After much entreaty, our host and hostess were prevailed on to sit down with us. The former took a glass of brandy, and emptied it at a draught. "Well, Mr. Clarke," said he, "heard nothing We filled it again; he drank it off, and it was yet? I am sorry for it-very sorry."

me rough and stubborn enough, when I met you | down what I had in my hand, and ran to the door. as you had been huntin' my cow; but I see now Cesy came to meet me: Missi," said he, "Douwho I have to do with. But may I be shot my-gal is gone!" self, if, whenever I find him, I don't send a bullet through his body; and I'll be warrant it shall hinder his stealin' any more children." "Steal children!" repeated I. "Has one of a man on horseback." your negroes been stolen?"

"God only knows," continued he, and his head sank upon his breast; then suddenly starting up, he drank off glass after glass of brandy, as fast as he could pour it out. "And how and when did this horrible theft fields. I called out. I looked everywhere. At occur?" asked we.

last I ran to where the people were at work, and

"The woman can tell you about it," was the fetched Cesy's mother. I thought she would be

me, and my hands fall to my sides, as stiff and heavy as though they were lead. I look round, but no Dougal is there. When I go to bed, I put his bed beside mine, and call him, but no one answers. Sleeping or waking, my poor boy is always before me. Would to God I were dead! I have cursed and sworn, prayed and supplicated, wept and groaned, but all-all in vain!"

there I lost the trail. The man must have got "When I go to work," continued he, after a into a boat, with his horse and the child, had per-pause, "my little Dougal seems to stand before haps crossed the Mississippi, or perhaps gone down the stream. Who could tell where he would land? It might be ten, twenty, fifty, or a hundred miles lower down. I was terribly frightened, and I rode on to Hopefield. There nothing had been seen or heard of my child; but all the men got on their horses to help me to find him. The neighbors came also, and we sought about for a whole day and night. No trace or track was I have seen many persons suffering from disto be found. Nobody had seen either the child or tress of mind, but never did I meet with one whose the man who had carried him off. We beat the sorrow was so violent and overpowering as that of woods for thirty miles round my house, crossed this backwoodsman. We did our utmost to conthe Mississippi, went up as far as Memphis, and sole him, and to inspire him with new hope, but down to Helena and the Yazoo river; nothing was he was inconsolable; his eyes were fixed, he had to be seen or heard. We came back as we went fallen into a sort of apathy, and I doubt if he even out, empty-handed and discouraged. When I got heard what was said to him. We ourselves were home, I found the whole county assembled at my so affected that our words seemed almost to choke house. Again we set out; again we searched the us. Time pressed, however; it was impossible forest through; every hollow tree, every bush and for us to remain any longer, nor could we have thicket, was looked into. Of bears, stags, and done any good by so doing. We shook the unpanthers there were plenty, but no signs of my fortunate couple by the hand, promised to do all boy. On the sixth day I came home again; but in our power to learn something of their child's my home was become hateful to me-everything | fate, and took our departure. vexed and disgusted me. My clothes and skin It was six weeks after the time above referred were torn off by the thorns and briars, my very bones ached; but I did n't feel it. It was nothing to what I suffered in my mind.

"On the second day after my return, I was lying heart and body sick in bed, when one of the neighbors came in, and told me that he had just seen, at Hopefield, a man from Muller county, who told him that a stranger had been seen on the road to New Madrid, whose description answered to that which Cesy had given of the child-stealer. It was a man with a blue coat and a brown horse, and a child upon his saddle. I forgot my sickness and my sore bones, bought a new horse-for I had ridden mine nearly to death-and set out directly, rode day and night, three hundred miles, to New Madrid, and when I arrived there, sure enough I found the man who had been described to me, and a child with him. But it was not my child! The man belonged to New Madrid, and had been on a journey with his son into Muller county.

"I don't know how I got home again. Some people found me near Hopefield, and brought me to my house. I had fever, and was raving for ten days; and during that time the neighbors advertised the thing in all the papers in Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. We had ridden altogether thousands of miles, but it was no use. No!" continued he, with a deep groan; "if my child had died of a fever, if he had fallen in with a bear or panther, and been killed, it would be bitter, bitter sorrow-he was my last child. But, merciful God-stolen! My son, my poor child, stolen!"

And the man cried aloud, sprang from his seat, and wrung his hands and wept like an infant. Even his wife had not shown such utter agony of grief.

to, that I found myself compelled by business to make a journey to Natchez. I had often thought of poor Clarke's misfortune, and, in conjunction with my friends, had done all in my power to discover the villain who had robbed him of his child. Hitherto all our endeavors had been fruitless. The facts were circulated in every newspaper, were matter of conversation at every tea-table in the country; rewards were offered, researches made, but not the smallest trace of the boy or his stealer was to be found.

