to believe in God, others would no longer hold anything sacred." Thus Riembauer not only committed murder ad majorem Dei gloriam, but for the same cause persevered for four long years in denying his crime. "It was," said he, "only in order to preserve the honor of the clergy in my person that I pined so many years in captivity without confessing my crime. But as soon as I perceived that it was the will of God that I should reveal the deed, I made a full confession." So utterly perverted and corrupt was the mind of this Tartuffe, that he actually boasted that he had deserved well of the State by his deceit and hypocrisy. "I have openly confessed," says he, "my manner of life, and I think myself entitled to some indulgence for so governing my conduct as to cause no public scandal."

With regard to the alleged poisoning of Magdalena Frauenknecht and her mother, no proof was forthcoming. The bodies were exhumed in 1813, but no trace of poison was discovered, and everything led to the conclusion that they died of a nervous fever which at that time raged in the district of the Danube, and which killed many persons in the neighborhood, among others an Austrian soldier, who, from charity, was taken into the manse, and nursed by Magdalena herself. Riembauer denied having any hand in the death of these two women.

Several other circumstances appeared during the course of inquiry; among others, a charge of forging a document for 635 florins, in which the grounds of suspicion were very strong against the prisoner, although he did not confess. In his 107th examination, he related that once when the innkeeper of Grafentraubach refused him a loan of money, he had meditated burning his house down. This was to prove that sinful thoughts are

not crimes. He also said, in another examination, in order to show his sincerity, that he had once fervently prayed to God to destroy some man who was hateful to him, and that the man had died, probably from the effect of his prayers.

However, the murder of Anna Eichstädter was the chief point under consideration of the court.

So long as Riembauer denied his guilt, the whole force of the examination was directed to cumulate evidence against him. Catherine's testimony was on some points defective. Riembauer's confession removed all difficulties, and changed the whole posture of affairs.

It was confirmed beyond doubt by the evidence of Riembauer's own brother, who up to this time had resolutely denied, in the face of several witnesses, all knowledge of his brother's crime. He now made the following statement:

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I am indeed in a most terrible position: Riembauer is not only my brother, but has also been my constant benefactor; gratitude and fraternal love have induced me hitherto to deny all knowledge of the murder of Eichstädter, but now that my brother has himself confessed the dreadful deed, I may speak without incurring the reproach of ingratitude. I once visited my brother at his parsonage at Priel, and stayed there three or four weeks: one evening his cookmaid, Magdalena Frauenknecht, a good quiet girl, came to my bedside, and began to weep bitterly. I asked her why she cried, and she answered, Ah! brother, if you knew what I know, you would cry too!" "

6

Riembauer's brother then repeated Magdalena's statement, which exactly coincided with that of Catherine, save only that she admitted that she herself was present at the murder, and helped her master to carry the body into the outhouse, and to bury it there. Her reason for confiding the story to

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Riembauer's brother was, that the farmer who had bought Thomashof of him was then digging in the outhouse, and she was afraid lest the body might be discovered. I knew not what to say," continued his brother, "save my horror of the crime, and that I could advise her nothing, but to let things take their course."

Riembauer's confession is complete, consistent in all its parts, and legally sufficient. It tallied with a number of facts which were proved by other witnesses. It was certain that Anna Eichstädter had a child by Riembauer, that she pressed him for money, and that at the time of the murder he had none to give to her. It was further proved that Eichstädter had left Priel on All Souls' day, 1807, and might easily have reached Lauterbach the same day, and that she was never after seen alive. On the very spot described by Riembauer himself the skeleton of a woman was found, which was recognised by the teeth as that of Anna Eichstädter. Six years after the murder there were spots of blood upon the floor of Riembauer's room, as well as marks of the plane, evidently made in endeavoring to obliterate the traces of the murder. Only one shoe was found-Riembauer mentioned having chopped the other in pieces.

According to the common law of Germany, the proof of a murder having been committed, confirmed by the confession of the murderer, justifies sentence of death; * and in Riembauer's case the fact had been fully proved and the confession made; nor were there any extenuating circumstances which should mitigate the severity of the usual punishment.

Nevertheless, on the 1st August, 1818, the court passed the following sentence on the criminal:

* Stübel über den That bestand der Verbrechen.

"Francis Salesius Riembauer is found guilty of murder, and is condemned to imprisonment of the severest kind in a fortress for life."

The reasons assigned for so lenient a sentence were, first, that the fact of the murder was not clearly proved, as the skeleton, which had lain six years in the damp earth, bore no marks of violence;* and secondly, that Riembauer's character was not notoriously bad.†

* Art. 271 of the Bavarian code.

When the fact of a murder having been committed rests chiefly on the murderer's confession, the Bavarian penal code (art. 269, § 2) requires that "the accused should be either a notorious criminal, or one proved by the clearest circumstantial evidence to be a person from whom such a crime as that of which he is accused may be expected." Feuerbach adduces several excellent but obvious arguments against this law, and states his opinion that in this particular case every condition required by law was fulfilled, and every defect in the evidence supplied by the confession.

THE UNKNOWN MURDERER;

OR,

THE POLICE AT FAULT.

M

In the year 1817 there lived in the town of a goldsmith of the name of Christopher Rupprecht. He was between the ages of sixty and sixty-five, and in easy circumstances. He had been twelve years a widower, and had but one child living, a daughter, married to a furrier named Bieringer, a brother and two sisters. Rupprecht could neither read nor write, and therefore kept no accounts either of his trade or of the money he lent out at interest, but trusted entirely to his memory and to the assistance he occasionally received from others in arranging and drawing up his bills. He was a man of vulgar mind and coarse habits, fond of associating with people of the very lowest class, and of frequenting alehouses, where his chief delight was in slang and abuse, and where he suffered himself to be made the butt of the roughest jokes and the most vulgar witticisms. His ruling passion was avarice, and his favorite business the lending money at usurious interest. Though rich, he deprived himself of necessaries, and was glad when his sister or his daughter sent him a dinner; and for a long time after his wife's death he kept no servant, in order to save food and wages. Two days before the occurrence which caused the present inquiry, he had taken one into his service. Hard, morose, and repulsive, as a miser is apt to