National Police Gazette - From the Morgue

      Last spring Miss Amelia Linkhaur drove up to the Argyle Hotel, in Lumberton, N.C., and asked to see Mr. Edward Hartman, a drummer, who was stopping there. She was ushered into the parlor, and Hartman, a tall, handsome fellow, soon came in and held out his hand to her. Instead of taking it she drew a pistol from her muff, and, with the exclamation, "You have ruined me, now I will ruin you," she sent a bullet into the breast of the unfortunate young man. He fell to the floor without a word, and died that night. Miss Linkhaur, after casting a look at her prostrate victim, coolly put the pistol in her pocket, got into the carriage, and drove back home. She was at the time of the shooting enceinte. With his last breath Hartman swore that he was innocent of any wrong to the young lady.
      The tragedy caused the wildest excitement in the town. At the time of its occurrence full accounts were published in the GAZETTE, with an illustration of the tragedy. Miss Linkhaur was the only daughter of a well-to-do merchant, a young lady of the highest respectability and a teacher in the Baptist Sunday school here.
              SHE HAD MANY SUITORS,
and among them Hartman. It was generally understood that they were engaged, and when she appeared in the role of the slayer the community was dumbfounded. A few hours after the tragedy she was arrested and taken to jail. Public sympathy was with her, for by her sweet disposition, talents, and charity to the poor she had made friends of all classes in the community.
      She persistently declined to say anything about the shooting. During her confinement in jail she became a mother, and this fact intensified the sympathy for her. Every day flowers and kind messages poured in from every quarter, and from people of whom she had never heard she received letters breathing kind wishes. The law's delay made her term of confinement in jail a tedious one. During that time she spent her hours in reading. About two months ago she was tried. The scene in the court-room was dramatic. She was pale, but collected. She held her child in her arms during her testimony. Not only was the court-house surrounded by an eager throng from the town, but men from miles away were there, and near her.
              TWO OF HER FORMER LOVERS
stood sobbing like children at the spectacle. She was acquitted. Among those who wrote sympathetic letters to the young lady, when she was behind the jail bars, was Capt. Charles Little, a Custom House officer stationed at Sullivan's Island, near Charleston. He became deeply interested in her, and wrote to her repeatedly while she was in prison. On the night the trial was expected to close he was on the island, and in attempting to reach Charleston during the prevalence of a severe storm, that he might hear at the earliest possible moment whether she was to live or die, he barely escaped being lost by the capsizing of the boat. When he appeared in the court room, drenched, footsore, his face haggard and bearing the evidence of his deep suspense, her woman's heart told her that this man's love was deep, and it touched a responsive chord in her own breast. He told her of his love; she accepted him. To-day Miss Linkhaur, accompanied by her sisters, went to Florence, S.C., and there met Capt. Little. The marriage ceremony was quietly performed, and the three, mother, child, and husband, left for the heroine's new home.