Dispatch, April 6, 1889

Circuit Court -- Mrs. Taylor on the Stand Again.

Moral -- Murder

[Special telegram to the Dispatch.]

ONANCOCK via TASLEY, VA., April 5. -- The Circuit Court, Judge Gunter presiding, has been in session since last Tuesday. The greater part of this time has been occupied in hearing the case of William J. Taylor's administrator against Oliver Lucas, a prominent merchant at Modestown, to recover bonds amounting to $500 and $250 in money which Taylor's wife says she deposited with Lucas for safe-keeping soon after the death of her husband, taking his receipt therefor. When Mrs. Taylor was arrested and lodged in jail on the charge of killing her husband she says Lucas returned to her the $250 in money, but kept the bonds, which she says represented money loaned Lucas by her husband. She says Lucas subsequently visited her in jail and obtained from her the receipt he had given her for the money and the bonds. Lucas denies the transaction, so far as the bonds are concerned. In the case the jury disagreed this afternoon, and were adjourned over till to-morrow.

The suit against Lucas for the recovery of the money was begun to-day and the evidence finished. Among those who testified was Mrs. Taylor herself, who, in spite of her long confinement in jail and her recent conviction of the murder of her husband, appeared to be in excellent spirits. Her evidence to-day was like that she gave in her trial -- prompt, straightforward, and plausible. She passed another searching cross-examination and earned again the distinction of being the smartest and sharpest witness ever seen in a court of justice here.