Civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the County of Kings and the City of Brooklyn, N. Y., Part 155

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909.
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York : Munsell
Number of Pages: 1360

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As a matter of instruction and interest, we add that the follow- ing is among the rulings of the Court of Appeals in tho case : " It is not erroneous, on the trial of one who was last seen with a murdered man a few moments before the homicide, to admit proof, by those who arrestod him, that they found his clothing stained with blood.

Sneh stains upon tho person and clothing of the accused are among tho ordinary indicia of homicide; and the practice of identifying theni by substantial evidence, and by the inspection of witnesses and jury, has the sanction of immemorial nsago in all eriminal tribunals.

Matters of common observation may ordinarily be proved by those who witness them, without resorting to seientific or ineehnnieal tests, to verify them with definite precision.

The testimony of the chemist who has analyzed blood, and that of the observer who hns merely recognizod it, belong to

the same grade of original and primary evidence ; and though one may be entitled to greater weight than tho other with the jury, the exclusion of either would be illegal.

The clothes, identified as those worn by the prisoners on the evening of the murder, were properly submitted to the inspee- tion of the jury by the judge.

Nothing legitimately connected with the res gestor of the erimo should be excluded from the consideration of the jury."

Gonzalez and Pellicier were both executed.

JOHN H. MILLS AND ISAAC M. DEAN vs. THE CITY OF BROOKLYN.

THE interest and importance attached to this case is derivedl from the faet that it is a precedent showing that a municipal corporation, village or city is not liable to private actions for damages accruing for not providing sufficient sewerage for the drainage of lots or land belonging to citizens, etc.

The establishment of this precedent, with others equally in- portant, was the result of the adjudication in the Circuit Court, the General Term, and the Court of Apppeals, of the following case, which we take from the evidence given on the trial:

John Il. Mills and Isaac M. Dean, the plaintiffs in the case, were the joint owners of a lot, with a valuablo briek dwelling- house thereon, situated at the northwest corner of Franklin and Putnam avenues, Brooklyn. Tho defendants, tho City Corpora- tion, liad, by law, tho eare of its streets and avenues, and the control of widening the sewerage and drainage of the said streets and avennes. The grievances of which the plaintiff's complain, and which constituted their cause of action, were as follows:

" That the said corporation negligently and unskillfully built, provided and established sowers at the corner of Franklin and Putnam avenues. That the said sewers were insufficient to properly conduct the water brought to said corner by the grade of said avenues, and the streets and avenues thereto adjacent. That the sewers were so negligently and unskillfully built that they failed to perform the office for which they were constructed. That by reason of this imperfect construction, the plaintiffs' honse and lot was repeatedly flooded with water during certain periods of time in the months of Mareh and August, 1861 and 1862, causing the walls to settle and crack, and tho building te be otherwise injured, resulting in damages to tho plaintiff's of tho sum of $2,500."

The proofs in the case, on the part of the plaintiffs, show that there was a sewer or outlet for water under the sidewalk of the street prior to the first storm, and after the storm in March and in the month of May following, tho Water Commissioners caused a pipe drain, earthen sewer, abont twelve inches in diameter, to be constructed in the street, but it proved insufficient to carry off the water as it came down. Tho sewer was built in obedience to a resolution of the Common Couneil, adopted April 16, 1s61.

Tho 'proof, on the part of the defendants, as given by an assistant engincer of the Water and Sewerage Commissioners, who constructed the sewer, established the fact that it was a stonewaro pipo, eighteen inches in diameter, abovo the plaintiffa' premises. That below that point a large sewer could not be laid on that course, in consequenco of the grade and different dimen- sions of the sewers with which they wero obliged to connect; that if made larger, it would have to bo so near tho surface of the street that it could not havo a sufficiently thiek eovering. That, after the August storms, an additional sewer was con- structed. The corporation further proved that tho walls of the house had been very much damaged prior to the laying down of the temporary sewer, and that the basement walls of the house were laid in unsuitable mortar. A largo amount of evidence was given on both sides. At the elose of the plaintiffs' case, J. G. Schumaker, counsel for the corporation, moved for a non- snit, on the ground that the plaintiff's had failed to establish

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sufficient facts to constitute a cause of action. The motion was denied, with proper exceptions.

