"'The murderer's home is a red wooden house, standing a little way back from the road. On the ground-floor is a room which leads into the kitchen, and from that again into the passage. There is also a larger room which does not communicate with the kitchen. The church of Wissefjerda is situated obliquely to your right when you are standing in the passage.
"'His motive was enmity; it seems as if he had bought something—taken something—a paper. He went away from home at daybreak, and the murder was committed in the evening.'
"Miss Olsen was then awakened, and like all my subjects, she remembered perfectly what she had been seeing, which had made a very profound impression on her; she added several things which I did not write down.
"On November 6th (Monday) I met Miss Olsen, and she told me in great agitation that she had met the murderer from Wissefjerda in the street. He was accompanied by a younger person and followed by two policemen, and was walking from the police office to the gaol. I at once expressed my doubts of her being right, partly because country people are generally arrested by the country police, partly because they are always taken directly to gaol. But when she insisted on it, and maintained that it was the person she had seen when asleep, I went to the police office.
"I inquired if any one had been arrested on suspicion of the crime in question, and a police-constable answered that such was the case, and that, as they had been taken to the town on Sunday, they had been kept in the police-station over night, and after that had been obliged to go on foot to gaol, accompanied by two constables." (The police-constable, T. A. Ljung, states that Dr. Backman described quite accurately the appearance of the house, its furniture, how the rooms were situated, where the suspected man lived, and gave a very correct account of Niklas Jonnasson's personal appearance. The doctor also asked him if he had observed that Jonnasson had a scar on his right hand. He said he had not then observed it, but ascertained later that it really was so, and Jonnasson said that he got it from an abscess).
"The trial was a long one, and showed that Gustafsson had agreed to buy for Jonnasson, but in his own name, the latter's farm, which was sold by auction on account of Jonnasson's debts. This is what is called a thief's bargain. Gustafsson bought the farm, but kept it for himself. The statements of the accused men were very vague; the father had prepared an alibi with much care, but it failed to account for just the length of time that was probably enough to commit the murder in. The son tried to prove an alibi by means of two witnesses, but these confessed that they had given false evidence, which he had bribed them to do when they were in prison with him on account of another matter.
"But though the evidence against the defendants was very strong, it was not considered that there was sufficient legal evidence, and, there being no jury in Sweden, they were left to the verdict of posterity." (pp. 213-216.)
A Terrible Vision of Torture at Sea.
The following marvellous story of a vision reaches me from Scotland. The Rev. D. McQueen writes me from 165, Dalkeith-road, Edinburgh, December 14th, as follows:—
"I have been much interested in your Ghost Stories. I wish to inform you of one I have heard, and which I think eclipses in interest, minuteness of detail, and tragical pathos anything I have ever known, and which, if published and edited by your graphic pen, would cause a sensation in every scientific society in Great Britain.