properly towards Mrs
Reynolds and daughters. A few days ago, a letter from WR was received
from St. Louis, stating that he would return home at the latter end of
the week; and Golpin, fearing that the ladies would complain of his
conduct and have him turned out, poisoned them with the juice of some
berries poured into their coffee. Death was almost instantaneous. A
pretty mulatto girl of sixteen, an attendant and _protegee_ of the young
ladies, entering the room where the corpses were already stiff, found
the miscreant busy in taking off their jewels and breaking up some
recesses, where he knew that there were a few thousand dollars, in
specie and paper, the produce of a recent sale of negroes. At first, he
tried to coax the girl, offering to run away and marry her, but she
repulsed him with indignation, and, forcing herself off his hold, she
ran away to call for help. Snatching suddenly a rifle, he opened a
window, and as the honest girl ran across the square towards the
negroes' huts, she fell quite dead, with a ball passing across her
temples. The governor and police of the first and second municipalities
offer one thousand dollars reward for the apprehension of the miserable
assassin, who, of course, has absconded."

This is the "_harmless and inoffensive man of delicate constitution, a
citizen of the United States_," which Mr Kendal would give us as a
martyr of Mexican barbarism. During the trip across the prairie, every
man, except two or three, had shunned him, so well did every one know
his character; and now I will describe the events which caused him to be
shot in the way above related.

Two journeys after they had left Santa Fe they passed the night in a
little village, four men being billeted in every house under the charge
of one soldier. Golpin and another of his stamp were, however, left
without any guard in the house of a small retailer of aguardiente, who,
being now absent, had left his old wife alone in the house. She was a
good hospitable soul, and thought it a Christian duty to administer to
the poor prisoners all the relief she could afford. She gave them some
of her husband's linen, bathed their feet with warm water mixed with
whisky, and served up to them a plentiful supper.

Before they retired to rest, she made them punch, and gave them a small
bottle of liquor, which they could conceal about them and use on the
road. The next morning the sounds of the drums called the prisoners in