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THE BODY IDENTIFIED. Abijah Ellis, a Well-known Real Estate Speculator at the South End, the Victim of the Mysterious Murder—Secret Session of the Jury of Inquest—Latest Developments A Mysterious Wagon and its Contents- Reported Detention of Mr Alley. REPORTED FOR THE BOSTON POST. j By a most fortuitous combination of circumstances it seems as if the mystery which enveloped the find ing of the body of a murdered man floating on the Charles river, on Wednesday afternoon, is about to be penetrated. More especially is this the case since now the authorities have a clue to work upon in the identification of the body, which occurred yesterday. Although thousands of persons had visited the re mains with the hope or fear of recognizing something familiar in the strongly-marked countenance of the slain, and although the election ticket found in the pocket hinted that he might be a resident of Ward Ten, for two days the whole transaction was com pletely wrapped in mystery, and it seemed even pos sible that the secret might remain unbroken, just as other startling crimes, committed in our very midst, have defied every attempt to discover their guilty authors. The first ray of light, as before stated, has now been thrown upon the matter, however, and it happened in this manner. THE MURDERED MAN, Oficer Howard, of the Fifth Station, when read me an account of the tragedy, became impressed with the feeling that the victim was a man of his acquaintance named Ellis, and upon going to Mr Ellis’s house on East Dover street, Ward Ten, learned that he had been missing since Tuesday morning. In com pany then, with Officer Parker, Mr Howard went to Cambridge, where, upon being shown the mau tilated corpse, he at once recognized it as that of Abijah Ellis, as his fears had all alone led him to believe it might be. Subsequent de velopments establish beyond the shadow of a doubt that this was really the murdered man’s name. Mr Ellis was born in the vicinity of Fitzwilliam, Cheshire county, New Hampshire, and for many years followed the business of a peddler, in which vocation by thrift and economy he succeeded in accumulating property sufficient to allow him to enter into speculations in real estate in this city. His ventures seem to have been successful, for he was said to be the owner at the time of his death of two houses in South Boston, one in Boston Highlands, and the establishment No. 149 East Dover street, and to be worth from $50,000 to $75,000. For four years previous to the first of June last he had made his home with Mrs Elizabeth J. Porter, who resides at No. 19 Dover street place, but since that time he had boarded at the South End with a maiden lady named Tuck. Mr Ellis was a man of temperate habits, close in his business deal ings, very opinionated, as Mr Porter remarked, would speak his mind freely, no matter who he offended, and in so doing he made many enemies. Although devoted to the accumulation of wealth, he was remarkably careless for a man in his position, in exposing his money. He was seldom without a roll of bank bills, which he carried in an inside vest pocket, while he carried his notes and other valuable papers in a leather pocket-book. He frequently ex hibited fifty and one hundred-dollar bills, and allowed a little daughter of Mrs Porter to count his money; his friends repeatedly warned him of the danger to which he exposed himself by showing his money thus freely, but he paid little attention. In collecting the rent from his tenants he was extremely prompt and would not admit of excuses or delays, and the result was to exasperate some of them. In June last Mr Ellis sold a brick house, No. 5 Metropolitan place, to a teamster named Leavitt Alley, and an agreement was entered into between Mr Ellis and Alley, in which the latter bound himself to pay $50 a month until the accrued princi pal should amount to #1000. The payments were made regularly for some time, but Alley has been in arrears for the last two months, and Mr Ellis has quite recently been heard to say with considerable emphasis that he was going to collect his money. Alley stables his horses in Hunneman street, Rox bury, and some time ago he got a large quantity of rubbish and shavings from the manufactory of Mr Pe ter Schonller, which he used as a substitute for straw in bedding his horses. When this fact is taken in connection with the circumstance that some of this very material was packed in the barrels with the mangled body the conclusion is almost unavoidable that the bloody deed was done somewhere near this stable. LATER DEVELOPMENTS: Since the identification of the body, the officers have become possessed of such information as will un doubtedly soon unravel the dreadful mystery, and bring the murderer to justice. The rumor that a wagon containing two barrels, covered with a carpet, was seen rapidly driving through Beacon street at an early hour on Wednesday morning, has been investigated and found to be correct. The wagon was again seen returning, but the barrels were missing. Mr Leavitt Alley has been summoned as a witness before the coroner's jury at Cambridge. Yesterday afternoon he was sent for by Chief of Police Savage, and a long but private interview took place between the above-named gentlemen and the detec tives who are working the case up. Lieut. John son, of the Fifth Station, states that about 3 o'clock, Tuesday afternoon, he observed Mr Ellis standing on Washington, near Chapman street, en gaged in earnest conversation with another gentleman, but who the second person was the officer cannot tell. Mr Johnson states that he was well acquainted with Mr Ellis, and knowing his eccentric manner paid no attention to the matter, simply recognizing him and then pass ing on his way. Reports, well authenticated, were in circulation last evening that the detectives had visited the stable on Fellows street, and discovered a large quantity of blood on a manure heap. The officers have in addition to the above startling disclosures