Excerpt from Trial of Harry Crawford Black: For the Killing of Col. W. W. McKaig, Jr., In the Circuit Court of the Sixth Judicial Circuit of Maryland, Sitting at Frederick City, April 11, 1871 Generally around criminal prosecution gather all the degrading influences of human life. Within the prisoner's box you look for those upon whose countenance is stamped with heavy impress the evidences of crime and degredation. You listen to the case to be tried with the expectation of hearing details that sicken the heart, and tend to demoralize social law. Especially is this true of the trial of capital cases. In these, the evidence is usually of the most revolting character, marking step by step the decline of the wretched prisoner from the paths of virtue and well doing, where, perhaps, his feet had first been placed by a kind father and loving mother, into the pools of vice and wickedness until completely enveloped in their slimey depths. But there has been within the history of criminal jurisprudence some few exceptions to the general rule; some few cases tried where the court proceedings and the surroundings of the case have been in a great measure softened by the extenuating circumstances that induced the commission of the crime and the social and moral standing of the prisoner on trial. But none within the whole range of judicial investigation where such has been the case in as great a degree as in the trial that forms the subject-matter of these pages. The cases referred to are within the knowledge of all who have watched the progress of events in our land, and are doubtless familiar to nearly all who will peruse this work, and the difference between this and those can be easily marked by following a recitation of the facts in the remarkable and interesting trial here spread before them. Harry Crawford Black, who occupied the prisoner's place, and was on trial for bis life in this case, was born in the city of Cumberland, Alleghany county, Maryland, in May, 1846, and is consequently twenty-four years of age, but the weight of years have rested lightly on his brow, and he does not look as though he had yet crossed the threshold from youth into manhood. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.