELL, M.A., Head Master of the Grammar 
 School at Clitheroe. 12mo, 3*. OJ. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 GRAMMAR OF THE GERMAN LAN- 
 GUAGE, for Beginners as well as the more advanced 
 Learner. By G. M. HEILNER. 12mo, 10*. 
 "An excellent practical introduction." Spectator. 
 
 ART. 
 
 FRESCO DECORATIONS AND STUCCOES 
 
 OF THE CHURCHES AND PALACES IN ITALY, 
 
 during the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. Taken 
 from the principal Works of the greatest Painters, never 
 before engraved. With English Descriptions, by Louis 
 GKVXER. With Forty-five Plates, Folio. Plain or Co- 
 loured. 
 
 " In the magnificent folio work just published by Mr. 
 Gruner, upon the fresco-arabesques and painted decora- 
 tions of the churches and palaces of Italy, we shall have 
 opportunities for enjoy ing and studying the brightest gems 
 of decorative art." 
 
 " This work is exactly what we most required, reflecting 
 the highest honour upon Mr. Gruner, and is likely to 
 create a complete revolution in British decorative design." 
 Mr. CHABBE'S Lecture.
 
 10 
 
 MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF COOKS. General literature. 
 
 LEGENDS OF SAINTS AND MARTYRS, 
 their Lives, Acts, Characters, Attribute!', &c., as Illus- 
 trated by Art, from the earliest Ages. By Mrs. JAMESON. 
 Post 8vo. In the Press. 
 
 HISTORY OF PAINTING ITALY ; 
 
 From the Age of Constantino the Great to the present 
 Time. Translated from the German of KL-GLBR. By a 
 LADY ; and Edited, with Notes, by C. L. EASTLAKB, R. A. 
 " Intended to supply a want long felt by persons endea- 
 vouring to acquire a knowledge of the Early History and 
 Progress of the art of Painting, which no other English 
 
 work supplies, viz., a short and easily intelligible guide 
 pointing out to the unlearned the leading styles of Art." 
 Preface. 
 
 THE ANATOMY OF EXPRESSION AS 
 
 CONNECTED WITH THE FINE ARTS. By th 
 late SIR CHARLES BELL. A New and Enlarged Edition 
 with Engravings and Woodcuts. Imperial Svo, 21*. 
 " The artist, the writer of fiction, the dramatist, th 
 man of taste, will receive the present work (which is go 
 up with an elegance worthy of its subject) with gratitude 
 and peruse it with a lively and increasing interest au( 
 delight." Christian Remembrancer, 
 
 SCIENCE. 
 
 CHEMICAL MANIPULATION ; 
 
 Being Instructions to Students In Chemistry, on the 
 Methods of performing Experiments of Demon st7-ation or 
 .Research, with accuracy and success. By MICHAEL 
 FARADAY, F.R.S. TJtird Edition. Svo, 18*. 
 
 " No student should think of commencing the study of 
 practical chemistry without having previously possessed 
 this indispensable guide." Provincial Medical Journal. 
 
 NINTH BRIDGE WATER TREATISE. 
 By CHARLES BABBAGE, Esq. Second Edition. Svo, <Js. 6d. 
 
 THE ECONOMY OF MACHINERY AND 
 MANUFACTURES. By CHARLES BABDAOE, Esq. Fifth 
 Edition. Fcap. Svo, 6*. 
 
 TABLE OF THE LOGARITHMS OF THE 
 
 NATURAL NUMBERS from 1 to 108000. By CHARLES 
 BABBAGE, Esq. Second Edition. Royal Svo. G*. 
 
 THE CONNEXION OF THE PHYSICAL 
 
 SCIENCES. By MARY SOMERVILLE. Sixth Edition. 
 Fcap. Svo, 10*. Grf. 
 
 " The style of this astonishing production is so clear and 
 unaffected, and conveys with so much simplicity so great 
 a mass of profound knowledge, that it should be placed in 
 the hands of every youth the moment he has mastered the 
 general rudiments of education." Quarterly Review. 
 
 THE PROPERTIES' OF THE ELLIPSE, 
 
 Deduced from the Circle, and Geometrically Demon- 
 strated. By the DUKE OF SOMERSET. With 80 Diagrams, 
 Svo, 9*. 6d. 
 
 *** An Edition for Schools, I2mo, 3t. 
 
 %-n. 
 
 PRACTICAL SURVEYING AND SKETCH 
 ING ; for the Use of Young Officers and Others. By G 
 D. BUKR, Esq. 8vo, 10s. Q.-1. 
 
 vnr. 
 
 FACTS TO ASSIST THE MEMORY, I> 
 VARIOUS SCIENCES. Sfeto Edition. Fcap. 8vo, 6. Gd! 
 
 INSTRUCTIONS ON SKETCHING GROUNE 
 WITHOUT INSTRUMENTS. Woodcuts. 8vo, 2s. Gd. 
 
 THE METHODS USED IN POINTING 
 GUNS AT SEA. By CAPT. JOHN HARVEY STKVKNS. Cvo, 3* 
 
 ON NAVAL GUNNERY ; 
 For the Instruction and Examination of Officer?, and fo 
 the Training of Seamen Gunners. By MAJOK-GENEKA 
 SIR HOWARD DOUGLAS. Second Edition. Svo, 15*. 
 
 THE MUSEUM OF ECONOMIC GEOLOGY 
 AND MINING RECORDS OFFICE. By T. SOPWITH, | 
 F.G.S., Commissioner for the Crown under the Dean 
 Forest Mining Act. With Woodcuts, Fcap. Svo, price If. 
 
 BRITISH ASSOCIATION REPORTS. 
 YORK and OXFORD, 1831-32, 13*. 6d. CAMBRIDGE, 1833, 12* 
 EDINBURGH, 1834, 15*. DUBLIN, 183T>, 13*. 6<1. BRISTOL, 
 1833, 12*. LIVERPOOL, 1837, 16*. 6d. NEWCASTLE, 1833, 
 15*. BIRMINGHAM, 1839, 13*. 6d. GLASGOW, 1840, 15*. 
 PLYMOUTH, 1841, 13*. Gd. MANCHESTER, 1842, 10*. (M. 8vo. 
 
 THE USE OF HOT 'AIR IN THE IRON 
 WORKS OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. Trans- 
 lated from M. DUFRENOV, Director-General of Mines in 
 France. With Plates. Svo, as. G<l. 
 
 GENERAL LITERATURE. 
 
 THE JEWESS ; A TALE OF THE BALTIC. 
 
