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IN THE HANDS OF THE JURY.

[Olcas?] of the Arguments in the Great Sheedy Murder Trial.

REVIEW OF THE CASE BY THE JUDGE.

He Delivers Exhaustive Instructions -Scene in the Court Room- A Tilt Between the Attorneys.

Lincoln, Neb., May 28. - Special to The Bee. - Long before the time for opening the doors this morning, the corridors and halls of the court house were packed and jammed with a restless mass of humanity eager to get a chance to listen to the great legal battle which will determine the fate of Mrs. Sheedy and Monday McFarland, the alleged murderers of John Sheedy. All day the court room was crowded almost to suffocation and the eager spectators had the pleasure of hearing some splendid oratorical efforts and listening to some exciting passages at arms between the two opposing giants in the case Lambertson and Strode.

During the two hours at noon hundreds of people did not go home to dinner but remained in the court room so as to hold their seats. Fully three-fourths of the great crowd was composed of ladies.

Mrs. Sheedy was sick the greater portion of the night, so her attorneys say, but she wore her usual composure today and only once showed evidence of weeping.

Mr. Jenson, one of the jurymen, has not recovered from his prostration and this afternoon a sofa was brought in for him to lie on.

When Mr. Strode took his place before the jury this morning he related a story of the supposed murder of a man named Jesse Calvin in Vermont and how two brother-in-law of the murdered man were arrested on the charge of having killed their relative. Seeing that conviction was certain they made confessions of the crime so as to get a sentence of life imprisonment and save themselves from the gallows. Before the day of execution an advertisement was inserted in a paper asking for the whereabouts of Jesse Calvin, and the result was that the man supposed to be murdered was found alive in New Jersey. The points in which the confessions of those brothers and the confession of Monday McGarland were similar were brought out skillfully by Strode and a most forcible impression was made on the jury. Mr. Strode the directed his attention to Mr. Hall, saying that he was a member of a firm of railroad attorneys. At this Mr. Hall arose and said that it was unfair to work thus upon the prejudices of the jurors,who might all be members of the farmers alliance.

"It's true, just the same," said Strode.

"Your honor," said Hall, "I denounce such a course as a cowardly, unprofessional and unmany appeal to the prejudices of the jury."

This created a sensation and before strode could reply the court informed Mr. Strode that such appeals could not be tolerated.

Mr. Strode then proceeded to tell how he knew Mrs Sheedy when she was a flaxen haired girl, the favorite of her companions and referred to her bed-ridden mother, who in another state, was awaiting the verdict that would free her daughter. The pathetic manner in which these things were related brought all the ladies to tears. Mrs. Sheedy's sister became convulsed with sobs and the fair defendant herself soon after was melted to tears.

In regard to the poison theory, he declared that the liver, bladder and kidneys showed no evidence of poison. He asserted that Mrs. Sheedy had told him that she had never bought any poison at any drug store in the city.

"You'd better put her on the stand and let her testify," ejaculated Lambertson, "instead of testifying for her."

Mr. Strode then took the locks of her hair placed in evidence as having been taken from the head and body of Mrs. Sheedy. He declared that he believed that all the hair had came from the head. He then said suddenly:

"Why. I don't believe that that hair is Mrs. Sheedy's. It is darker than hers." He then threw open one of the shutters so that a ray of light fell upon Mrs. Sheedy's head and then walked over to where she sat and place one of the locks of hair against her bangs.

"Now, gentlemen of the jury," continued Strode, "I wish to have you come here and notice whether this lock of hair is from the head of Mrs. Sheedy."

"No you don't!" thundered Lambertson, now thoroughly aroused. "You can't sneak such testimony in on us."

"Yes, you cut the hair from the heal of somebody else," said Strode.

"I denounce you as an infamous liar!" thundered Lambertson.

This created intense excitement in the court room and Strode appealed to the court if such language was to be permitted in the court room.

The Judge then said: "Such conduct is unbecoming is a gentleman and I am surprised, Mr. Lambertson, that you should be guilty of it."

A burst of applause and cheers followed from the great crowd. His honor frowned and declared that should such a demonstration follow again he would have the court room cleared entirely of spectators.

