CHAPTER XI
Governor, 1904
EARLY in January of 1904 the Board of Pardons
recommended to me the pardon of Alphonse F.
Cutaiar, who had been convicted of murder in
the first degree and sentenced to be hanged, but
whose sentence was subsequently commuted to imprisonment
for life. His pardon had been asked for by forty-four
clergymen, twenty-two members of the legislature,
a mayor of Philadelphia, a senator of the United States
and two hundred and nine other citizens. The murder
was accompanied with some of the most dramatic features
in the annals of crime. James E. Logue was one of the
most famous professional burglars of his day and, as a
result of his skill, he owned a house No. 1250 North Eleventh
Street, in the City of Philadelphia, where, in his absence
in the pursuit of his profession, lived his wife, Johannah,
dressed in silks and adorned with jewelry and diamonds.
In the house also lived Cutaiar, a nephew, who there
conducted the trade of a barber. On the 22d of February,
1879, Logue had gone to a distant city upon a professional
engagement, and his wife, who had been drinking to some
extent, was seen in the house at 8 P. M. She had on her
person diamond earrings worth $250, a diamond finger
ring worth $80, a plain ring with the letters “J. L. to J. L.”
inscribed on it and, two days before, her husband had
given her a hundred dollars in cash and four $1,000 coupon
bonds. She was seen no more. A short time afterward
Cutaiar married, and his young wife, brought into the
kitchen, complained of a stench there which he attributed
to dead rats. Logue employed detectives and spent
considerable money in advertising and search, but in vain, and
