he distinctly said, 'My daughter! my daughter!' which was understood 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 instrument-according to all appearances a large sabre, wielded by a practised hand.

The 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 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 therefore 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 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 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 conclude 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 outsido 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 motive of the deed.

Something, it was hoped, would be learned from the wounded man himself when he should have recovered 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! 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 induce 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 questions were again put to him, he distinctly repeated the words Schmidt-woodcutter.' The judge ordered that an officer of the court should be in constant 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 negative.

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 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 formerly 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 investigation 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 accordingly 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 appearances that the wounded man was in possession of his faculties, desired him to remember that when asked about his wound he had always mentioned a name in connexion with it, told him that the commission 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 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 Schütt, or the Most, Rupprecht was silent. At last, when asked whether Schmidt lived on the Hohes Pflaster, he distinctly answered 'Yes.' Hereupon he sunk into a state of stupor, and the inquiry had to be postponed.

6

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 notwithstanding the alarming condition of the wounded man, they were severally

taken to his bedside, 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 appeared 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 Christopher! how ill you have been served-poor fellow, many's the good feast we have had together. He must have owed you a powerful grudge who could serve you so.' He likewise called to him repeatedly, 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, Because 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 staid 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 11th February), Rupprecht died, without having recovered his speech or consciousness.

Meanwhile suspicion strengthened against Abraham Schmidt. The police handed the hatchets belonging to the three suspected men into the court, and that of Abraham Schmidt was spotted apparently with blood. On his examination he stated he was about six-and-thirty, a Lutheran, and the son of a nailmaker, and that he had at first learned the trade of pinmaking, but that finding it insufficient for his support, 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 perfectly innocent of the murder of Rupprecht, whom he had neither known nor seen. Whenever he was questioned as to where he was on Friday evening at the time of the murder, he invariably involved himself in contradictions. 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 recognised 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 my life.' 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 stepmother, 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 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 recollection 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.

6

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 motherin-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 the 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 the court with her. The woman in whose house the Schmidts had lived confirmed this statement in every particular. 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 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 exaggeration had magnified into a great crime, disappeared on further in

quiry. All who were questioned about Abraham Schmidt's conduct-his landlord, his neighbours, and the superintendent of police of the district-described him as a very poor, hard-working, peaceable, 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 familiar to him. The contradictory statements which he made concerning 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 possessed 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 accident was in every one's mouth.

Nothing now remained which could throw any suspicion on Abraham Schmidt, and the court endeavoured to follow out the slight traces of suspicion against John Gabriel Schmidt and his half-brother Erhard Düringer. The former, commonly called big Schmidt, was a married man of forty, with one child; the latter, generally known as little Schimdt, was twenty-seven, also married, and had two children. Both were woodcutters, 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 pranks and coarse jokes. This intercourse had, however, been interrupted a few months before Rupprecht's death by a dispute between the quarrelsome jeweller and the overseers of the district, Friedmann and Götz. The lastnamed 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 vengeance. The quarrel had arisen one evening when Friedmann, the two Schmidts, and several other persons were sitting together in a tavern, on which occasion Rupprecht used some very offensive expressions with regard to the other overseer Götz, accusing him of gross partiality and injustice in the administration of his office. Friedmann and Götz complained to the police, and the two Schimdts were summoned as witnesses. Rupprecht was condemned to an imprisonment of eightand-forty hours on bread and water, and to make an apology to Götz. He endeavoured to revenge himself by bringing an action for defamation against Friedmann and Götz, which was still pending when Rupprecht was murdered.

But on examination these suspicions 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 Götz; on the contrary, they both expressed regret and indignation when they heard the manner of his death. Götz 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 overseers of the deed, had distinctly answered 'No.'

John Gabriel Schmidt and his half-brother Erhard Düringer 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 evidence on oath that Erhard Düringer could not have been at the 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 Düringer'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.' Kunigunda Pfann, whose room was near the Schmidts', said that as she was returning home 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 woodcutters, 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 connected, and generally came to Nürnberg for work: and one of them was usually employed by Rupprecht'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 trusting 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 ægri 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 return. It is not difficult to explain how his fancied suspicions were directed against the Schmidts, when 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 imagination 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 exclaimed, 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 extraordinary coolness, said to his wife, You must go to the tavern directly; something has happened to your father; one really has nothing but trouble with him.' When Rupprecht's daughter saw him lying wounded, she wept and lamented; but several witnesses thought that she did not show so much interest and 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 whether 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,