Mr. Strode then impressed the jurors with the fact that although some of them had read the newspaper accounts of the crime they had formed no opinion from the same, the testimony brought out in court, he insisted, did not add a scintilla more of evidence than had been published in the papers.

He then concluded his argument with an earnest plea for Mrs. Sheedy, for her life and liberty.

Mr. Lambertson then stepped forward to address the jury, and a hush fell upon the great crowd, as it had been noised abroad that his was to be the great speech of the trial. He said:

"Murder is the most awful deed that mand can commit. So foul and unnatural is it that it smells to heaven. This is true when doen in heat, but the horror is more profound when the victim is struck down, dastardly and relentlessly, in cold blood. On the second Sunday in January last, as the twilight was deepening into night, John Sheedy, in the peace of God, on his own threshold, in the heart of his populous city, within call of a score of men, was struck a death-dealing blow by an assassin that lurked within the shadows of his own porch.

"Suspicion was abroad with an hundred eyes; lynx-eyed officers were alert; [clews?] were followed; but every circumstance, every trace, pointed as unervingly as the finger of fate to this dark skinned man and this white faced woman; to this negro whom he had befriended; to this woman who had taken to his bosom, as the authors of the deep damnation of his taking off.

"It is a significant fact that the defendants stand together in their defense. Although the white woman ignores the black man - never speaks to him in the court room, yet their defense is one. The negro is not her to say the woman did it, and the woman is not here to say the woman did it, and the woman is not here to say the man did it, but both are here todefy for themselves, and each other, any complicity with the crime. They are both innocent. If, then, the theory of the defense is to prevail, you must excuse both these defendants from participation in the crime. You must find the murderers to be other than Mary Sheedy and Monday McFarland."

At this point court adjourned for noon. At 2 o'clock Mr. Lambertson resumed his argument.

Circumstantial evidence was exhaustively discussed, and in an invincible argument showed that in the vast majority of cases where applied, circumstantial evidence is the strongest, because unbiased and [allently?] unprejudiced. What is circumstantial evidence? If you awaken in the morning and hear water rippling down the street, and see dampness upon the leaves, you know it has rained, though you may not have heard the patter of the drops nor seen the rain. Again, upon going out in the winter you see ice formed and the ground frozen. You did not feel the chilly atmosphere during your sleeping hours, but you know it has been cold, though you have not seen the cold. In passing down the street at noon I saw a large pile of brick, lumber, mortar and iron: I did not see the building, but I know one will rear its handsome front in that locality soon; I did not see the building, but I know it will be erected. If you see a man cautiously stealing from a lady's room at night under suspicious conditions you do not know absolutely that anything criminal has transpired, but the very natural inference is that a criminal intimacy has existed.

Mr. Lambertson talked until 5 o'clock. The followed the instruction of the judge to the jury, which required over an hour to read. The judge first said there were four counts of the original six to consider, the first two having been withdrawn. The third count, and the first for the jury to consider, charged Monday McFarland with inflicting a mortal wound with a cane and that Mrs. Sheedy procured, aided and abetted McFarland in the act.

The next count charges Mrs. Sheedy with administering poison to her husband with murderous intent, and was aided and abetted by Monday McFarland.

The next count charges McFarland and Mrs. Sheedy with jointly assaulting Sheedy with a cane and with administering poison, and that death resulted from both causes.

The last count charges Mrs. Sheedy and Monday McFarland with the murder of John Sheedy by assaulting him with a cane.

The judge then proceeded to instruct the jury as to what constituted murder in the first and second degrees and manslaughter. The substance of the instructions is as follows:

"To consistitute murder in the first degree, the evidence must establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the killing was done purposely and of deliberate and premediteted malice. If a person has actually formed a purpose maliciously to kill and has deliverated and premeditated upon it before he performs the act and then performs it, he is guilty of murder in the first degree, however short the time may have been between the purpose and its execution.

"To constitute murder in the second degree, requires that you shall find from the evidence beyond a measurable doubt, that the killding was done purposely and maliciously, but without deliveration and premeditiation.

