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Show BEHIND THE BARS. Two years ago a good part of Ingham county was highly excited over a shooting affray which sent two men to their graves, badly wounded another, and resulted in the imprisonment of Mrs. Emily U. Marble. She was sent to Jackson at first, but has for some months been an inmate of the Detroit House of Correction, where our reporter saw her yesterday. A strong effort is making to induce the Governor to review the evidence in her case, and no prisoner around the institution has more kind words said in her favor by the officials. She is toasted as far as any prisoner can be, and her matronly dignity secures her respect, even when clothed in prison garb. Her sentence was for seven years. "I was a widow, well off, and had I remained a widow this trouble would have never come upon me," she began. "I married a man twenty years older than myself, a widower with grown-up children, and our married life could not be happy." The first hard words, the prisoner went on to say, were passed on account of a woman of doubtful reputation, for whom her husband evinced such an affection that the wife reproved him. He was angered at her words and defiant as to her wishes, and their life was full of bitterness from that day. Mrs. Marble had about $10,000 worth of property, and her refusal to sign this over caused more hard feelings. Her son and the children of her husband did not agree, as a matter of course, and the house was seldom peaceful. Three years ago her husband went East on a visit. Returning after a few weeks he announced that he had found a "better woman down there" and meant to return to her. From that date there was a practical separation, and Marble applied for a divorce. He, however, visited the place quite often, having his headquarters at Lansing. Upon his advice the wife hired a man named Martin to work as a farm-hand. Martin was married, and by and by the gossips forced his wife to be jealous of him and they also separated. It seemed at last as if every neighbor took one side or the other, and incidents occurred almost weekly to keep the excitement alive. Guns and revolvers would be fired under Mrs. Marble's windows at midnight. Her son and Martin were several times fired at. The barn and granary were broken open and property carried away, and the family lived in fear and dread. One day, as the woman says, Marble entered the house, exhibited a new revolver, and told her that he had purchased it to shoot her with. He aimed it at her head, but she dodged him and escaped to another part of the house, and he went away saying that another time was coming. "I trembled when I arose in the morning, and I was full of terror as the night came down," she said in her story. "I bought a shot-gun for my son and a revolver for myself, but still we felt helpless. On the night of the 12th of November two years ago, the son discovered about dusk that some one had stolen a barrel of apples from the barn. Searching around for clues, he found the barrel in the road near the gate. Returning to the house he announced his intention to take his gun and lie in waiting for whoever should come for the plunder. Martin decided to keep him company with a revolver, and Mrs. Marble now became alarmed and nervous and refused to remain in the house alone. Taking her revolver, which was scarcely more than a toy pistol, she started out with them. She said yesterday: "My last words to my son as we started down towards the gate were to be careful. I did not mean to let him fire at the apple thief except to frighten him." They were only half way to the gate when a man suddenly rose from the grass and fired at them. In the same second another shot was fired from behind a raspberry bush to the left. Martin and the son fired in return, but the mother sank down with fear and only recovered her feet when a revolver was fired almost in her face. She leaped away to find her son struggling with one of the unknown. He struck his assailant with the gun, breaking it, and in return was shot in the arm. Two or three other men were firing away meanwhile, and Martin was using his revolver in return, and the air was full of bullets. At this point Mrs. Marble said, "When my son cried out that he was shot I ran to him and was trying to pull him towards the house when the man who shot him again rushed up and seized him. They went down, and while struggling on the ground my husband rushed in and fired at the boy. I know it was him; I swore it was on my trial. I cried out in terror, and then the men struggled up. While the other one clutched my boy my husband sprang forward, put the muzzle of his revolver to Will's temple, and fired. Then I became wild. I screamed out at him, and when he turned and fired at me I returned the shot. He fired again, and I returned that. Then he ran away and I found my boy on the grass, dead I thought. The bullet had entered his head, and it is there yet, but he did not die." When the son had been carried into the house it was found that a man named Ayres was lying dead in the yard, and another named Morley so badly wounded that he died in about two weeks. Mrs. Marble had fired twice, the son once and Martin five or six times-in all about twenty bullets had whizzed over the grass. It was shown at the inquest that Ayres and Morley were in the pay of Marble for that night, and Marble, his wife, her son and Martin were all arrested. Marble was soon bailed and used as a witness. He testified, as the prisoner asserts, at the inquest and on two trials, that the party from the house came down and opened fire without a word. When his wife was tried he swore that the party halted and that she cried out, "There they are-shoot!" The son was tried first, convicted and sentenced to sixteen years in prison. He secured a new trial and was acquitted. Martin was never brought to trial, but held for awhile and discharged. Marble was discharged also, and yet the wife was convicted and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. She would have secured an acquittal but was defeated on purely technical grounds. It was proven that she fired two shots, and only two. One of these grazed her husband, and the other went wild. Martin swore to emptying his revolver, but he was discharged and the woman convicted. The son certainly killed one of the men, and yet a second trial proved his act one of self-defense and acquitted him. Mrs. Marble is a matronly woman of 43, intelligent, well-bred, and terribly earnest in speaking of her great troubles. She had no bitter words for any one, but the tenderness of any mother in speaking of her son. As stated at the outset, her character is such that she is respected and trusted, and if her case was reviewed and points enough found in her favor to warrant a pardon, every official around the institution would truly rejoice with her.-Detroit Free Press. |