THE "CAR-HOOK" TRAGEDY. THE LIFE, TRIAL, CONVICTION AND EXECUTION OF WILLIAM FOSTER FOR THE MURDER OF AVERY D. PUTNAM. GOVERNOR DIX'S LETTERS. NEITHER TEARS, APPEALS FOR EXECUTIVE CLEMENCY FROM THE WIFE OF THE MURDERED MAN, OPINIONS ON THIS INTERESTING CASE FROM PROFOUND JUDGES, LEARNED LAWYERS, EMINENT MINISTERS, AND THE PRESS, NOR POLITICAL INFLUENCE, BACKED BY A MINE OF WEALTH, COULD SAVE FOSTER. THIS WORK IS WRITTEN AND COMPILED BY J. EDWARDS REMAULT, ATTORNEY AT LAW. LIKENESSES AND OTHER ENGRAVINGS.
Philadelphia: Barclay & Co., Publishers, [1873]. Original printed and illustrated salmon wrappers. Stitched. Folded illustration frontis of Foster killing Putnam with a 'car-hook'. [2], 19-96 pp, as issued, with full-page illustrations and two additional folding illustrations. Captions to the illustrations are printed in English and German. Near Fine.
McDade's entry is succinct: "Foster, while drunk, smashed the skull of Putnam on a New York City trolley." The author argues that, despite his "sincere pity for the family of Foster," Foster's execution was necessary: "Ruffianism has been and is still rampant in our large cities, and the palsied arm of Justice has hitherto been powerless to check its infamous career." Dramatic and detailed descriptions of the murder, trial, backgrounds of murderer and murdered, public outcry, efforts to commute the death sentence, sermons [including one by the ubiquitous Henry Ward Beecher], homilies, an essay on "Strangulation," etc., etc. are printed. This is the first edition.
The trial judge was Albert Jacob Cardozo, the father of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo, and member of a prominent Sephardic Jewish family. Young Cardozo fared much better in his legal career than did the father, a Tammany Hall appointee who, not long after completion of this trial, was forced to resign from the bench over corruption charges connected with the Erie Railroad takeover.
McDade 316. Item #41393
Price: $1,250.00