Both parties having rested, the judge, in his charge to the jury, instructed them, among other matters, that the plaintiffs were not entitled to damages sustained by them prior to the building of the sewer in May, 1861. The counsel for the corpo- ration took proper exception to the charge of the judge, and re- quested him to charge, as a matter of law, that the plaintiffs could not recover damages in any point of view, founding his request by several, as he believed, well-established precedents, which we shall give hereafter.

The judge declined to thus instruct the jury, to which there was an exception, and the plaintiffs recovered a verdict of $900. On an appeal to the General Term, this verdict was affirmed, whereupon the corporation took an appeal to the Court of Ap- peals, where, after elaborate arguments, the verdict at the Circuit, and the judgment affirming it at the General Term, were in all things reversed. In the Court of Appeals Mr. Schumaker* ap- peared for the corporation, and David J. Dean for the plaintiffs. The ability with which these able lawyers conducted the argu- ment before that court, although what might be expected from lawyers of their high standing, was considered something more than ordinary. The brief of Mr. Schumaker was marked by logical strength and acumen, united with extended legal learn- ing. As an evidence of this, it was largely engrafted in the opinion of the court. The following is a condensed extract from it. The first point in it we have substantially given hereto- fore: "A municipal corporation is not liable to private actions for not providing sufficient sewerage for draining the premises of citizens owning the same. Second, the duty of draining the streets and sewerages of a city or village, although not a judicial one, is of a judicial nature, requiring the exercise of qualities of deliberation and judgment. Third, where duties of a purely ministerial character are cast upon an officer, although his chief duties are judicial, and he violates his ministerial duties, he is civilly responsible, but in respect to his judicial duties other- wise." As these points enter largely into the opinion of the Court of Appeals delivered in this case, they constitue the law of the land touching the liability of corporations for damages in cases like the one we have described.

THE PEOPLE vs. YATES.

No case on record more graphically exhibits the danger of unbridled political hatred, the terror of a mob, or the sudden and overwhelming misfortunes which often overtake men in the midst of their business and social career, than this.

Early in the evening of October, 1864, Yates was assisting a lady to remove her furniture from one house to another, in Brooklyn. About nine o'clock, as he was passing the corner of Hudson avenue and Plymouth street, where a large out-door Democratic meeting was convened, he stopped and listened a moment to the speaker. While standing there, some person remarked that he would "bet that McClellan would be elected," to which Yates replied, "I'll bet ten dollars Lincoln will be elected." This reply was followed by the exclamation, "Let us give it to the - -," and immediately a dozen men attacked him, knocking him down, kicking and pounding him; they tore his clothes nearly off him, and his face was covered with blood. While struggling with the crowd he dis- charged a revolver at his assailants, slightly wounding a by- stander; he succeeded in breaking away from the crowd and ran, pursued by a multitude of persons, crying, "Stop the murderer; kill him; hang him!" etc., etc. Among the crowd was

a police officer by the namo of Curran; he was two or three yards in advance of the others, and when at a distance of five blocks from where the affray began, lio siezed Yates, who cx- claimed, "Let go, or I'll shoot you!" At this time, Curran had his hand pressed against Yates' breast, and called for some one to catch the pistol. At this time, Curran raised his hand, when Yates fired and the officer fell, mortally wounded; ho was then in the uniform of the police force, having upon his person the cap and shield of the Metropolitan polico force. Yates fled, followed by the shouting crowd; several other pistol shots were fired, but by whom does not distinctly appear.

He continued his flight, and finally rushed into the store of a Mr. Markey, exclaiming, under apparent excitement, "Look out! I've shot two men!" Leaving the store, he continued to run, pursued by the enraged crowd to a place called "Tammany Hall," where he was arrested by a body of policemen.

According to the evidence, at the time of this struggle, the night was dark and rainy. Yates was indicted for willful murder, and on January 24, 1865, was brought to trial.

His trial is an important incident in legal history.

