son than that of the other witnesses. He says that he knew Spies and Schwab, and had heard them speak at Greif's Hall and Zepf's Hall; that he saw Spies on the wagon, and heard him ask for Parsons; that Spies, after he came down from the wagon, passed witness in company with two or three other persons, and that Schwab was not one of them. Sahl was at the time in the middle of the street, in a southwesterly direction from the wagon, in the crowd of persons standing there.

Thompson's testimony is positive in its character, and he is unimpeached as a witness, while that of the defense upon this subject is for the most part negative in character.

The jury had a right to consider the evidence of Spies and Schwab in the light of the facts that they were both on trial for murder, and that their statements on the stand were inconsistent with and contradictory of previous declarations made by them: 1 Greenl. Ev, sec. 111.

The prosecution introduced a witness by the name of Harry L. Gilmer. If the testimony of this witness is true, there is no doubt but that the defendant Spies is guilty of the murder of Degan. He swears that Spies struck a match and lighted the fuse of a bomb in the hand of Rudolph Schnaubelt, and that Schnaubelt at once, as soon as Spies had applied the match, threw the bomb into the midst of the police.

Gilmer says that he came to the Haymarket meeting at about a quarter before ten o'clock; that he had been on the South Side, and was going to his home on the West Side, and stopped at the meeting on his way; that he went up from Randolph Street on the east side of Desplaines, while Fielden was speaking, and stood between the lamp-post on the southeast corner of the alley and Desplaines Street and the wagon, near the east end of the wagon; that he stepped back into the alley, on the north side thereof, and noticed some parties opposite him, on the south side of the alley, who were talking in German, and whose conversation he did not understand; that he heard some one on the edge of the sidewalk say, "Here come the police," and then there was a rush as if to see the police as they were coming up; that a man came from the wagon to the parties on the south side of the alley, and "lit a match and touched it off, something or other; the fuse commenced to fizzle, and he gave a couple of steps forward and tossed it over into the street; . . . the man that lit the match came on this side of him, and the two or three of them stood

together, and he turned around with it in his hand," etc. The witness stated that he did not know the name of the man who threw the bomb, but knew him by sight, as he had seen him several times at meetings at different places in the city. When shown a photograph of Schnaubelt, he said: "I say that is the man that threw the bomb out of the alley." When asked who the man was that came from the wagon towards the group referred to and lighted the match, he pointed to the defendant Spies, and said: "That is the man right there." The defense have proven that a match was lighted in the alley at this time, but claim that it was struck by a laborer, in order to light his pipe.

The defense introduced nine witnesses, living in Chicago, for the purpose of impeaching Gilmer. The prosecution introduced eight witnesses from Iowa, where Gilmer lived from 1870 to 1879, and ten witnesses from Chicago, where he lived from 1879 to 1886, to sustain his reputation for truth and veracity. Before a witness can say that he will not believe a man under oath, he must first swear that he knows that man's reputation for truth and veracity among his neighbors, and that such reputation is bad. The unwillingness to believe under oath must follow from and be based upon two facts: 1. The fact that the witness knows the reputation for truth and veracity among the man's neighbors; 2. The fact that such reputation is bad. As the reputation must be bad before it can be known to be bad, the most material fact to be proved is that such reputation is bad. What a man's reputation is, is a fact to be proved just as any other fact. Where, as here, eighteen witnesses of standing and credibility swear that a man's reputation is good, while nine of equal standing and credibility swear that it is bad, the jury must determine for themselves whether they will believe the eighteen men or the nine men.

Other testimony introduced to discredit Gilmer was intended to establish, 1. That the bomb was not thrown from the point from which Gilmer said it was thrown; 2. That Spies was just getting off the wagon when the explosion occurred, and therefore could not have been in the alley lighting a match.

A witness by the name of Bernett swore that he saw the bomb thrown, and that the man who threw it stood right in front of him and threw the bomb towards the northwest. Desplaines Street, between the sidewalks, is forty-eight feet

six inches wide. The bomb fell "on the west side of Desplaines Street slightly north from the south line of the alley" extended. The testimony of Bernett does not cast much light upon the subject, either as to the person who threw the bomb, or as to the point from which it was thrown. When shown the photograph of Schnaubelt and asked if that was the man. who threw the bomb, he says: "I guess not; I never could recognize anybody." He says that the man who threw the bomb had his back turned towards him, and that he could not describe him and would not know him if he saw him. As to the place where he stood when the bomb was thrown, he placed it at one time, ten or fifteen feet south of the alley, at another, thirty-eight feet south of the alley, at another, fortyfive feet south of the alley.

The testimony of the witnesses differs very greatly as to the point, with reference to the alley, from which the bomb ascended into the air before it fell. One witness says it came from a point north of the alley, another, that it came from a point five or six feet south of the corner of the alley, others fix the point at various distances south of the alley, varying from five to forty-five feet. Witnesses for the defense, identified mostly with the International organization, and from whose midst the shots fired at the police must have come, place the point from which the bomb was thrown at the greatest distances south of the point where Gilmer fixes it.