gained such other tangible evidence as would almost seem to point to the above place as being the scene of the murder. It is stated that the deceased was seen wending his way towards the Southern Dis trict about 8 o'clock on Tuesday evening. Another report last evening was to the effect that Mr Alley was detained in the City Hall to await the result of further investigation by the detectives. Chief of Police Sav age, in conversation with a POsT reporter yesterday afternoon, stated that the mystery seemed as im penetrable as ever. There is, however, good and sufficient authority for the statement that the officers at a late hour yesterday afternoon gained such evidence as will result in startling develop ments in a short time. THE JURY OF INQUEST summoned by Coroner Wellington met in Cambridge, yesterday afternoon, and examined several witnesses, but no reporters were admitted, and it is intended to keep the proceedings secret until the case 15 sufficiently developed to warrant giving publicity to the facts without injury to the cause of justice. The dead body has been sewed together, cleaned and dressed, and remains in the old armory, awaiting the arrival from New Hampshire of relatives of de ceased, who have been telegraphed for and are ex pected today. THE WEST END MURDER: The jury of inquest summoned by Coroner Ains worth in the Cambridge street murder met last even ing at the old Cambridge street jail, to hear the state ment of the prisoner, Maurice Lomasney. By advice of his counsel, Robert Morris, Esqq., he declined to testify, and the jury adjourned till this evening, when they will meet in the Truant Office and complete their investigation. FREIGHT TRANSPORTATION, Important Meeting of the New England Shoe and Leather Exchange—Report of a Committee Appointed to Investigate the Subject of Transportation—A Subject of Interest to Every Boston Merchant—An Able Review of an Important Question Remarks of Ex-R oy. Claflin and Others. [REPORTED FOR THE BOSTON POST. ] An adjourned meeting of the New England Shoe and Leather Association was held yesterday morn ing, at the Shoe and Leather Exchange, to hear the report of a committee appointed Oct. 4, to investi gate the present working of the different railroad and transportation companies, as affecting the interests of the industries they represented. The President, John Cummings, Esq., occupied the chair, and some twenty members were in attendance. The report was read by the Secretary, Mr Edward P. Bond, as follows :— THE REPORT. At a meeting of the New England Shoe and Leather Association, held October 4, the following resolution was adopted :— Resolved, That the Committee on Transportation be in structed to investigate fully the present working of the differ ent railroad and transportation lines, 80 far as relates to the transportation of shoes, leather, and food, for the purpose of advising to the best interests of the buyer and seller of such merchandise, and to report at an early day to a meeting to be called for that purpose. In presenting their report in accordance with this resolution, the Committee on Transportation deemst or to say that they have sought to look at the subject referred to them solely with an eye to the business needs of the trade which they represent. The working of the different rail road and transportation lines, so far as relates to the transportation of boots, shoes, leather and food, always an interesting subject, has been pressed upon our attention by the financial condition of one of the leading lines. Circumstances call for the re organization of the Vermont Central line in the inter est of its owners and creditors. The history of this line presents a continuous series of financial embar rassments. Commenced without sufficient capital, every step in its construction and maintenance has been difficult and expensive. The original stock having all been sunk and the credit of the corpora tion gone, for fifteen years past the road has been run for the benefit of its mortgage bondholders under or ders of a Court of Chancery. The Trustees and Man agers have felt compelled by the increasing traffic to spend large sums in reconstructing the road-bed, en larging and improving the depots and rolling stock, and opening connecting roads. As the money to meet these outlays could not from the circumstances of the case be raised y an increase of capital stock, and has exceeded in amount the earninngs of the road, new debts have been incurred, resulting in fresh embarassments. To extricate the road from these embarassments, the Trustees and Managers and a committee of the parties in immediate interest have proposed two measures— one for temporary relief, the other for a permanent reorganization. The one is the issue of bonds to the amount of eighteen hundred thousand dollars to pay off floating debts, the other is the organization of a new corporation with sufficient capital to conduct the business with efficiency and economy. As mer chants, shippers and travellers, the members of this Association and of the shoe and leather trade of the country have no direct interest in these matters. The line may have been well or ill managed in time past. We can only consider that question as it bears upon the competency and trustworthiness of those to whom the business of his great thoroughfare may hereafter be intrusted. Neither are we called on for any expres sion of opinion as to the value or security of any new issue of bonds or stock, excepting as this may bear on the capacity of the line to meet the wants of the trav elling and freighting public. Indirectly, however, both of these questions have a great interest for us, for every intelligent business man knows that the true interests of those who own the railroads and those who use them are very closely identified, and that the community can be well served only when the great highways of its trade are in the hands of capable and honest men, with sufficient capital and ability to conduct the traffic st once economically and with a fair profit