 By A LADY. Second Edition. Portrait. Fcap. Svo, 4*. Gd. 
 
 "So much life an;! reality." Athenaeum. 
 
 "Told in an unaffected manner, and the characters are 
 well drawn." Spectator. 
 
 H. 
 ON THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS 
 
 AND THE INVESTIGATION OF TRUTH. By JOHN 
 ABBRCBOMBIE, M.D. Tenth Edition. Post 8vo. Price St.Gd. 
 
 in. 
 ESSAYS ON THE CONDUCT OF LIFE: 
 
 1. Family Life; 2. Social Lifo ; 3. Studious Life; 4. 
 Active Life; 5. Political Life: C. Moral Life; 7- Reli- 
 gious Life. By GBOKOB LONG, Esq. Post 8vo. 
 
 IV. 
 
 ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE MORAL 
 FEELINGS. By JOHN AI.CKCKOMBIK, M.D. Sixth K<lition. 
 Fcnp. Svo, 5*. 
 
 RESULTS OF READING. 
 
 By J. STAMFOBD CALIJWELL, Esq., M.A., Barnster-at-Law. 
 Svo, 10*. W. 
 
 "The common- place hoolt of an intelligent, well-read 
 man. We cannot imagine more delightful or profitable 
 reading for those whose access to books, or time to devote 
 to them, happens to be limited." Examiner. 
 
 ENGLISH SYNONYMS DISCRIMINATED. 
 By the late WILLIAM TAYLOR, of Norwich. Jfew Edition, 
 revited and augmented. By J. W. ROBBERDS, Esq. Jjvo. 
 In Preparation.
 
 MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF BOOKS. Natural History, &.c. 
 
 11 
 
 HAWKESTONE ; a Tale of and for England 
 the Year 184 2 vols. fcap. Svo. 
 
 LITERARY HISTORY OF EUROPE, 
 
 n the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries. By HENRY HALLAM, 
 Esq. Second Edition. 3 vols. Svo, 36t. 
 
 " To all lovers of literature this work will be acceptable ; 
 o the young, we conceive, invaluable." Quarterly 
 iericiv. 
 
 "The most important contribution to literary Jiistory 
 hich English libraries have received for many years." 
 Edinburgh Review. 
 
 MASSACRE OF BENARES. A Chapter 
 from British Indian History. By J. F. DAVIS, Esq. 
 Fcap. Svo, 3*. 6d. 
 
 " The whole of this spirit-stirring little volume is well 
 entitled to perusal." Naval and Military Gazette. 
 
 AN ESSAY ON THE MORAL NATURE 
 OF MAN. By GEORGE LONO. Post Svo, Gt, 
 
 POLITICS AND STATISTICS. 
 
 PARLIAMENTS AND COUNCILS OF 
 ENGLAND. Chronologically arranged from the Reign 
 f William I. to the Involution in 1688. By CHARLES 
 HENRY PARRY, M.D. Svo, 30*. 
 
 ESSAY ON THE GOVERNMENT OF DE- 
 
 ENDENCIES. ByGEO. CoHNEWALLLEwis,Esq. Svo, 12*. 
 " A masterpiece of lucid arrangement, of logical state- 
 ments, and of vigorous reasoning." Examiner. 
 
 ESSAY ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF 
 WEALTH AND ON SOURCES OF TAXATION. By 
 RICHARD JONES, M.A., Caius College, Cambridge. Second 
 Edition. Post Svo, 7*. Gd. 
 
 REGULATIONS 'oF CURRENCIES, 
 
 and the Working of the New Bank Charter Act. By 
 JOHN FULLARTON, Esq. Second Edition. Svo, 7t. Gd. 
 
 SPEECHES ON THE RENEWAL OF THE 
 
 BANK CHARTER, AND THE STATE OF THK 
 LAW RESPECTING CURRENCY AND BANKING. 
 By Sir ROBERT PEEL. 8vo, 3t. 
 
 ON FINANCIAL REFORM. 
 
 By the late LORD CONGLETON. fourth Edition. 18mo,7*.6rf. 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE MINISTRY AND THE SUGAR 
 DUTIES. Svo. 1*. 6d. 
 
 vnr. 
 PROGRESS AND PRESENT POSITION 
 
 OF RUSSIA IN THE EAST. New Edition, with a Map 
 showing the Encroachments of Russia. Svo, Gs. 
 
 ON NATIONAL EDUCATION. 
 By SARAH AUSTIN. Fcap. Svo, 3*. 6d. 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY AND GEOLOGY. 
 
 NORTH AMERICAN GEOLOGY ; 
 
 With a Journal of a Tour in 1841-2. By CHARLES LYELL, 
 Esq. With Illustrations. 8vo. In Preparation. 
 
 ELEMENTS OF GEOLOGY; 
 
 Or, the Ancient Changes of the Earth and its Inhabitants, 
 considered as Illustrative of Geology. By CHARLES LYELL, 
 F.G.S. Second Edition. Woodcuts, &c. 2 vols. 12mo, 18*. 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF GEOLOGY ; 
 Or, the Modern Changes of the Earth and its Inhabitants, 
 considered as Illustrative of Geology. By CHARLES LYELL, 
 F.G.S. Sixth Edition. Woodcuts, &c. 3 vols. 12mo, 24*. 
 
 " Very interesting and amusing, and should be read by 
 every one who takes an interest in this rising branch of 
 Natural History." Jameson's Journal. 
 
 " A work that supersedes every other on geology." 
 New Monthly Magazine. 
 
 RUSSIA IN EUROPE AND THE URAL 
 MOUNTAINS, Geologically Illustrated. By R. I. MUR- 
 CHISON, President of the Geological Society, M. ED. DB 
 VERNEUIL, and COUNT A. VON KKYSERLIXO. With Map, 
 Tables, Woodcuts, Sections, &c. 4to. Nearly Ready. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE GEOLOGY 
 OF YORKSHIRE. By JOHN PHILLIPS. PART I THE 
 YORKSHIRE COAST. Plates and Map. 4to, I/. 11*. Gd. 
 
 PART II THE MOUNTAIN-LIMESTONE DISTRICT. 
 
 Map and 25 Plates. 4to, 21. 12*. Gd. 
 
 GLEANINGS IN NATURAL HISTORY. 
 By EDWARD JESSE, Esq. With Anecdotes of the Sagacity 
 and Instinct of Animals, and Extracts from the Unpub- 
 lished Journals of GILBERT WHITE, of Selborne. Fifth 
 Edition. Woodcuts. Fcap. Svo, C*. 6rf. 
 
