I shall not add to the pain of your present position, by alluding to the circumstances of this case, but it would seem to be due to justice to declare that your trial has been conducted throughout with all the tender regard for life which marks the humanity of the law. While Mrs. Hill was sent to her last account without the opportunity for even one short prayer, the Law has been jealous of every right which the presumption of innocence could throw around you. She has given you every opportunity to prepare for your trial, the right of challenge to jurors, the privilege of being defended by able counsel, the benefit of every doubt, and the advantage of reviewing all the rulings upon every point.

When all have resulted in your condemnation, she still, in mercy, gives you time for repentance and for supplication. Let me recommend you in all earnestness to avail yourself of this privilege. Obtain the counsel of devout men, approach with them the Throne of Grace. In fervent contrition, and in sincere repentance, seek Him whose mercy is all-sufficient even to the washing away of blood. And now it only remains for us to declare the judgment of the law, which is:

That George S. Twitchell, Jr., the prisoner at the bar, be taken from hence to the jail of the County of Philadelphia, from whence he came, and from thence to the place of execution, and that he be there hanged by the neck until he is dead, and may God, of His infinite goodness, have mercy upon his soul.

THE FRUITLESS APPEALS.

March 23.

The prisoner's counsel had previously applied to the Supreme Court for a writ of error which after argument was refused. Today another appeal was made by handing a petition to the Court. was disposed of very peremptorily by Chief Justice Thompson, who

said:

This

"On Monday, the 22nd inst., and over fifty days after sentence, a similar application was handed to the Court, not by either of the counsel engaged for the prisoner on the trial, and upon what authority we do not know, as the name of the prisoner is not to the petition or attached to any of the affidavits or papers presented, but

that of the counsel making application only.15 This application, even if fully authorized by the defendant, which does not appear, is out of time; but as the reasons assigned are altogether different from those heretofore assigned, we have considered them to see if a different conclusion should have been arrived at on the former application, and if so, to remedy the result, if possible; and on this examination we hesitate not to say that had they been presented on the petition of the prisoner and in due time, our conclusions in regard to the allocatur could not have been in the least changed. They contain no grounds whatever demanding a review of the case in this court. The application is refused, and the papers are directed to be returned to the counsel.

Mr. Hubbell. I desire, if your Honors please, to have these papers filed in this court. I appear, sir, authorized by the prisoner himself.

CHIEF JUSTICE THOMPSON. No, sir! This is the disposition we make of this case.

Mr. Hubbell. Then, may it please your Honors, I hold in my hands a paper prepared by myself and Mr. O'Byrne, which I desire to have filed in this court in this case.

CHIEF JUSTICE THOMPSON. We cannot admit it; we have finally disposed of the case.

TWITCHELL'S CONFESSION.

April 3.

Today Twitchell published from his cell the following confession:

"I went to my room on the night of the murder, and instead of going to bed I laid down on the lounge in my room, and fell asleep. My wife was in bed at the time. I was roused by her repeated calls, and ran down to the dining-room, where I found her much excited, saying, 'I have had a quarrel with mother and killed her;' I do not know whether she said 'save me!' or 'help me hide it!' but at last we threw the body of Mrs. Hill out of the window to make it look as if she fell out: I went down stairs and washed my hands and face at the hydrant; then went to my room, undressed, and went to bed; my wife came up afterwards and got into bed, where we staid till Sarah Campbell rung the bell. I think we were in bed ten or twenty minutes. I made a solemn vow to the Eternal God that night that I would never reveal it; but I cannot keep it any longer. I am sorry that I have said I knew nothing of it; but I did it with the vow in my mind, and to save my wife. I now make these disclosures that I may have peace with God. In the presence of Rev. George Bringhurst and William B. Perkins." Questioned in his cell by his counsel and clergyman, he added: "I did not entertain the slightest idea that my statement would alter my situation, as far as the law went, but made it to have entire peace with my God, and did not think it 15 Mr. Hubbell.

would be published until after my execution. My reasons for not stating it sooner are simply these, that I fully expected my wife to come forward and state all, and not leave me to perform the unpleasant duty; but her absenting herself from me, and her actions so unnatural to me, and in such a position, has compelled me to come forward and state all I know, which I did on Saturday. I would state, also, gentlemen, that if these statements can be said by my wife to want foundation and are incorrect, let her come forward and deny them."