to themselves. The Committee is not called on by the resolution or by the interests of the trade to take a partisan view, or to advocate the claims or interests of any particular line. The resent crisis in the affairs of the Vermont Central railroad simply furnishes an occasion for a general review of the whole system of transportation be tween New England and the West. That is only one of several lines, all of which have been largely used by the shoe and leather trade. All are needed by the business of the country. As at any time we have been called on to find fault with the management of any of these lines, it has been in no spirit of hostility or captious criticism, and with no desire to advance the interests or popularity of any rival line. The Committee are glad to say that in the case of the road against which the most frequent com plaints have been made to and through them (per haps in part because it has been our leading line), they have found of late a more decided disposition than in times past to meet the wants of the trade. The Committee is not confined by the resolution re ferred to them to the question of the transportation of the products or their own branch of industry. This alone constitutes an immense trafic. In 1871, 220,000,000 pounds of hides and leather and 136,152 cases of boots and shoes were trans ported on aecount of the manufacturers and dealers of New England. Estimating the average weight of hides at twenty pounds, of leather at fifteen pounds a side and of boots and shoes at eighty pounds a case, and the distance carried at 175 miles for hides and leather, and 1000 miles for boots and shoes, the aggregate number of tons carried one mile was %4, 696,680. it is true that the greater part of this trans portation is from East to West, and that, as it is more than counterbalanced by the quantities of Western produce brought East, it may be said that it ought to find ready transportation at reasonable rates. It un doubtedly will, if a healthy competition can be main tained among the several lines. But the leather and shoe trade receive from the West a large share of their materials. Probably one-third of the hides tanned in New England, and one-half of the upper leather used by the boot and shoe trade, making an aggregate of 24,100,000 tons carried one mile, are brought from the West. Manufacturing success, however, demands not alone on the cheap transportation of its own products. It must also have cheap labor, and cheap food is essential to cheap labor. Food will be cheap when transportation is easy and at low cost. The Western farmer now has to give often two and even three baskels of wheat to get one to market, or, in other words, the New England operative has to pay three or four times as much for this wheat as the man gets who raises it. Of course a large portion of this expense is often incurred in hauling the grain from the farm to the railroad, but the railroad charges are also very high. At the annual meeting of the National Board of Trade, lately held in New York, Mr Fergu son, of Troy, read a paper on “Our Present Railroad System,” in which he presented a tabular statement of the fourth class heights (which include grain) charged by the different railroad lines for the past five years, from the cities of Chicago, Toledo and St. Louis, and from six competing points In the States of Iown, Ilinois and Indiana to the city of New York. He took for this purpose the months of December and April, inclusive, “as those months show what the railroads would do the year through if they had no water competition.” From this it ap pears that the average charge per bushel of fifty-six punda to New York, for five years, was: From To edo, % cents ; Chicago, 3145 cents; St. Louis, 374 cents average for the three cities, 354-10 cents; and the average freight for same time from Mattoon, Ill., Was 38 cents ; Decatur, J., 386-10 cents; Pana, A1, 342-10 cents; Terre Haute, Ind., 42 cents ; Keokuk, Ia., 352-10 cents; Dubuque, La., 492-10 cents, and to tal average from these six interior points was 30 cents. It is evident that every cent of reduction in freights upon grain, four and provisions from the Weet will inure to the benefit of our manufacturers. The extent of the benefit will be in part realized when it is understood that there are employed in the manu facture of leather in New England, according to the census of 1870, 7142 persons, and in the manufacture of boots and shoes 58,004 persons, besides the large numbers who are indirectly employed in ministering to the wants of these operatives and in distributing their products. The shoe and leather trade are interested for another reason, in securing cheap, prompt and abundant transportation. The great market for our boots and shoes is at the West and South. The ability of the people of those regions to buy our goods depends pon their means of disposing of their surplus pro ducts. These must find a free way to markets East and abroad. These markets are sample even for the vast supplies that the great garden of the West and Northwest are yearly producing, but we cannot hope to compete in Europe with nearer sources of supply, such as Russia and the Danube, even though inferior, unless such facilities of carriage are aforded as shall pay the firmer for his toil, without overtaxing the distant consumer. Not only must the products of the West find a free way to a market if the West is still to be able to buy our boots and shoes; they must come to and through Boston if we would retain here the centre of the trade. In this view we would con sider what are the facilities of transportation which Boston now possesses. ‘The principal aies by which we now communicate with the Weat are 1. By steamer to Baltimore, thence by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and its connections 11. By railroad and Long Island sound steamers to New York, thence by New Jersey and Pennsylvania Central Railroad and connections. 