It was a bright January afternoon when I landed at Natchez. In company with some acquaintances, I was ascending the little hill between the lower and upper town, when we heard an unusual noise and bustle; and on reaching the summit, we saw a crowd assembled before the door of Justice Bonner's house. Upon going to see what was the matter, we found that the mob consisted of the better class of people in Natchez, both women and men, but especially the former. Every face wore an expression of interest and anxiety; and upon making inquiry, we learned that the child-stealer had been at length discovered-or rather, that a man had been taken up on strong suspicion of his having stolen Mr. Clarke's son, of Hampstead county. I was heartily rejoiced at the news, and endeavored to press forward through the throng, in hopes of hearing some particulars; but the crowd was so dense that it was impossible to get through. I stood there for nearly two hours, the concourse all the while increasing, none stirring from the places they occupied, while every adjacent window was filled with eager, anxious faces.

At last the door opened, and the prisoner, guarded by two constables, and followed by the

who sent their children to him had speedily withdrawn them. He was known at Natchez by the name of Thomas Tully, nor did he now deny that that was his name, or that he had sent the letter, which was written in a practised schoolmasterlike hand. It was further elicited that he was perfectly acquainted with the paths and roads between Natchez and Hopefield, and in the neighborhood of those two places, as well as with the swamps, creeks, and rivers there adjacent. He was fully committed, till such time as the father of the stolen child should be made acquainted with the result of the examination.

sheriff, came out of the house, and took the direc- | highest degree suspicious and repulsive, he had tion of the town prison. "That is he!" whis- not succeeded in his plan, and the few parents pered the women to one another, with pale faces and trembling voices, clasping their children tighter, as though fearful they would be snatched from them. The countenance of the culprit was the most repulsive I had ever seen-a mixture of brutal obstinacy and low cunning, with a sort of sneering, grinning expression. His small green-gray eyes were fixed upon the ground; but as he passed through the lane opened by the crowd, he from time to time partially raised them, and threw sidelong and malicious glances at the bystanders. He was rather above the middle height, his complexion of a dirty grayish color, his cheeks hollow, his lips remarkably thick and coarse, his whole appearance in the highest degree wild and disgusting. His dress consisted of an old worn-out blue frock, trousers of the same color, a high-crowned shabby hat, and tattered shoes. The impression which his appearance made might be read in the pale faces of the spectators. They gazed after him with a sort of hopeless look as he walked away. "If that is the man who stole the child," murmured several, "there is no hope. The boy is lost!" I extricated myself from the throng, and hastened to Justice Bonner, with whom I was acquainted, and who gave me the following particulars.

a

About four weeks after our excursion in the neighborhood of Hopefield, Clarke had received letter, signed Thomas Tully, and stamped with the Natchez postmark. The contents were to the effect that his child was still living; that the writer of the letter knew where he was, and that, if Mr. | Clarke would enclose a fifty-dollar bank-note in his answer, he should receive further information. On receipt of the said sum, the writer said he would indicate a place to which Mrs. Clarke might repair, unaccompanied, and there, upon payment of two hundred dollars more, the child should be delivered up.

In five days Clarke arrived with the negro boy Cæsar. The whole town showed the greatest sympathy with the poor man's misfortune; the lawyers offered him their services free of charge, and a second examination of the prisoner took place. Everything possible was done to induce the latter to confess what had become of the child; but to all questions he opposed an obstinate silence. The negro boy did not recognize him. At last he declared that he knew nothing of the stolen child, and that he had only written the letter in the hope of extorting money from the father. Hardly, however, had this been written down, when he turned to Clarke, with an infernal grin upon his countenance, and said, "You have persecuted and hunted me like a wild beast, but I will make you yet more wretched than you are able to make me." He then proceeded to inform him of a certain place where he would find his child's clothes.

Clarke immediately set out with a constable to the indicated spot, found the clothes, as he had been told he would do, and returned to Natchez. The accused was again put at the bar, and said, after frequently contradicting himself, that the child was still alive, but that, if they kept him longer in prison, it would inevitably die of hunger. Nothing could persuade him to say where the boy was, or to give one syllable of further ex

Upon receiving this letter, the unfortunate father consulted with his friends and neighbors; and, by their advice, he wrote immediately to the post-planation. master at Natchez, informing him of the circumstances, and requesting that the person who applied for his answer might be detained. Four days afterwards, a man came to the window of the post-office, and inquired if there was any letter to the address of Thomas Tully. The postmaster pretended to be searching for the letter amongst a pile of others, and meanwhile a constable, who was in attendance, went round and captured the applicant. Upon the examination of the latter, it appeared that he was an Irishman, who had some time previously been hanging about Natchez, and had endeavored to establish a school there. As he, however, had been unable to give any satisfactory account of himself, of where he came from, or what he had been doing up to that time, and as his manner and appearance were moreover in the