 OUTLINE OF THE GEOLOGY OF THE 
 
 NEIGHBOURHOOD OF CHELTENHAM. ByR.I.MuR- 
 CHISON, Esq., V.P.R.S. A New Edition, augmented and 
 revised by H. E. STRICKLAND, M.A., and JAMES BUCKMAN, 
 F.G.S. With Plates. Svo. 
 
 vnr. 
 
 SCENES AND TALES OF COUNTRY 
 LIFE, with Recollections of Natural History. Second 
 Edition. By EDWARD JKSSK, Esq. Woodcuts. Post Svo, 12*. 
 
 41 One of the most valuable additions that have been 
 recently made to our practical knowledge in the Natural 
 History of our own country ; and were we to follow our own 
 feelings, we should transcribe a very large portion to our 
 pages." Gentleman's Magazine. 
 
 rx. 
 
 JOURNAL OF A NATURALIST. 
 Fourth Edition, with Woodcuts. Post Svo, 9*. Gd. 
 " A book that ought to find its way into every rural 
 drawing-room in the kingdom, and one that may safely be 
 placed in every lady's boudoir." Quarterly Review. 
 
 FIGURES AND DESCRIPTIONS OF 
 BRITISH BELEMNlTES.with Essays on their Geological 
 Distribution. By JOHN PHILLIPS, F.R.S. Part I. Svo, 5*. 
 
 BOTANY FOR LADIES; 
 
 A POPULAR INTRODUCTION to the NATURAL SYSTEM, and 
 CLASSIFICATION of PLANTS. By Mrs. Lot DON. Woodcuts. 
 Fcap. Svo, 8*. 
 
 " To any one who wishes to comprehend the names and 
 nature of plants, this charming volume can be safely re- 
 commended . " Spectator. 
 
 " So treated as to render the subject easily understood 
 by the meanest capacity." Gardeners' Gazette. 
 
 " Much valuable information." Naval and Military 
 Gazette,
 
 12 
 
 Mn. MURRAY'S LIST OF BOOKS. Education, &.c. 
 
 MEDICAL LITERATURE. 
 
 POPULAR ESSAYS AND ORATIONS 
 ON SOME op THE MOST IMPORTANT DISEASES. By SIB 
 HENRY HALFORD, Bart., M.D. Third Edition. Fcap. Sfo, 
 Gt. Gd. 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE. 
 With an Accouot of the best Places of Resort for Invalids. 
 By SIR JAMES CLAKK, Bart., M.D. Third Edition, revised. 
 PostSvo, 10*. Gd. 
 
 PRACTICAL ESSAYS. 
 
 Contents: Powers of Life to Sustain Surgical Opera- 
 tions Different Effects of Bleeding Squinting, and the 
 Remedy Tio-Douloureux Nerves of Inspiration 
 Powers circulating the Blood Diseases of the Spine. 
 By Sir CHARLES BELL, K.il. 2 Parts, Ovo, 12*. Gd. 
 
 ELEMENTS OF THE PATHOLOGY OP' 
 THE HUMAN MIND. By THOMAS MAYO, M.D. Fcap. 
 8vo. 5*. Gd. 
 
 v. 
 
 ON DISEASES OF THE STOMACH. 
 
 By JOHN AHEHCKOMBIE, M.D. Third Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 6 
 
 VI. 
 
 ON THE MOST IMPORTANT DISEASES 
 PECULIAR TO WOMEN. By the late ROBERT GOOCH 
 M.D. Second Edition. 8vo, 12*. 
 
 VII. 
 
 ESSAYS ON THE MOST IMPORTANlj 
 DISEASES OF WOMEN. By ROBERT FERGUSON, M.Da 
 Post 8vo, 9*. 6d. 
 
 WORKS OF INSTRUCTION AND ENTERTAINMENT 
 FOR THE YOUNG. 
 
 MRS. MARKHAM'S HISTORY OF ENG- 
 LAND, from the First Invasion , by the Romans, to the 
 Accession of Queen VICTORIA. For the Use of Young 
 Persons. Eleventh Edition. Woodcuts. 12mo, Is. Gd. 
 
 MRS. MARKHAM'S HISTORY OF FRANCE, 
 from the Conquest of Gaul by Julius Csesar, to the Reign 
 of Louis-Philippe. For the Use of Young Persons. Sixth 
 Edition. Woodcuts. 12mo. 7s. 6d. 
 
 "These works are constructed on a plan which is novel 
 and we think well chosen, and we are glad to find that 
 they are deservedly popular, for they cannot be too strongly 
 recommended, as adapted for the perusal of youth." 
 Journal of Education. 
 
 nr. 
 SCRIPTURE GEOGRAPHY FOR SCHOOLS 
 
 AND YOUNG PERSONS. By Rev. EDW. ROBINSON, D.D., 
 author of " Biblical Researches in tlie Holy Land." 12mo. 
 In preparation. 
 
 BERTHA'S JOURNAL DURING A VISIT 
 
 TO HER UNCLE IN ENGLAND. Comprising a variety 
 of Interesting Information, arranged for every Day in the 
 Year. Fifth Edition. 12mo, 7*.6d. 
 
 " I am reading ' Bertha ' with the utmost avidity. I can 
 scarcely take my attention from this, the best of all juve- 
 nile compilations." Rev. George Crabbe. 
 
 " An excellent little work." Capt. Basil Hall. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY IN SPORT MADE SCIENCE 
 
 IN EARNEST ; or the First Principles of Natural Philo- 
 sophy inculcated by Aid of the ordinary Toys and Sports of 
 Youth. Fifth Edition. Woodcuts. Fcap. 8vo, 8*. 
 
 " We know of no other book which so charmingly blends 
 amusement with instruction. No juvenile book has been 
 published in our time more entitled to praise." Examiner. 
 
 LITTLE ARTHUR'S* HISTORY OF ENG- 
 LAND. By the late Lady CALLCOTT. Seventh Edition. 
 Woodcuts. 18 mo, 3t. 
 
 "This little History was written fora real little Arthur, 
 and I have endeavoured to write it as I would tell it to an 
 intelligent child. 1 well remember what I wanted to be 
 told myself in addition to what I found in my lesson- 
 books when first allowed to read the History of England." 
 Author's Preface. 
 
 " Lady Callcott's style is of the right kind j earnest and 
 simple." Examiner. 
 
 VII. 
 
 STORIES FROM THE HISTORY OF 
 ENGLAND, FOR CHILDREN. 27i irteenlh Edit. 18mo,3. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 ADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. By Sir ROBERT P&EUJ 
 Seventh Edition. Fcap. 8vo, 2*. Gd. 
 
