Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/250

 interested me exceedingly because of the closeness of the legal questions involved. Nichola Bartilotte, convicted December 23, 1897, had a quarrel with another Italian, a larger man, in the course of which his thumb was so badly chewed that he was compelled to go to the hospital. After he had been cured, one day he thrust into his pocket a long-bladed knife, which I still have, and went down to the house of the other man, evidently on the lookout for trouble. The other man accepted the challenge and after some altercation Bartilotte ran. His antagonist pursued, picked up a large stone, overtook Bartilotte and, getting him down, lay on top of him, beating him over the head with the stone. By some means Bartilotte was able to open his knife and he plunged the blade into his foe, who rolled over helpless. Up to this time Bartilotte was legally safe from the charge of murder. He arose, hurt and bloody, went away to the distance of perhaps twenty-five feet, then returned and with a half dozen fierce blows of his knife put an end to the life of his foe who lay on the ground. The jury saved me from grave trouble by finding him guilty of murder in the second degree and I sentenced him to a long term of imprisonment. The jury was probably about right in the conclusion it reached. I ever had a distrust, and even a sort of a horror, over the ways of the detective, and no man was ever convicted before me of any offense upon such testimony alone. Like a prosecuting attorney who wants to convict, the object of the detective is not so much to inquire as to fasten the crime somewhere, and the methods used are those of dissimulation and falsehood.

Just before I left the bench a boy of eleven years of age was tried before me for the murder of a playmate of six or seven years. The little fellow had a five-cent piece and the defendant had a toy pistol. The latter said: “ Give me that nickel.” “No, I won't,” was the answer. “If you don't, I will shoot you.” The child stood his ground and thereupon the defendant shot and killed him. The 236