The circumstances we have related were given in evidenco on the trial; there were, of course, some contradictions and differ- ences of statement, but the foregoing are substantially the facts in the case, with those we shall give hereafter. It was proved on the defense that Yates was near-sighted; the materiality of this evidence will presently appear. Daniel Cannen, a witness for the people, testified that Curran was shot about fonr rods from a lamp-post on which a light was burning. John Larkin, another witness for the people, swore that Curran and Yates, at the time of the shooting, were within a half block of a lamp; but that there was no light shining from it. John Maloy, another witness for the people, said that he lighted the lamp referred to at six o'clock that evening; on his cross-examination he said he had no recollection of lighting that particular lamp that evening. It did not appear in evidence that there was any communication made to Yates at the time that Curran was a police officer, nor that there was any demand made upon him to surrender to the officer, nor was there any proof that Cur- ran was known to Yates. Ono witness said, "I saw Yates knocked down, and saw more than a dozen men beating and kicking him; I saw him struggle desperately to get up, and he finally succeeded, but his face was covered with blood and pro- sented a frightful appearance. In his struggle to get up, I heard the report of a pistol, then I saw Yates on his fect, and ho broke away and ran, the crowd after him."

To rebut the evidence, that there was no light burning at tho time of the fatal shot, the judge permitted the District Attorney, against an objection and an exception, to prove by Sergeant Crow that, nearly four months after the killing of Curran, he went to the lamp near which it took place, in a dark evening, and found that he could very easily read a newspaper by its light, and that all objects about it were plainly visible; this, it was contended, must have plainly revealed to Yates the uniform and badge of the police officer. This was objected to by the counsel for Yates, as no evidence for any purpose; that it of course was material to the issue that the light was such at the time as must have apprised the accused of the character of his pursuer, and the object of his pursuit; but proof of the condi- tion of the lamp, and its power to diffuse light, on the 21st of January, was no evidence of its power on the 1st of October preceding; that the power of street lamps to emit light dc- pends npon many things, among which are the purity and transparency of the medium through which the rays are projected.

The trial resulted in the conviction of Yates for the crinie of murder in the first degree, and he was sentenced to be hanged; but his counsel took an appeal to the General Term of the Supreme Court, obtaining an order for the stay of the execution pending the appeal. After exhaustive arguments on the part of

* Mr. Schumaker was, during this litigation and for some time prior and subsequent thereto, Corporation Counsel for the City of Brooklyn. A record of his official record more fully appears in the Municipal History of Brooklyn, in another part of this work.

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the respective counsel engaged, the General Term affirmed the conviction of Yates, and it was believed his doom was sealed. But his counsel, stimulated in the belief that the conviction was unjust-that Yates, subjected to the fury of a howling and murderous mob, excited and rendered desperate by. the fear that he was to be cruelly murdered, discharged his pistol in self-defense-removed the case by another appeal to the Court of Appeals, the court of last resort, obtaining another stay of the execution.

The counsel for the people contended that Yates was rightly convicted; that he must have known the purposes for which Curran was pursuing him, because the evidence shows that he, Curran, was largely in advance of the crowd, conspicuous in his uniform as a police officer, and it was apparent that Yates fired the fatal shet to escape lawful arrest. This, with the fact that he had just committed a felony by a murderous attack on a citizen, constitutes the crime of murder in the first degrec. That this was well established by all the authorities, many of which appear on the very ably prepared brief of the District Attorney. There were other ingenious and learned points on which the prosecution relied for an affirmance of the conviction.

The counsel for the defense insisted that the judge who tried the cause erred in admitting the evidence of Sergeant Crow, who testified that four months after the fatal event he visited the place where it occurred, at night, and that he could easily read a newspaper by the light of the lamp near by. We have already given the grounds of the objections to this evidence, made at the trial. On the argument in the Court of Appeals- and we believe in the General Term-the defense raised other points against the legality of the conviction, among which were the following: there was no proof that the structure of the lamp near the place of the killing was the same in January, the time of the trial, as it was on the first of October preceding, when the alleged murder took place; that there was no reliable evidence that any lamp was burning at the time; that as Yates was set upon by a dozen men, with what he might suppose a murderous intent, he was justified in defending himself with all reason- able means in his power, and that he behaved but with reason- able prudence; that there was no act proved showing any mur- derous intent, or any premeditated malice.