 IX. 
 
 ELEMENTS OF GEOGRAPHY FOBS 
 CHILDREN. By the Author of " STORIES FOB CHILDREN.*!! 
 Third Edition. 12mo, 2s. 
 
 GOSPEL STORIES. 
 
 An Attempt to render the Chief Events of the Life of 
 Our Saviour intelligent and profitable to Young Children. 
 Second Edition. 18mo, 3*. Gd. 
 
 PUSS IN 'BOOTS; 
 
 Suited to the tastes of Little and Grown Children. By 
 OTTO SPECKTBR. With 12 Illustrations. 4to, 7s. G<1. 
 
 "Twelve designs full of excellent humour." Examiner. 
 
 " Not mere sketches, but complete pictures, and tell the 
 story with dramatic force." Spectator. 
 
 " These designs tell the story excellently well." 
 Athenaeum. 
 
 "A book for kindly remembrances." Literary Gazette. 
 
 YEAR BOOK OF NATURAL HISTORY, 
 
 FOR YOUNG PERSONS, Arranged for each Month. By 
 Mrs. LOUDON. With 40 Woodcuts. 18mo, 4*. 
 
 " It must be agreeable to many parents to know that 
 Mrs. London has begun to apply her excellent talents and 
 extensive knowledge of natural history, to the service of 
 the young. This is the first volume she has given to the 
 juvenile world, and it is a very delightful one." 
 Chambers' Edinburgh Journal. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE LATE WAR : 
 
 With Sketches of Nelson, Wellington, and Napoleon ; in the 
 style of" STORIES FOR CHILDREN." 18mo, Zs. Gd. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 GARRY OWEN ; on, THE SNOW WOMAN 
 
 AND POOR BOB THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPER. By 
 MARIA EDGEWORTH. Woodcuts. 2*. Gd. 
 
 " These tales display the same interest and truth to na- 
 ture which have raised Miss Edgeworth to the head of all 
 writers for children." Westminster Review. 
 
 SENTENCES FROM THE PROVERBS, 
 
 in English, French, Italian, and German. For the daily Use 
 of Young Persons. By a LADY. ICmo, 3*. Gd. 
 
 "The design of this volume is excellent." Atlas. 
 
 "An excellent design." Literary Gaxette.
 
 MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF BOOKS. Domestic Economy. 
 
 13 
 
 DOMESTIC AND RURAL ECONOMY. 
 
 < DOMESTIC COOKERY ; 
 
 A new system, suited to the present advanced state of the 
 art, but founded upon principles of economy and practical 
 knowledge, and adapted to the use of Private Families. 
 By a LADY (Mrs. RUNDELL). The ffjth Edition, im- 
 proved by the addition 0/900 new Receipts, and a Chap- 
 ter on Indian Cookery. By EMMA ROBERTS. Fcap. Svo, 6*. 
 
 ** Of this icork 310,000 copies have been sold. 
 
 " One of the most practically useful books we have seen 
 on the subject." British Critic. 
 
 " This is the sixty. seventh edition of the celebrated 
 work of Mrs. Rundell, which has now so long been the 
 standard work of reference in every private family in 
 English Society. The new edition has been committed to 
 a lady well versed in the art of cookery, and large addi- 
 tions have been made, consistent with the spirit which 
 gave popularity to the \\oi\i." Worcestershire Guardian. 
 
 " This work was originally compiled by Mrs. Rundell, 
 solely for the use of her own daughters, but, like other 
 good works, it was not destined long to be under a 
 bushel, and she accepted 2000 guineas from Mr. Murray, 
 and gave her receipts to the public." Hull Advertiser. 
 
 A very neat edition of this popular cookery-book, ren- 
 dered a complete guide for modern cooks by the addition 
 of nearly a thousand receipts, suited to the present ad- 
 vanced state of the art." Derby Reporter. 
 
 " This is a new edition, being the sixty-seventh, and 
 still it is called a new system, and justly so, for in point of 
 excellence as to cookery, and economy in expenditure, it 
 leaves no room to any rival. The present editor has 
 added nearly 1000 entirely new receipts, given in a plain, 
 concise, and explicit manner." Keane's Oath Journal. 
 
 "Another edition of this well-known and generally- 
 admitted very useful book has just issued from the press. 
 No housekeeper ought to be without this book, which is 
 adapted to every grade of society the rich, the middle 
 classes, and the poor." Durham Adnertiser. 
 
 " Some time bark we noticed a .fifty-eighth edition of 
 Mrs. Rundell's excellent SVSTKM OK DOMKSTIC COOKERY. 
 We have now received the sixty- seventh a statement 
 which is, we presume, sufficient in itself to refute the 
 assertion of Dr. Johnson, that, although 'women can spin 
 very well, they cannot write a book of cookery.' The 
 editress of the present edition has added numerous 
 receipts, which have imparted to the original work all the 
 improvement of which it was capable." Brighton Gazette. 
 
 FAMILY RECEIPT-BOOK ; 
 
 A Collection of more than a Thousand truly valuable 
 Receipts in various Branches of Domestic Economy. New 
 Edition. Fcap. 8vo, 5*. 6d. 
 
 " A larger quantity of truly valuable mat'er than any 
 book of the same kind ever contained." British Critic. 
 
 "There are few things which the reader can seek for on 
 which he will not find some useful information." Monthly 
 Review. 
 
 FRENCH COOKERY. 
 
 By M. CAREME, some time Chief of the Kitchen to his 
 Majesty George IV. Translated by WILLIAM HALL. 
 Second Edition. With 73 Plates, 8vo, 15*. 
 
 MY KNITTING-BOOK. 
 
 Containing Examples selected with the greatest care, and 
 arranged so as to render them easy to a Novice in the Art. 
 By Miss LAMBERT. Fourth Edition. IGmo, 1*. 6W. 
 
 MY CROCHET SAMPLER ; being New and 
 Choice Examples of Crochet, arranged with the greatest 
 care. By Miss LAMBERT. Second Edition. Woodcuts. 
 ICmo. 2s. Od. 
 
 GARDENING FOR LADIES. 
 
 Practical Instructions and Directions for every Month 
 in the Year ; with a Calendar of Operations. By Mrs. 
 Loi'DON. Sixth Edition. Woodcuts. Fcap. 8vo. 6*. 
 
 " This charming little book ought to find its way into 
 every cottage and mansion in the country." Atlas. 
 