11. By railroad and Long Island Sound steamers to New York, thence by Erie Railroad and its con nections, IV. By Boston and Albany and New York Central Railroads and then copnertous, ¥. By Lowell and Nishua, Northern, Vermont Central and Grand Trunk Railways and iiem con nections. The Committee regret that they cannot yet add to this list the Lloosac Tunnel route. It is the earnest hope that before the completion of that great work arrangements shall also have been matured for con necting it on the east, by the reconstruction and con solidation of the existing roads via Fitchburg and by the Massachusetts Central road with this city, and on the west by an independent route, with the Lakes and with one or more of the great trunk roads of the West. Giving the completed lines in the order of the rela tive distance from Boston to Chicago, we have:— 1. New York Central line, 1035 miles. II. Pennsylvania Central line, 1069 miles, 11, Vermont Central line, 1150 miles, iV. Baltimore and Ohio line, 1178 miles, V. Erie line, 1189 miles, How well do these lines now meet the wants of the business of the country? It must be confessed that they do it very imperfectly. Not a year passes that there is not a pressure upon the lines to carry pro duce for foreign export beyond their ability to meet it. The complaint comes from every great grain cen tre of the West. There is not only a lack of rolling stock, but the tracks themselves are insufficient to keep the rolling stock which is held in motion. There is not a single route from Boston to Chicago with a double-track the whole way. Railroad men differ as to tHE measure of advantage which a double-track has over a single one. Some even assert that a single track road, with a liberal supply of siding and run by telegraph, can do as much business as one with two tracks. This, however, is certain, that on all our routes the time occupied in carrying and delivering freight very largely exceeds the running time. Thus the usual time of receipt of goods at Chicago after their shipment in Boston, according to the testimony of loading shoe houses in that city, ranges from ten to fifteen days, averaging twelve or thirteen days. Yet the running time at twelve miles an hour is only from three and a half to four days. Of course there must be some time lost in loading and unloading cars and some neces sary delay on the road. But if passenger trains can go through regularly in thirty-seven and a half hours when their running time is thirty-four and a half hours, there can be no good reason why through freight trains should be eight, ten and twelve days on the way when their running time is four days. It may be that this heavy loss of time can only be pre vented by the establishment of roads to be used ex clusively for freight, or by giving to the present roads four tracks, two of which shall be so used. If this is so, the sooner the community understand it and de mand the change the better. The value of the annual product of boots and shoes in New England is $115, 000,000. These are carried on an average as far as from Boston to Chicago, at an average waste of time of over four days, and a loss from $70,000 to $100,000 interest. The loss of interest is, however, but a small matter compared with the annoyance, vexation and in terruption of trade which the delays and uncertain ties of the present system involve. The transporta tion lines again are without sufficient terminal facili ties in Boston. Had they the needful tracks and rolling stock to enable them to move their freight promptly, they have not the means of handling it when it reaches this city. There is an qhndent im ply of grain held back at the West to load one or more steamers away at this port. The markets of Europe ary open for its receipt, and there are steam ship owners eager to lay on all the vessels we need for its conveyance. All this is useless while we want the means of transferring our freights from car to ship. As yet we have but one moderate-sized eleva tor at tide water by which to do this. It is wholly inadequate to its work, and the corporation who own it have been compelled again and again to refuse to take the freights offered them. With an admirable harbor and many special facilities for an export trade, Boston sees that trade checked and cramped and diverted to other ports for want of those links in her chain of communication which a wise foresight should have long since secured for her. If we have not the means of doing the business now offering it self to us, much less are we prepared for the increase of trade that is sure to attend the rapid increase of our population and production. Thus this country produced: is Bu. Wheat, TRA. oe LUO,4ARG 944 1500, ....0173, 104,924 Bn. Oats. Total. 146,584,179 839,141,227 172,643,155 1,184,540, 869 , 255,744,000 1,475,353. 400 This shows an increase of production of 76 1-6 per cent, in twenty-one years, and an average increase of 5 per cent. per annum. The value of the exports of breadstuffs and pro visions in the same time increased from $26,051,373 in 1850 to $45,271,850 in 1860, and $118,226,406 in 1871, a gain of 3544 per cent., and an average increase of 17 per cent. per annum. Experience has shown us that it is not safe to be dependant upon any single line of transportation— that am no department of business more than this do we need the competition of rival interests. The power conferred by the possession of a valuable franchise (though this is really of the nature of a trust to be administered for the public) and by the im mense accumulation of capital needed for the build ing and working of a great railway, concentrated, as it must be, in the hands of a few, often of an indi vidual, offers temptations to its arbitrary exercise such as are nowhere else found, and which will be abused while human nature remains unchanged. More than once have three or four men given the law to the business of the country, such laid a tax upon its
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Boston Post
Boston, Massachusetts, US
Sat, Nov 09, 1872
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