is thus succinctly stated by Dr. Laborde : "The curious and valuable information thus obtained was of great service to him in his subsequent tour to Europe. The best in formed were entirely ignorant of the ' Far West.' It was a region of vast natural re sources, with a population and state of so
ciety of peculiar character, presenting at that period a state of perhaps not more than half civilization, but yet, to the acute ob server, combining within itself all the ele ments of an overshadowing power and greatness."
THE LONG ARM OF COINCIDENCE. A STORY OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE. NOVELISTS and playwrights are often ridiculed for their indebtedness to the "long arm of coincidence " to pull them out of the difficulties of a tangled plot, and, without doubt, their demands upon this con venient dens ex maehina are frequently of a kind to provoke our incredulity. At the same time it is hard to place any limit to the possibilities of coincidence, and most persons, who have had much experience of life, must be able to recall some strange coincidences which were altogether outside the pale of probability. The story we pur pose telling here affords a singular instance of unexpected incidents happening at the very moment when a man's life was quiver ing in the balance, and supplying evidence to save him from the gallows. On the night of Monday, June 10, 1861, a mysterious and brutal murder was per petrated at Kingswood Rectory, about four miles from Reigate, in the county of Surrey. The rector, with his wife and family, was on a visit at Dorking, and the house had been left in the sole charge of Martha Halliday, wife of the parish clerk. She was absolutely alone, for the servants had accompanied their master and mistress, and her husband had to look after his own house, as there was no one to take his wife's place there. But Martha being a woman of courage and nerve, had no objection to sleeping alone at the
rectory, as she had frequently done be fore. She was last seen alive by her husband, who parted from her between six and seven o'clock in the evening. When he went up to the rectory the next morning to see his wife, he found the back door locked, but on going round to the front door, to his sur prise found it ajar. He entered and called to his wife, but receiving no answer; went in search of her. She was nowhere downstairs, but, on entering her bedroom, to his horror he saw her lying dead on the floor in her nightdress. That she had been brutally murdered was evident at a glance, for her hands and feet were bound with hempen cord, a handkerchief was tied over her face, and a stocking had been thrust tightly into her mouth. Halliday promptly gave the alarm, the parish constable arrived, and a minute search of the premises was made. But they had not to go far for a clue to the murderer. Under the bed, a few inches from the spot where the murdered woman lay, there was picked up a packet of papers tied round with string. The papers, six in number, were all in German. One was what is called in Germany a service-book — the credentials furnished by the authorities to craftsmen and others — and was made out in the name of Johann Carl Franz of Schandau, in Upper