 "Thoroughly practical, and distinguished by great good 
 sense." Gloucester Chronicle. 
 
 " A most valuable little book." Bar A Chronicle. 
 
 " Mrs. Loudon's little volume fulfils every promise, and 
 is a perfect vade mecum of the art in all its branches." 
 Literary Gazette. 
 
 " Mrs. Loudon (the wife of the celebrated writer) has 
 written a most useful and agreeable Manual for Ladies on 
 Gardening, which cannot be too extensively known." 
 Salopian Journal. 
 
 " Written with such simple eloquence and truth, it is 
 enough to make one fall in love with gardening and 
 flowers. 1 ' Dublin Monitor. 
 
 " This volume is a faithful and intelligent guide. Mrs. 
 Loudon gives the result of ten years' instructions by her 
 husband, the well-known horticulturist; and her work is 
 consequently the fruit of long practice and experience." 
 Edinburyh Evening Post. 
 
 HAND-BOOK OF NEEDLEWORK. 
 A Complete Guide to every Kind of Decorative Needle- 
 work, Crochet, Knitting, and Netting, with a brief 
 Historical Account of each Art, By Miss LAMBERT. 
 Fourth Edition. With 115 Woodcuts. Post 8vo, 10*. ed. 
 
 " We recommend it as containing a great deal of prac- 
 tical information. The historical portion is gracefully and 
 well written, and the work is instructive and amusing." 
 Athenaeum. 
 
 " The most curious, complete, and erudite treatise on 
 the art of needle-work that has, probably, ever been com- 
 piled." Atlas. 
 
 "An eminently practical work ; clear in its explanations, 
 precise in its directions, natural in its arrangements." 
 Polytechnic^Review. 
 
 CHURCH NEEDLEWORK. With Practical 
 Remarks on its Preparation and Arrangement. By Miss 
 LAMBERT. With numerous Engravings. Post 8vo, 9*. 6d- 
 
 " A book on a good subject, full of instruction and inte. 
 rest." Cambridge Chronicle. 
 
 " Worthy of a place in every Christian gentleman's 
 library." Oxford Herald. 
 
 FARMING FOR LADIES. 
 
 Plain Instructions for Rearing all Sorts of Domestic Poul- 
 try ; with the best Mode of Managing the Dairy and Pig- 
 gery. By the Author of " British Husbandry." Woodcuts. 
 Fcap. 8vo, 8*. 
 
 " A beautifully got up little work, containing a variety 
 of useful and interesting matter, and forming an excellent 
 guide to the poultry-yard, dairy, and piggery. 1 ' Derby 
 Reporter. 
 
 " A very interesting little volume, abounding with most 
 valuable hints in every branch of domestic economy." 
 Reading Mercury. 
 
 " This substantial guide to the poultry-yard, the dairy, 
 and the piggery, is neither intended for the mere cottager 
 nor for persons of large fortune, but for those ladies in the 
 middle ranks of life who study healthful domestic economy, 
 either for the pleasure or the profit which it affords. The 
 volume is appropriately preceded by two illustrations of 
 HER MAJKSTI'S POULTRY-YARD. We cordially welcome 
 the volume. 1 ' Newcastle Journal. 
 
 " A truly excellent book, produced in the best possible 
 style. It is full of information." Naval and Military 
 Gazette.
 
 MR. MURRAY'S LIST OF BOOKS. Sporting, 
 
 SPORTING. 
 
 ART OF DEER-STALKING ; Illustrated by a 
 Narrative of a few Days' Sport in the Forest of Atholl ; with 
 some Account of the Nature and Habits of the Reed Der.and 
 a short Description of the Scottish Forests, Legends, Super- 
 stitions, Stories of Poachers, Freebooters, &c. By WILLIAM 
 SCROPE, F.L.S. Plates by LANDSEEB. Second Edition. 
 Hoyal Svo, 21. 2*. 
 
 " Brief and imperfect as the preceding abstract is, we 
 think that it will fully justify the high praise we have be- 
 stowed on this work, and induce our readers to sit down to 
 the luxurious repast from which we have risen." 
 Edinburgh Review. 
 
 " Has all the charm of an autobiography, combined 
 with that of a series of excellent unaffected lectures on the 
 science of the chase." Quarterly Review. 
 
 ii. 
 ' DAYS AND NIGHTS OF SALMON FISHING 
 
 in the Tweed, with a short Account of the Natural History 
 and Habits of the Salmon. By WILLIAM SCROPE, Esq., F.L.S. 
 With Plates by WJLKIE, LAAUSLBK, SIMSON, and COOKK. 
 Royal 8vo, 42*. 
 
 THE CHASE TURF AND THE ROAD. 
 
 By NIMROD. Second Edition, with Plates by ALKEN and 
 GILBERT. Post 8vo, 9*. Gd. 
 
 MAXIMS AND HINTS ON ANGLING, 
 CHESS, SHOOTING, AND OTHER MATTERS. 
 By RICHARD PENN, F.R.S. Second Edition. With 24 Plates. 
 Fcap. 8vo, 5*. 
 
 "They have the air of novelty, and charm by their preg. 
 nant brevity, sly sarcasm, and oily raciness." Quarterly 
 Review. 
 
 v. 
 
 THE MOOR AND THE LOCH; with Prac- 
 tical Hints on Highland Sports, and the Habits of the 
 Different Creatures of Game and Prey ; with Instructions 
 in River, Burn, and Loch Fishing. By JOHN COLQUHOUN.- 
 Second Edition, with Plates. 8vo, 9*. 6d. 
 
 "Devoted to the sports of the Highland hills, and with, 
 a treatment worthy of the subject."- Examiner. 
 
 "Unpretending, clear, and practical, and does honour 
 to the ' parent lake.' The book breathes of the mountain^ 
 and the flood, and will carry the sportsman back to the 
 days of his youth." Quarterly Review. 
 
 AGRICULTURE, FARMING, &c. 
 
 BRITISH FARMER'S ACCOUNT-BOOK. 
 
 Arranged on a New and Kasy Method. By the Author 
 of "British Husbandry." 4lo, 10*. 
 
 MUCK MANUAL FOR FARMERS. 
 A Treatise on the Nature and Value of Animal and Vege- 
 table Manure*. By F. FALKNER, Esq. Fcap. 8vo, 6*. Gd. 
 
 " A very useful book." Lord Palmerstun. 
 
 " A valuable work for farmers ; in which the materials, 
 character, and elements of farm-yard manure, are laid 
 down in a forcible manner." British. Farmer's Magazine. 
 
 " Will be read with avidity for its valuable information." 
 Farmer's Herald. 
 
