TAMPERING WITH THE JURY.
The jury once more retired. The court kept furnishing fresh charges in opposition to the first given; the last of which was so pointedly as to declare in positive terms that according to the law and evidence it, the jury, was compelled to find a verdict for the prosecution! Six long days and nights had this jury remained in confinement. Worn out by it and with excessive loss of rest, together with no hope of immediate relief, as the judge had declared his intention to keep it in strict confinement for an indefinite period, unless a verdict could sooner be returned; all these miseries endured, and in prospect to be endured, forced the jury at last to a verdict against its better judgment by the understanding or impression artfully made that it would be better to get liberty by agreeing to a verdict with a small amount of fine in the way of damages for G. Y. Overall, but had not the most distant idea of any imprisonment resulting. But the judge better knew the law which invested him with power to imprison for six months, but in this instance he sentenced only for three months.
In addition to the torturing process resorted to for the purpose of forcing a verdict from the jury in its last hours of confinement, other shameful means were made use of by outsiders of a tampering nature—such as the conveyance of notes and packages in bottles to that part of the jury in favor of the prosecution—one end of the string tied to the bottle, and the other end, in the form of a ball, thrown through the window to be received by the parties intended. The nature of these notes and packages could only be conjectured—the recipients themselves holding the contents a perfect secret within their own little circles. This information was conveyed to the defendant by eye-witnesses and part of the jury.