The Dawson News

WAS A PRISONER FORTY-FIVE YEARS
MAN SENTENCED FOR MURDER FREED AS INNOCENT.
SCIENCE TO RESCUE

"I didn't kill my wife! I didn't kill my wife!" For 45 years Louis Danval, convict in one of the prisons of Paris, France, told that to his jailers, to his fellow convicts.

Jailers laughed at him. His fellow convicts laughed at him. But Danval insisted that he "didn't kill his wife."

Made Fun of Him.

Jailers, and convicts made fun of Danval on another score. In the dim light of his cell at night Danval would pore over medical journals and read every line. Danval had a passion for reading medicine. After 45 years of reading he became somewhat of a doctor.

"What good will that do you?" his fellow convicts asked. "You're in for life. Are you going to be a doctor in the after life."

But Danval knew perfectly well what he was about. He had been a druggist. One day—it was in 1878—his wife was discovered dead. The doctors found arsenic in her stomach. There was but one conclusion—Danval, being a druggist, had poisoned his wife.

Then the trial. Danval protested vehemently that he hadn't killed his wife. But the inevitable day came when Danval heard the judge sentence him to prison for life.

Starts His Refrain.

That was 45 years ago. Danval began from the first day to tell his jailers and the other convicts that he didn't kill his wife. He also began to read medicine.

Twenty years ago—he read in one medical journal that every healthy human body contains a quantity of arsenic. Triumphantly he showed that to his jailers and demanded a new trial.

They laughed at him. Danval was one to be laughed at. A queer sort, reading medical journals in his cell at night.

Medical science advanced. Again Danval read that it takes so much arsenic to kill a person; that different quantities are found in different bodies; that arsenic is present in every body.

Danval showed the journal to his jailers. He protested that the amount of arsenic found in the stomach of his wife was not sufficient to kill. At first the jailers laughed. Then one thought it high time they stopped laughing at Danval.

His case was brought to the attention of the court. The proceedings of his trial reviewed. Danval was released from prison the other day and granted an income the equivalent of a thousand dollars a year by the government.