 " Addressed to the practical fanner, and written as such 
 books ought to be." Dell's Messenger. 
 
 " Of great value, and ought to be the pocket-companion 
 of every iaimer." Derbyshire Courier. 
 
 LAND DRAINAGE, SUBSOIL PLOUGHING, 
 AND IRRIGATION. By the Author of "British Hus. 
 bandry." Second Edition. 8vo, Us. 
 
 THE AGRICULTURAL CLASSES OF 
 GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND; with Extracts from, 
 the Parliamentary Reports and Evidence, from 1833 to 
 1840. With Preface by HENRY DKUMMOND, Esq. 2 vols. 
 8vo, 2U. 
 
 THE AGRICULTURAL CLASSES, with 
 Reference more especially to their Education, and the 
 College proposed to be founded near Cirencester. By 
 CHARLES DAUBENV, M.D ilvu. 
 
 PEASANTRY OF THE BORDER. 
 
 An Appeal in their Behalf. By W. S. GILLV.D.D. Second 
 Edition: Plans, Estimates, &c. 8vo, is. 
 
 PERIODICALS. 
 
 QUARTERLY REVIEW. 
 
 8vo, 6*. 
 
 HART'S ARMY LIST. 
 
 Compiled from Official and other authentic Documents, 
 with the Dates of Commissions, War Services, and Wounds 
 of nearly every Officer. 8vo. Published Quarterly. 
 
 "A well-compiled and most useful work, not merely to 
 the profession, but to the public." Athentsum. 
 
 HI. 
 HART'S ANNUAL ARMY LIST. 
 
 UVO. 20*. 
 
 THE ROYAL NAVY LIST. 
 
 Published Quarterly, by order (>/ the Lords Commit- 
 tionert o/ the Admiralty. 2t. 
 
 THE NAUTICAL ALMANACK. 
 
 Considerably Enlarged and Improved. Published by Order 
 of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. 18-17. 5*. 
 
 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHI. 
 CAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 8vo,3*. 6d. 
 
 JOURNAL OP THE ROYAL AGRICUL- 
 TURAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 8vo, fi*. 
 
 THE HOME AND COLONIAL LIBRARY. 
 
 ublished Monthly. Pubt Ovo, 2s. 6d.
 
 MB. MURRAY'S LIST OF BOOKS. Por all Classes, 
 
 15 
 
 THE COLONIAL AND HOME LIBKARY. 
 
 [PUBLISHED MONTHLY.] 
 
 THE main object of this undertaking is to furnish the 
 inhabitants of Great Britain and her Colonies with the 
 highest Literature of the day, consisting partly of original 
 \Vorks, partly of new editions of popular Publications, at 
 the lowest possible price. It is called for in consequence 
 of the Acts which have recently passed the British Parlia- 
 ment for the protection of the rights of British authors and 
 publishers, by the rigid and entire exclusion of foreign 
 pirated editions. In order, therefore, that the highly in- 
 telligent and educated population of our Colonies may not 
 suffer from the withdrawal of their accustomed supplies of 
 books, and with a view to obviate the complaint, that a 
 check might in consequence be raised to their intellectual 
 advancement, Mr. Murray has determined to publish a 
 
 series of attractive and useful works, by approved authors, 
 at a rate which shall place them within reach of the means 
 not only of the colonists, but also of a large portion of the 
 less wealthy classes at home, who will thus benefit by the 
 widening of the market for our literature and the "Colo- 
 nial Library " will, consequently, be so conducted that it 
 may claim to be considered as a " Library for the Empire." 
 
 The series of Works designed to appear in Mr. Murray's 
 " Colonial and Home Library," will be selected for their 
 acknowledged merit, and will be exclusively such as are 
 calculated to please the most extensive circles of readers. 
 They will be printed most' carefully, in a superior style, 
 and on good paper. 
 
 THE FOLLOWING WORKS HAVE ALREADY BEEN PUBLISHED. 
 
 Nos. 1 and 2. 
 
 BORROWS BIBLE IN SPAIN. 
 
 " As a book of adventures the most extraordinary one 
 which has appeared for a long time past. We are fre- 
 quently reminded of Gil Bias." Quarterly Review. 
 
 "There is no taking leave of a book like this: better 
 fare we never had it in our power to offer our readers." 
 Atltenceum. 
 
 " Borrow's odd, amusing, and instructive work." 
 Cambridge Chronicle. 
 
 Nos. 3 to 6. 
 BISHOP HEBER'S JOURNAL IN INDIA. 
 
 "The most perfectly charming book we ever read." 
 Examiner. 
 
 " One of the most delightful books in the language." 
 Quarterly Review. 
 
 " Delightful contributions, full of benevolent feeling, 
 and varied and gratifying details of official labours." 
 Evangelical Magazine. 
 
 No. 7. 
 
 IRBY AND MANGLES' TRAVELS IN 
 
 THE EAST. 
 
 "One of the most interesting and popular works of the 
 present century." Aberdeen Journal. 
 
 " We look upon this to be by far the most welcome of 
 the series. Irby and Mangles' interesting Travels was 
 almost from the first a sealed book, and never very gene- 
 rally known : those who were admitted to its pages, prized 
 it highly.' Literary Gazette. 
 
 " The observations of well-informed men of the world 
 on the antiquities of Egypt, and the social, moral, and 
 religious condition of the people of the East." Glasguw 
 Courier. 
 
 No. 8. 
 DRINKWATER'S SIEGE OF GIBRALTAR. 
 
 " A book so replete with interest and information as to 
 be truly a legend of the United Services of its day." 
 United Seraice Magazine. 
 
 " Mr. Murray has conferred a public benefit by selecting 
 this narrative for an early Number in his acceptable series. 
 The siege itself was one of the most remarkable that ever 
 happened in the world since the siege of Troy." Lite- 
 rary Gazette. 
 
 No. 9. 
 DRUMMOND HAY'S MOROCCO AND 
 
 THE MOOKS. 
 
 " These Sketches are singularly graphic and interesting. 
 The Author rides among the wild people, encamps with 
 them, and listens to the strange tales of mighty robbers or 
 daring exploits with wild beasts." Cheltenham Chronicle. 
 
 " A new and highly interesting work, for which Mr. 
 Alurray would have been entitled to charge two or three 
 
 ineas were its contents spread over a couple of 4to 
 "es, as they might easily have been done." Greenuck 
 
 No. 10. 
 
 LETTERS FROM THE SHORES OF THE 
 BALTIC. 
 