Meantime the quarter-sessions commenced, and the prisoner was brought up for trial. An immense concourse of persons had assembled to witness the proceedings in this remarkable case. Everything was done to induce the accused to confess, but all in vain. Promises of free pardon, and even of reward, were made to him, if he told where the child was; but the man maintained an obstinate silence. He at last again changed his story, retracted his previous declaration as to his knowledge of where the boy was, said he had found the clothes, which he had recognized by the descriptions that had been everywhere advertised, and that it was that which had put it into his head to write to the father, in hopes of making his profit by so doing. In the absence of witnesses, although there was strong suspicion, there could be no proof

The fatigues and constant disappointments that poor Clarke had endured, had worn him out, and at last again stretched him on a bed of sickness. His life was for a long time despaired of, but he finally recovered, and shortly afterwards the term of imprisonment to which the child-stealer (for the public persisted in considering Tully) had been condemned, expired. There was no pretext for detaining him, and he was set at liberty. Clarke was advised to endeavor to obtain from him, by money and good treatment, some information concerning the child. Both father and mother threw themselves at the man's feet, implored him to name his own reward, but to tell them what had become of their son.

of his having committed the crime in question. | such a crime, seemed in the highest degree painIn America, circumstantial evidence is always re- ful and offensive to them. It was soon made eviceived with extreme caution and reluctance; and dent that the prisoner had invented the story, in even the fact of the child's clothes having been order to procure a cessation of his punishment of found in the place the prisoner had pointed out, the previous night. was insufficient to induce the jury to find the latter guilty of the capital charge brought against him. Many of the lawyers, indeed, were of opinion, that the man's last story was true, that he had found the clothes, and, being a desperate character and in needy circumstances, had written the letter for purposes of extortion. Of this offence only was he found guilty, and condemned, as a vagrant and impostor, to a few months' imprisonment. By the American laws no severer punishment could be awarded. This one, however, was far from satisfying the public. There was something so infernal in the malignant sneer of the culprit, in the joy with which he contemplated the sufferings of the bereaved father, and the anxiety of the numerous friends of the latter, that a shudder of horror and disgust had frequently run through the court during the trial. Even the coolest and most practised lawyers had not been free from this emotion, and they declared that they had never wit-It is now my turn." nessed such obduracy.

The inhabitants of Natchez, especially of the upper town, are, generally speaking, a highly intelligent and respectable class of people; but upon this occasion they lost all patience and self-control, and proceeded to an extreme measure, which only the peculiar circumstances of the case could in any degree justify. Without previous notice, they assembled in large numbers upon the night of the 31st of January, with a firm determination to correct for once the mildness of the laws, and to take the punishment of the criminal into their own hands. They opened the prison, brought out the culprit, and after tying him up, a number of stout negroes proceeded to flog him severely with whips of bullock's hide.

For a long time the man bore his punishment with extraordinary fortitude, and remained obstinately silent when questions were put to him concerning the stolen child. At last, however, he could bear the pain no longer, and promised a full confession. He named a house on the banks of the Mississippi, some fifty miles from Natchez, the owner of which, he said, knew where the child was to be found.

The sheriff had, of course, not been present at these Lynch-law proceedings, of which he was not aware till they were over, but of which he probably in secret did not entirely disapprove. No sooner, however, was he told of the confession that had been extorted from the prisoner, than he set off at once in the middle of the night, accompanied by Clarke, for the house that had been pointed out. They arrived there at noon on the following day, and found it inhabited by a respectable family, who had heard of the child having been stolen, but beyond that, knew nothing of the matter. The mere suspicion of participation in

"You have flogged and imprisoned me," replied the man, with one of his malicious grins; " 'you would have hung me if you could; you have done all in your power to make me miserable.

And he obstinately refused to say a word on the subject of the lost child. He left the town, accompanied by Clarke, who clung to him like his shadow, in the constant hope that he would at last make a revelation. They crossed the Mississippi together, and on arriving behind Concordia, the bereaved father once more besought Tully to tell him what had become of his son, swearing that, if he did not do so, he would dog him day and night, but that he should never escape alive out of his hands. The man asked how long he would give him. "Six-and-thirty hours" was the reply. Tully walked on for some time beside Clarke and his wife, apparently deep in thought. On a sudden he sprang upon the backwoodsman, snatched a pistol from his belt, and fired it at his head. The weapon missed fire. Tully saw that his murderous attempt had failed, and apprehensive doubtless of the punishment that it would entail, he leaped, without an instant's hesitation, into the deepest part of a creek by which they were walking. He sank immediately, the water closed over his head, and he did not once reäppear. His body was found a couple of hours afterwards, but no trace was ever discovered of the Stolen Child.*

POPULAR HEALTH.-The mean term of life diminishes northwards in Great Britain. The highest is in the south-western counties, in the following order: Sussex 55, Hants 53, Dorset 55, Devon 56, Cornwall 55; the decrement in the last case is caused by the shorter lives of the miners. The county of Lancaster has a mean of 36, the lowest county; in which Liverpool rates at 26. Human life in Devon is on the average; therefore 20 years longer than in Lancaster and 30 longer than in Liverpool.

* Various particulars of the above incident may be found in the Mississippi newspapers. of the years 1825-6,