But the general opinion in Philadelphia was that Twitchell was lying. "The general belief is, that the reverse of the story is most likely to be true, that is, that Twitchell himself may have had some dispute with Mrs. Hill while sitting in the room with her; that he killed her, then told his wife, and that the two then threw the body out of the window. But, however that may be, no one gives any credit to his 'confession,' not because there is any belief that Mrs. Twitchell is guiltless, for there is no such general belief, but because Twitchell's story is intrinsically improbable, and because he has shown himself to be utterly unworthy of credit. The blood sprinkles on his shirt bosom and the sprinkles on other parts of his clothing, cannot be accounted for by the mere fact of carrying the body of Mrs. Hill to the window. The contact with the blood from carrying the body might have smeared his clothes, but could not have sprinkled him with the fine spots on the upper part of his person-the 'red rain,' directed by the laws of Providence-which pointed him out beyond all doubt as the brandisher and user of the murderous weapon, or, as standing by whilst the weapon was being used. This furnishes the intrinsic evidence of the falsity of that part of the story where he says he was asleep on the lounge in his room whilst his wife was killing her mother. She, indeed, may have done the deed; but, if so, he was standing by within the fatal circle of that bloody shower, and not in his own room, either asleep or awake. But Twitchell has shown himself, all through this horrible affair, to be an artful hypocrite and shameless liar, as well as a cruel and cowardly murderer, whose words, statements and 'confessions,' so far as they are calculated to shield himself, are entitled to no credence whatever. While in the dock, accused of the murder of his mother-in-law, a woman who had bestowed every kindness and indulgence upon him, he sat like an unconcerned spectator, without a sign of the shame and humiliation that should have covered him all over, and the explanation of this was that he was conscious of his innocence, that he knew nothing about the murder. When asked if he had anything to say why the sentence of the law should not be pronounced. he answered, with the basest hypocrisy and falsehood, that he had been convicted of a murder that he 'he did not know anything about.' In his cell since the sentence, he has attempted to play the part of the martyred innocent, saying that those who believed him guilty 'would live to be sorry for it,' and still pretending utter absence of all knowledge of the murder until he saw the dead body; and while thus lying, he was pretending all the while to be devoutly engaged in prayer and other religious exercises. Now, in a pitiable effort to relieve

himself from the charge of killing Mrs. Hill with his own hand, in the hope that it may save his wretched life, he tells the public that all his previous statements were false, that he did know all about the murder, that his air of injured innocence was a sham, and his devout praying and singing were base hypocricy. These are his claims for belief in his 'confession,' and these the reasons why no one can believe it.

"There is one point, however, settled by the 'confession,' viz.: that the murder was committed by one or other of the Twitchellsone or both; and not by any outside parties. Altgelt's 'tall man,' with the long coat,' is thus proved to be a myth, if not worse, as every thinking person believed at the time. That story has met its just fate. The pretentious pamphlet laid before the Governor, by 'of counsel for defendant,' based on 'physical laws and scientific' ratiocination, and which contained the 'demonstrations of Twitchell's innocence,' and equal demonstrations that the murder was committed by Altgelt's 'tall man,' and that the other 'man' was stationed in the yard as a look-out, has met with a still more ignominous catastrophe. This credulous counsellor was so blind in his faith, that he went to Washington for sympathy in his theories, and it is a rather striking incident of this remarkable case, that about the very time that he was appealing to the Supreme Court in behalf of 'this young man conscious of his innocence,' the 'innocent young man' himself was engaged in preparing the 'confession' of his guilty knowledge for the public eye. These events should be a warning to all those affected by the prevalent maudlin sentimentality for murderers, and especially those who have made themselves conspicious in this Twitchell case. Twitchell, by his last act, has shown himself to be equal to any depth of baseness, and yet he has been made the object of as much sympathy, and as great a degree of persistent effort to free him from the punishment due to his atrocious crime, as if he had been a martyr and a saint.

"There is still another, and a most important point suggested by this 'confession.' It is now placed beyond all doubt that the whole theory of the defense was based upon a falsehood. The public will remember the anonymous letter purporting to come from one of the murderers, which said that the writer and another man killed Mrs. Hill. This was the first public introduction of the 'two men' who subsequently figured in the defense. Then Altgelt's evidence was brought in to account for these two men. Twitchell's statement that his wife and himself were the only parties to the murder, brands this whole theory as a falsehood. Whose falsehood was it? Was it Twitchell's own? If not, his statement opens up a most serious question." 9916

THE SUICIDE OF THE PRISONER.

April 8.

The execution of Twitchell was fixed for today between ten and three. But on going to wake him early this morning, one of the

16 Report of the Trial, page 2.

jailers found him lying dead upon his bed. His spiritual adviser, Rev. Mr. Bringhurst, had left him at 11 o'clock the night before, and at two o'clock in the morning one of the prison watchmen had looked into the cell and found him apparently asleep with a blanket drawn over his head. At the inquest one of the warders stated that after going into Eaton's cell-another convict who was to be hanged with Twitchell-to see if he was safe, was called back by Eaton, saying: "Mr. Cassidy, I wish to say something to you. I do not know that it will be right for me to die without telling you, as perhaps the keepers might be blamed for what might occur.' I think he said: "You will not hang Twitchell tomorrow." I said: "What reason have you for that supposition?" He replied: "I have had a talk with him this evening." I said: "How did you talk with him?" He said: "Our doors were open. I saw him and wished to encourage him; I told him to pick up courage and die like a man. He shook his head, and held up his thumb and finger, pointing to his mouth, and said: 'Mum is the word.'"

The coroner's jury found that Twitchell had committed suicide with prussic acid. But who had supplied it to him could not be discovered.