Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/346



ARLY 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 330