"You are instructed that it is incumbent upon the state to establish by the evidence every material allegation contained in any one of the counts as set forth in the information beyond a reasonable doubt, and if the prosecution has failed so to do, then the jury must acquit the defendants upon such count, either one or both of the, as the rule of law applies to either or both."

The judge then proceeded to instruct the jury that if by word or sign Mrs. Sheedy aided or abetted the crime that she was an accessory. That it was not necessary to prove what kind of poison was used. That the defendants were supposed to be innocent until proven otherwise.

The remainder of the somewhat voluminous instructions were in the maind a reiteration of the last proposition. The case was then given to the jury.

INCENDIARY CATTLE THIEF.

He Has His Revenge on a Former Employer.

Alliance, Neb. May 28. - It has now been discovered that the man who burned the ranch of Bill Watkins, the stockman and beef contractor whose troubles in connection with cattle stealing from Wyoming are well known, was Felix James, who was the foreman of the Watkins cattle outfit, and who is badly wanted in Wyoming for deep complicity in the cattle stealing for which McKinney and Kingen have been convicted in the Cheyenne, Wyo., courts. About a month since, James, who has been in hiding from the officers, made his appearances at the Watkins home ranch, a short distance from alliance, and demanded money from Bill Watkins. The demand of James was refused, and a bitter quarrel ensued between the two men, at the cessation of which James left.

That night Hames visited Alliance secretly and set on fire the Watkins slaughter house. He then, on the next night, burned down the houses on the Watkins home ranch, and a few nights afterwards, he fired the buildings on the Watkins Indian creek ranch.

James was determined that the flames should do their appointed work, and used coal oil in all three of the fires, even pouring the inflammable fluid over the horses in the stables, five head being destroyed, including two very valuable stallions.

James left a note tacked on one of the fence posts at the Indian creek ranch stating that he "would come again." Wakins offers $1,000 reward for James. The firebug and range criminal went south from Indian creek accompanied by an unknown companion.

DEATH OF A FAMOUS HORSE.

Old Mortimer Shot to Relieve Him of His Misery.

New York, May 28, - Old Mortimer is dead. He was lead out like a soldier and shot. For over a year he has been an invalid said it was to put an end to his misery that Mr. Withers permitted him to be destroyed. Mortimer was twenty-six years old and died full of honors. On the race course and in the stid he was one of the greatest horses of this century. Pierre Lorillard imported him about twelve years ago, buying him of Count LaGrange for $25,000. He ran forty-eight races in his career on the French, German and English turf, winning twenty-six of them. He would win at six furlongs today and at two and one-half miles tomorrow, and was up to any weight, 140 pounds being only a steadier for him. He career is a romantic one. It came near being the cause of international dispute. At the breaking up of the Racocas stud Mortimer became the property of Mr. Withers at Brookdale. He was the sire of many well known race horses, the most conspicuous in recent years being exile. Where at the height of his fame Mortimer was pronounced by Admiral Rone seven pounds the best horse in training in the world. It was the declaration that induced Mr. Lorillard to buy him.

WANTED TO LYNCH HIM.

Exciting Experience of a Butte Street Railway Official.

Butte, Mont., May 28, - George F. Woolson, manager of the Butts electric railway and cable company, narrowly escaped the vengeance of a mob last evening which followed him and his escort to jail, several hundred strong, throwing brickbats and shouting "Lynch him," all the way from his office to the county prison. Main street was filled with men, and it seemed that their presence there was by some preconcerted arrangement, so suddenly did the crowd block the streets. Conflicting stories are told as to what incited the demonstration. Wools on found Conductor Boyle of the cable line on his car drunk and unfit for duty. He was ordered off the car and requested to go to the officer and get his time, which he did. The office is on the second floor, which he reached by a flight of stairs. Boyle was picked up at the bottom of these stairs later, it is feared fatally hurt about the head. Woolson said Boyle fell down the stairway. Bystanders said Woolson threw him down. Friends of labor quickly espoused Boyle's cause. As soon as the crowd dispersed Woolson was admitted to bail.