 " A series of charming descriptions ; the style full of 
 ease and freshness." Examiner. 
 
 " ' Familiar Letters' by a young and beautiful and witty 
 English spinster, whose work will cause a sensation hardly 
 inferior to that which attended the bursting of the ' Old 
 Man's Bruunen Bubbles.'" Quarterly Review. 
 
 No. 11. 
 THE AMBER WITCH. 
 
 "We have read nothing in fiction or in history, which 
 has so completely rivetted and absorbed our interest as 
 this little volume. If it be a fiction, it is worthy we can, 
 give no higher praise of De Foe." Quarterly Review. 
 
 " Possesses all the lively interest of a romance, and all 
 the external evidences of a truthful narrative. It is a 
 singular story indeed, antiquated in dialogue, and terse 
 and vigorous in description.'* Yorkshiremun. 
 
 No. 12. 
 
 SOUTHEYS CROMWELL AND BUNYAN. 
 
 " Models of what biography ought to be ; embracing all 
 the facts in the lives of their respective subjects that can 
 be of any interest." Dublin Freeman's Journal. 
 
 "Southey's admirably written lives." Yorkthireman, 
 
 No. 13. 
 
 NEW SOUTH WALES. Described in letters 
 written Home. By a LADY. 
 
 " Mrs. Meredith is a pleasant unaffected writer ; and 
 the book derives interest from being a lady's view of 
 New South Wales." Spectator. 
 
 " A pleasantly written account of one of our most im- 
 portant colonies, by a lady who resided there for some 
 years, and who, to strong and shrewd observation, adds 
 the merit of recording her first impressions with a fidelity 
 and simplicity rarely found in this book-making age." 
 Newcastle Courant. 
 
 No. 14. 
 
 BARROW'S LIFE OF SIR FRANCIS 
 DRAKE. 
 
 " The interesting and instructive volume with which 
 Mr. Barrow has enriched our biographical literature." 
 Edinburgh Review. 
 
 No. 15. 
 
 MEMOIRS OF FATHER RIPA, 
 
 During TUIKTEEN YEARS' RJSSIDKNCE at the COURT OF 
 PEKIN. Translated from the Italian. By FOUTCNATO 
 PRANDI, Esq. 
 
 antf Original 2f0rlu in preparation. 
 
 -ORD CLIVE. Bv J. G. LOCKHART, Esq.) STORY OF THE BATTLE OP WATERLOO. 
 tDGEHALL. BY WASUiSG'lXOJ HIVING, j LIFE OF THE GREAT CONDE'. BvLORDMAHON
 
 ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF NAMES, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ABERCROMBIE'B (Dr.) Works . . 10 
 
 on the Stomach . 12 
 
 Agricultural Journal . . . . 14 
 
 Amber Witch . . -15 
 
 Austin on Education . . . 11 
 
 German Prose Writers 8 
 
 BABBAGE'S (Chas.) Works . . . 10 
 
 Barrow's Tour in Lombardy . . 6 
 
 Life of Drake . . . 15 
 Bell on Expression . . . .10 
 
 Practical Essays . . . 12 
 
 (Dr.) Life of. ... 2 
 Bentley's Correspondence . . . 2 
 Bertha's Journal . . . . 12 
 Bjornstjerna on the Hindoos . . 3 
 Blunt's (Kev. J. J.) Works . . 4 
 Sorrow's Gypsies of Spain . . 6 
 
 Bible in Spain . 6 & 15 
 Brewster's Martyrs of Science . . 2 
 British Association Reports . .10 
 Brogden's Catholic Safeguards . . 3 
 
 Liturgy and K itual . 3 
 Bubbles from Brunnen of Nassau 6 
 Burnes' (Sir A.) Travels . . 4 
 Burr on Practical Surveying . . 10 
 Buttman's Lexilogus & Greek Verbs 9 
 
 Byron's (Lord) Works 
 
 Life and Letters 
 
 CALDWBLL'S Results of Reading . 10 
 
 Campbell's British 1'oets 
 
 Canada, by a Backwoodsman . . 6 
 
 Careme's French Cookery . . 13 
 
 Carmichael's Greek Verbs . . 9 
 
 Carnarvon's Portugal, &c. . . 6 
 
 Clark (Sir James) on Climate , . 12 
 
 Coleridge's Greek Classic Poets . 9 
 
 Colonial and Home Library . .15 
 
 Colquhoun's Moor and Loch . .14 
 
 Conybeare's Sermons . . .3 
 
 Crabbe's Poetical Works . . 8 
 
 Life. By his Son . . 2 
 
 Cunningham's Life of Wilkie . . 2 
 
 DATES and Distances . . .6 
 
 Daubeny on Agricultural Classes . 14 
 
 Davis' Benares . . H 
 
 Dibdin's Naval Songs . . . 8 
 
 Dieffenbach's New Zealand . .5 
 
 Domestic Cookery . . . . 13 
 
 Douglas on Naval Gunnery . . 10 
 
 Drinkwater's Siege of Gibraltar . 15 
 
 Drummond's Agricultural Classes . 14 
 
 Dudley's (Lord) Letters . . . 2 
 
 Dufrenoy on Hot Air . . . 10 
 
 KLDON (Lor.D) Lifoof . . 2 
 
 Elphinstone's History of India . 1 
 
 Exeter's ( Bishop of) Sermons . . 3 
 
 Eyre's Afghanistan . . .4 
 
 FACTS in Various Sciences . .10 
 
 Family Receipt Book . . .13 
 Faraday's Chemical Manipulation . 10 
 
 Fanner's Account Hook . . .14 
 
 Farming lor Ladies . . . . 13 
 
 !( atherstonhaugh's America . . G 
 
 Fellows' (Charles) Travels . . 5 
 
 Ferguson on Diseases of Women . 12 
 
 Fullarton on Currencies . . 11 
 
 !: ,U'HICAL (The) Journal . 14 
 
 Giffard's Ionian Islands . . . 6 
 
 Gilly's Peasantry of the Border . 14 
 Godley's Canada .... 6 
 
 Gooch on Diseases of Women . .12 
 
 Grant's Nestorian Christians . 4 
 
 Greenhow's Oregon . .6 
 Grosvenor's (Lady) Yacht Voyage 6 
 Gruner's Frescoes . . . \. 8 
 
 IlAi.ronD'8 Popular Essays . .10 
 
 llallam's England . . . . 1 
 
 Literature of Europe . . 1 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Hamilton's Hindostan . . . 
 
 Asia Minor . 
 