Heineman, the reporter, a witness whose testimony is favorably quoted by both sides, says that he was forty-five feet south of the alley, on the east sidewalk of Desplaines Street, when the bomb exploded, and that he saw the bomb, or the burning fuse rise out of the crowd from "very nearly the southeast corner of the alley" and "fall among the police." This is just about the place from which Gilmer says that it ascended.

When the police halted and the captain gave the order to disperse, they were very near the south end of the wagon. The main body was on a line with the mouth of the alley, which was eleven feet wide. Bonfield says "the front rank of the first division was near up to the north line of the alley." All the police faced towards the north and were standing in regular fixed lines. Several of the officers describe the course of the bomb through the air, as seen by them from their positions in the ranks. It could not have been seen by them in the manner indicated in their testimony

if it had started from a point as far south as that sworn to by Bernett and some of the other witnesses for the defense.

The defense introduced a number of witnesses more or less identified with the defendants in their conspiracy against the police, and who stood around the wagon during the evening, for the purpose of showing that Spies did not go into the alley just before the explosion. The testimony is negative in its character. It may have been true that Spies did go into the mouth of the alley as Gilmer says, and yet it may be true that most of these witnesses, whose attention was naturally directed towards the approaching columns of the police, may not have seen him enter the alley. The defendant Spies swears that when the order to disperse was given he was still on the wagon, and that when he dismounted the bomb exploded just as he touched the sidewalk. The evidence of

other witnesses for the defense tends to confirm this statement. He says that after the explosion he was carried northward by the pushing crowd, and went into Zepf's Hall, and that he did not go into the alley nor in the direction of the alley. But Bonfield swears that, after his arrest, Spies claimed to have gone, after the explosion, eastward through Crane's Alley, and then southward therefrom to Randolph Street. Henry Spies inquired for his brother at Zepf's Hall just after the explosion, but did not find him there.

To further contradict Gilmer, a witness was examined for the purpose of showing that Schnaubelt left the Haymarket before the bomb was exploded. This witness was August Krueger, the orderly sergeant and corresponding secretary of the second company of the Lehr und Wehr Verein. He was present at the Monday night meeting of the armed sections, at which Schnaubelt was also present.

Krueger states that he saw the notice of the Haymarket meeting in the Arbeiter Zeitung, and went there about nine o'clock, and remained until ten o'clock; that about ten o'clock he was standing on the west side of Desplaines Street, about thirty or forty feet north of Randolph Street, when Schnaubelt came towards him from the northeast; that he had seen Schnaubelt before, but did not know his name; that Schnaubelt proposed to him to go home; that he walked south to Randolph Street with Schnaubelt, then eastward to Clinton Street, when Schnaubelt proceeded on eastward on Randolph Street, while he went north on Clinton Street, thence by way of Milwaukee Avenue to Engel's house.

If this were all true, Schnaubelt may have returned and entered Crane's Alley through its opening into Randolph Street. Krueger stated, after he was arrested on May 6th, that he was not at the Haymarket at all on the evening of May 4th; and upon his cross-examination in this case, he admits that he so stated.

There is a mass of testimony in the record in reference to the statements made by Thompson and Gilmer. Some of this testimony sustains those statements, and some of it discredits them. Any further review of it than that which has already been made will be impossible in this opinion. It is sufficient to say that it is very conflicting. It was the province of the jury to pass upon it. They had the right to consider it in connection with all the other facts and circumstances in the

case.

It is not necessary for us to pass any opinion upon it, as we think there is evidence enough in the record to sustain the finding of the jury independently of the testimony given by Thompson and Gilmer.

FIELDEN.

On Monday evening, the defendant Fielden was making a speech to some wagon-makers on one of the upper floors of the building No. 54 West Lake Street, while the armed sections were concocting their conspiracy in the basement of that building. The proof does not show, however, that he was present at the meeting in the basement, or took part in the original formation of the Monday night conspiracy.

A conspiracy may be described in general terms as a combination of two or more persons by some concerted action to accomplish some criminal or unlawful purpose, or to accomplish some purpose not in itself criminal or unlawful by criminal or unlawful means: 3 Greenl. Ev., sec. 89; Heaps v. Dunham, 95 Ill. 583. It is not necessary, however, that the accused should have been an orignal contriver of the mischief, "for he may become a partaker in it by joining the others. while it is being executed": 2 Bishop on Criminal Law, 190. "If he concur, no proof of agreement to concur is necessary. . . . As soon as the union of wills for the unlawful purpose is perfected, the offense of conspiracy is complete. This joint assent of minds, like all other parts of a criminal case, may be established as an inference of the jury from other facts proved; in other words, by circumstantial evidence": 2 Bishop on Criminal Law, 190.