In due time the Court of Appeals handed down a decision, eoncurred in by all the judges, setting aside the conviction of Yates, granting him a new trial. The opinions of the judges, found in 32 N. Y., 509, will be found full of interest to the pro- fessional and the lay reader.

In their opinion the judges sustain the points made by the counsel for the defense, and express, in strong language, their condemnation of the attack made by the crowd upon Yates. "It was a brutal and cowardly attack," say the court, "of some dozen inen upon one man, and he a stranger to them; he had done nothing to invite this attack except to express his prefer- ence for one of the presidential candidates, doing nothing to interrupt the meeting.

" If a dozen men were beating and kicking him, his firing a pistol at the time was so nearly, if not entirely, justifiable that it takes away all basis for the claim, up to that time, of premed- itated inalice on his part. Well he might run from such a body of inen. F'or aught that appears, he may have supposed that the officer who seized him was one of the mob who first attacked him, and was trying to detain him until the remainder of the mob, who were approaching, could overtake him."

Yates was again brought to trial, and after a long contest was convicted of murder in the second degree, and sentenced to State's prison for the term of twenty years.

THE PEOPLE vs. FANNY HYDE.

THE history of American criminal law has nothing in it more interesting than the case of The People vs. Funny Hyde, charged with the murder of Geo. W. Watson. It was tried in the Kings

County Court of Oyer and Terminer, in April, 1872, before Hen. A. B. Tappen, one of the justices of the Supreme Court, and associate justices Voorhees and Johnson.

Mr. Watson was a prominent manufacturer of Brooklyn, and a citizen of respectability. He was a married man, the father of five children, and, at the time of which we are writing, about fifty years of age. He was an extensive manufacturer of hair- nets, having a large number of employees; many of these were ladies, of whom Fanny Hyde was one.

On the 26th of January, 1872, there were working in the principal room in Watson's factory, two or three men, Fanny Hyde and one or two other ladies, Mr. Watson being present. About ten minutes before twelve, Watson left the room, according to his custom, to go to lunch; a few moments before he left, while he was putting en his overcoat, Fanny Hyde left the room through the same door through which Watsen was to make his exit. The doorway led to a flight of stairs down to the second story. Soon after Fanny went out, Watsen also went out.

A few minutes after twelve o'clock, Mr. Watson was dis- covered lying dead at the head of the second flight of stairs; he was on his back, his feet by the partition, his head lying out beyond the stairs, his body against the riser of the first stair. He was bleeding profusely from a bullet hole in his head, back of his ear. Fanny Hyde was standing not far from him, watch- ing him with intense interest. In a moment all was confusion and alarm in the factory. In due time the body was removed. Fanny was at once suspected of the murder; indeed, soon after the occurrence, she admitted she killed Mr. Watson and sur- rendered herself to the authorities, alleging that she committed the deed in self-defense, that is, in defending herself against an outrageous and indecent assault made by Watson upon her at the head of the first flight of stairs we have described. It was alleged, however, on the other side, that Fanny shot her victim in revenge for certain charges which he had made against her character, these charges having led to several altercations between herself and Watson; that she left the room a few moments before he did, knowing that, according to his usual custom, he would soon follow her on his way to his lunch; that she lay in wait for him at the bottom of the first flight of stairs and shot him as he was descending them. We shall sec hereafter further grounds on which the prosecution predicated this theory. We give the theory of the defense in the following history of Fanny Hyde.

