The Enquirer

A letter from Stockbridge, to the Editors, dated the 14th inst. says, "If you think proper you may mention in your paper, that a man (I may with more propriety say a monster in human form) by the name of Ephraim Wheeler, of Windsor, in this county. this day received the dreadful sentence of DEATH, at the Supreme Judicial Court now sitting at Lenox, for committing the abominable, disgraceful, unnatural, and unheard of crime of Rape on the body of his own daughter!!!! a girl of only 13 years of age!--it appeared in evidence, that this was the third time that he had attempted the same crime, the two latter times he succeeded--the first he did not. I attended the trial--it lasted 14 hours--the crime was fully and substantially proved to the satisfaction of almost every one--(there were at least 100 spectators) though Wheeler yet persists in his innocence. The jury without leaving their seats pronounced him GUILTY. This is, probably, the only instance of the kind that has ever occurred since the world began--well might the Judge exclaim, when pronouncing the sentence of the law, that he (Wheeler) "had added a new crime to the catalogue of crimes," or words to this effect.

The gentleman whom I employed to take minutes of the trial has just informed me that he believes he can make out a complete "report of the trial" for publication--if he does, I shall publish the whole proceedings soon--it will make a pamphlet of 100 octavo pages, more or less.

Yours, &c. H. W."