 Aristophanes . . . 
 Hand-books for Travellers . . . 
 Hawkestone . . . 1 
 Hay's Morocco and the Moors . 1 
 Hill's Slave Ship .... 
 
 (Lord) Life .... 
 
 (Richard) Correspondence . 
 Holland's Psalms . . . . '4 
 Houstoun's Texas ... .6 
 Hart's Army List . . . . 14 
 Hase's Ancient Greeks . .9 
 Head's Pampas . . . . . 
 
 Bubbles from Nassau . 6 
 
 Forest Scenes . . . 
 
 Home Tour . .6 
 Heber's (Bishop) Sermons . . 3 
 
 Journal in India . 15 
 
 Poetical Works . . 8 
 
 Hymns . . .3 
 Heilner's German Grammar . . 9 
 IRBY and MANGLES* Travels . . 15 
 JAMIESON'S Legends of Saints . 10 
 
 Public Galleries . . 7 
 Japan in the Nineteenth Century . 4 
 Jesse's Natural History . . .11 
 
 Country Life . . .11 
 Jewess (the), a Tale . . . . 10 
 Jocelyn's (Lord) China . . .4 
 Jones on Wealth . . . .11 
 Josiah, History of . . . . 4 
 Journal of a Naturalist . . .11 
 Jukes's Newfoundland . . . 6 
 KINNEAR'S Cairo, Petra, (.Vc. . 5 
 Knight's Tour in Normandy . . 6 
 LABORDE'S Arabia Petraea . . 3 
 Lambert's Needlework, &c. . . 13 
 Land Drainage, Subsoil, &c. . . H 
 Lappenberg's England . . .1 
 Latin Grammar . . . 9 
 Letters from Madras . ... 4 
 
 the Baltic . . . 15 
 Lewis's Government Dependencies 9 
 
 Romance Language . . 8 
 
 Provincial Glossary . . 7 
 Lindsay's Lectures . . .3 
 Little Arthur's History of England 12 
 
 Loch's China 4 
 
 Lockhart's Life of Burns . . . 2 
 
 Spanish Ballads . . 8 
 
 History of the late War 1 2 
 
 Long's Essays 10 
 
 Loudon's Gardening for Ladies . 13 
 
 Modern Botany . . .13 
 
 Natural History . . 13 
 Lowe's (Sir Hudson) Memoirs . 2 
 Lushington's Journey from India . 4 
 Lyell's Principles of Geology . .11 
 
 Elements of Geology . .11 
 
 American Tour . . .11 
 MAHON'S (LORD) ENGLAND . . 1 
 
 Life of Bdisarius . . 2 
 
 Court of .Sp:-.in . . 1 
 
 War of tUe Succession . 1 
 Manning On the Church, &c. . 3 
 Markham's (Mrs.) England . . 12 
 
 France . .12 
 Marlborough Despatches . . 1 
 Matthiso's Greek Grammars . . 9 
 Maw's Journey down the Maranon (i 
 Mayo on the Human Mind . . 15 
 Memoirs of Father Ripa . . .15 
 Meredith's New South Wales . 15 
 Milford's Norway .... 6 
 Milmun's Christianity . . . 1 
 
 Gibbon . . . . 1 
 
 Poetical "Works . . 8 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Mihnan's Life of Gibbon . . . 2 
 Mitchell's Plays of Aristophanes . 9 
 Moorcroft and Trebeck . . .4 
 Moore's Life of Byron . . . 2 
 Muck Manual for Fanners . . 14 
 Muller's Dorians . . . . 18 
 Murchison's Geology of Russia . 1 1 
 Cheltenham 11 
 NAUTICAL (The) Almanack . . 14 
 Navy (The) List . . . . 14 
 Newbold's Malacca . . 
 
 Nimrod on the Chase, &c. . . 1- ' 
 OXENHAM'S LATIN ELEGIACS . t 
 PARIS' Pyrenees . . . ( 
 
 Parnell on Finance . . . . 1 . 
 PARRY'S Parliaments . . . 1 ' 
 Pashley's Crete ..... 
 Peel's (Sir R.) Address to Students IT 
 Speeches . 13 
 
 Peile's ^Eschylus . . . . I 
 Pennington on the Greek . . f 
 Penn's Maxims and Hints . 14 
 Phillips' Belemnites . . ..11 
 
 Geology of Yorkshire . .' 
 Philosophy in Sport . . .10 
 Powell's Latin Grammar . . 9 
 Prayer- Book Illuminated . . 3 
 Progress of Russia in the East . 1 1 
 Progressive Geography . . . 12 
 
 Puss in Boots 12 
 
 QUARTERLY Review . . .14 
 RANKK'S Popes of Rome . . 1 
 Reeve's Characteristics of Painters 8 
 
 and Taylor's Translations 8 
 Rejected (The) Addresses . . 8 
 Hide to Florence . . . . fi 
 Robertsons' South America . . k 
 Robinson's Biblical Researches . 3 
 
 Scripture Geography . 12 
 Romilly's (Sir Samuel) Life . . 2 
 Ross's (Sir James) Voyage . . 5 
 Rundell's Domestic Cookery . 1.3 
 Sale's (Lady) Journal . .4 
 Scrope on Deer Stalking . . . 14 
 
 Salmon Fishing . .14 
 Sentences from the Proverbs . .12 
 Sewell's Evidences of Christianity . 3 
 
 Stisted's Italy (J 
 
 Smith's (Miss Elizabeth) Fragments 8 
 
 ( Dr. W.) Life ... 2 
 Somerset on the Ellipse . . . 10 
 Somerville on Science . . .10 
 Sopwith's Mining Museum . . 10 
 Southey's Book of the Church . . 3 
 
 Cromwell and Bunyan . 15 
 
 Life of Dr. Bell . . 2 
 State Papers (The) . . . 1 
 Stephens' Central America . . 5 
 Sterling's Russia . . . . 6 
 Sevens on Pointing Guns . . 10 
 Stories from History of England . 12 
 
 the Gospels . .12 
 Sydenham's (Lord) Memoirs . . 2 
 TAYLOR'S Italy . . . . . 6 
 
 Memoirs . . .2 
 
 Synonyms . . .10 
 Twiss's Life of Elclon . .2 
 V I:\AIII.KS' Russia . . . . (! 
 WATT'S (James) Life . . . . 2 
 Wilberforce on Church Courts, c. 3 
 Wilkiu's (Sir David; Lifo . , 2 
 Wilkinson's Egypt . . . 5 
 YVilliums's Homerus . .8 
 Wood's Source of the Oxus . . 
 Wordsworth's Athens 
 
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