Fanny Hyde, when a young girl a little over fifteen years of age, entered the employment of George W. Watson, a manu- facturer of hair-nets, in the city of Brooklyn. She was a child of remarkable promise, intelligent beyond her years, pleasing in her person and attractive in her manners. She was born at Nottingham, England; when very young she lost her mether, and though she was well brought up, it was without a mother's care; she was a Sunday school scholar and gave promise of future usefulness. It was said that "among all of Watson's female employees, Fanny Hyde was the fairest." He was a married man with several children, and about forty-five years of age. With the exterior of a gentleman, plausible, insidious, always carefully presenting his best side to the public, Fanny had not been long in this man's employ when he determined to work her ruin; the manner in which it is alleged he effected his object, stamps him a man without principle. From that time on, even up to the hour of his death, he continued his illicit intercourse with her. Fanny Hyde was not impure at heart, and often struggled hard to free herself from the coil which her heartless sedneer had thrown around her. Her relations with Watson, however, were known only to herself and to him, and she still moved in respectable society. Iler beauty and attrac. tive manners brought her honorable suitors, one of whom was at last aceepted. About the time of her engagement, she dia- closed to Watson the new relations in life which she proposed, and on her knees begged of him forever to keep their relations

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secret, and to cease them now, forever. She told him that it was her determination to be a pure and exemplary wife to her affianced husband; with face bedewed in tears and broken down with sorrow, she told Watson her relation with him had been a source of continual, almost heart-breaking sorrow, from the time of its commencement, and begged him to aid her in her determination to hereafter live a pure and virtuous life.

He listened to her, apparently much affected by what she said, and putting his hand on the Bible, deliberately swore that he would never molest her again. In a short time after this, Fanny was united in marriage to a respectable and indus- trious young man by the name of Hyde. Relying on the solemn oath which Watson had taken never to molest her again, she continued as fore-woman in his service, with many other ladies, married and single. It is natural to believe that, under his oath, under the sanctity of the marriage vow, and tlie holy relations that now existed between Fanny and the man she loved, Watson would have encouraged the young wife by example, by his own family relations, by everything that is pure and sacred, to carry out the resolution she had adopted. But, alas ! the man who had once destroyed her virtue and committed towards her the greatest of crimes, forgot his oath, or disregarded it, and, disregarding every sacred thing that should have restrained him, determined to dishonor the young and now pure wife, and compel her to again enter upon her former relations with him. It would seem as though Fanny -- now Mrs. Hyde-protected and shielded as she was by her husband, strongly entrenched as she was in her new resolution, and pure as her life now was, would never again become the paramour of the man who had first ruined her. She never for a moment thought he would make the attempt, and if he did, she felt sure of her ability, under the strength of her new reso- lution, to effectually resist him. He, however, made the attempt, and she did resist him, as a pure and true wife should have done, and when he found himself foiled he resorted to another and dreadful mode of compulsion. He threatened, if she per- sisted in her refusal, to acquaint her husband with the full extent of their previous relations. This was a terrible alterna- tive. To put her husband in possession of these facts was next to death; the struggle was fearful; but Watson triumphed, and the misery of the young wife was complete. She was again in the toils of the man who had blighted her young life, and by him was compelled to dishonor her husband. "Must I submit always to this course of life?" she asked herself, in her agony. "There is one mode of escape," she said. "I will unbosom myself to my husband ; will tell him all; I will prostrate myself before him for his forgiveness; if he casts me off, I must submit; if he forgives me he will protect me against the man who is destroying my very soul." She carried her resolution into effect and confessed all to her husband. She was as dear to him as his own heart's blood, and he forgave all and promised protection. He told her to defy the wretch if he ever again approached her-to tell him that she feared him no longer, as her husband knew all and had forgiven all. It was not long after this before the occasion came for her to make this state- ment to Watson. She did so; and when he found she no longer had any fears of her husband, he resorted to another course; and then came the fatal end.

On the trial, Fanny was sworn as a witness on her own behalf, and among other things testified as follows:

"I met Watson at the top of the stairs; asked him as I was going up the stairs, if he was going down ? he said no; when I got to the top of the stairs, he seized me in a very indecent manner, and wanted me to go to a room with him somewhere. I told him I would not, and then he said, 'You shall go.' We had quite a struggle; I got free from him, and he seized me the second time as before; I tried to break loose from him, but could not; I had my pistol with me and shot him; I did not take aim, but shot as I could."

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Civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the County of Kings and the City of Brooklyn, N. Y., Part 155

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909. Publication date: 1884 Publisher: New York : Munsell Number of Pages: 1360

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909.
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York : Munsell
Number of Pages: 1360