Virginia Free Press & Farmers' Repository

INTEMPERANCE AND MURDER

At the last court held in Detroit (Michigan territory,) a man named Stephen G. Simmons, was tried on a charge of murdering his wife. The witnesses of the crime were the children of the parties, on whose testimony the man was convicted. It appeared that both husband and wife drank freely. That each took a dram on the morning of the day on which the 'murder' was committed, and that they then retired to bed, where they remained until near sundown. Simmons then rose, and after some inquiries as to person of whom he had suspicions of improper intercourse with his wife, commenced beating her. Afterwards he desisted and retired to another room. After a short interval, he again beat her, and this was repeated three or four times. After the last beating, the son going into the room found her insensible, and supposed her to be in a fit. Means were taken to revive her, but it was found that the work of death had been completed.

The evidence in this case (says the Detroit Journal) made the bearers acquainted with the condition of the family for some years past. It represented a husband sometimes forcing, always encouraging, his wife to drink: in his moments of intoxication, beating her with the hand or instruments of wood or iron, and driving her forth at night to seek shelter in the woods, following her and stamping upon her. It represented a mother in a drunken carousal with her husband, in the presence of their children: or raving like a fury, and grasping chairs or boards to beat them, and drive them from the house. Intemperate men and intemperate women, can you learn nothing from this? The children bore ample testimony to the kindness and good conduct of the father when sober. The Court had not pronounced sentence.