who now has temporary possession of the county-seat by means of a series of gigantic frauds, and of wholesale bribery and corruption and nefarious ballot-box stuffing.  The fair Katy Charlton, who was drowned by the heart-rending calamity of last week, was his step-daughter, and now her brother, Albert Charlton, is arrested as a vile and dishonest mail-robber, and the victim whose land-warrant he stole was Miss Kate Charlton’s betrothed lover, Mr. Smith Westcott.  There was always hatred and animosity, however, between the lover and the brother, and it is hinted that the developments on the trial will prove that young Charlton had put a hired and ruthless assassin on the track of Westcott at the time of his sister’s death.  Mr. Westcott is well known and highly esteemed in Metropolisville and also here in Perritaut.  He is the gentlemanly Agent in charge of the branch store of Jackson, Jones & Co., and we rejoice that he has made so narrow an escape from death at the hands of his relentless and unscrupulous foe.

“As for Albert Charlton, it is well for the community that he has been thus early and suddenly overtaken in the first incipiency of a black career of crime.  His poor mother is said to be almost insane at this second grief, which follows so suddenly on her heart-rending bereavement of last week.  We wish there were some hope that this young man, thus arrested with the suddenness of a thunderbolt by the majestic and firm hand of public justice, would reform; but we are told that he is utterly hard, and refuses to confess or deny his guilt, sitting in moody and gloomy silence in the room in which he is confined.  We again call the attention of the proper authorities to the fact that Plausaby has not kept his agreement, and that Wheat County has no secure jail.  We trust that the youthful villain Charlton will not be allowed to escape, but that he will receive the long term provided by the law for thieving postmasters.  He will be removed to St. Paul immediately, but we seize the opportunity to demand in thunder-tones how long the citizens of this county are to be left without the accommodations of a secure jail, of which they stand in such immediate need?  It is a matter in which we all feel a personal interest.  We hope the courts will decide the county-seat question at once, and then we trust the commissioners will give us a jail of sufficient size and strength to accommodate a county of ten thousand people.

“We would not judge young Charlton before he has a fair trial.  We hope he will have a fair trial, and it is not for us to express any opinions on the case in advance.  If he shall be found guilty—­and we do not for a moment doubt he will—­we trust the court will give him the full penalty of the law without fear or favor, so that his case may prove a solemn and impressive warning that shall make a lasting impression on the minds of the thoughtless young men of this community in favor of honesty, and in regard to the sinfulness of stealing.  We would not exult over the downfall of any man; but when the proud young Charlton gets his hair cropped, and finds himself clad in ‘Stillwater gray,’ and engaged in the intellectual employments of piling shingles and making vinegar-barrels, he will have plenty of time for meditation on that great moral truth, that honesty is generally the best policy.”