Kaufman, November 4. – At 1 p.m. Jack Moore, alias Bill Payne, and

Eugene Catchings were hung for the crime of murder.

Their victim was an old, harmless, man, who lived at out midway between Terrell and Lawrence, in Kaufman county. The murder was committed last May, and was deliberate, foul, cold-blooded. After the deed was committed, the murderers fired the house, and then went to Rockwall county. Suspicion fell upon them, and in the afternoon of the third day after the murder, Moore, alias Payne, was arrested at Mr. Harman's, one and a half miles from the town of Rockwall; and later in the same afternoon, Catchings was arrested at Mr. Williams', two and a half miles south of Rockwall. Officer West, of Rockwall county, with a posse, made the arrests, and placed the prisoners in the Rockwall county jail until the next day, when they were taken to Kaufman county by Deputy Sheriff Angus McDonald and Mr. John Simonds, of Terrell, and placed in jail, where they have been closely confined ever since.

At the trial, Mr. W. A. Hinman, prosecuting attorney of Kaufman county, assisted by Messrs. Marion, Adams and Charlton, conducted the prosecution, and Mr. Joseph Hoffmeister, of Terrell, and J. S. Woods of Kaufman, were appointed to defend. The trial only lasted five days, and the jury were out but five minutes, when they brought in a verdict of guilty. The trial closed last Monday, and Judge G. J. Clark passed sentence on them, fixing the time for their execution on Friday, November the 3d, between the house of 10 in the morning and 4 in the evening.

Sheriff Wilson brought the prisoners out, and conducted them amid a great concourse of volunteers and other guards, to the place of execution.

Catchings looked unconcerned, but Payne hung his head as if remorse of conscience had settled upon him. Catchings seemed not to care. He smoked a cigar from the prison to the scaffold; while Payne was suffused in tears. Payne on the gallows was evidently overcome, and his tears were profuse. Rev. Mr. Wright (colored) gave consolation to the prisoners, as was in his power. Catchings, true to his confessed guilt and hardiness, showed no sign of emotion, except to bow his head while the pastor prayed.

Sheriff Alec Wilson red the sentence and findings of the court, and at three o'clock the fatal trap was sprung. The scaffold was a square frame, situated about one-fourth of a mile northwest from town.

WHAT CATCHING'S SAID.

As the has been set for my hanging, I want to give you warning. I don't want anyone to follow my course. I can't say I am sorry for anything so much as for the murder of the old man Love. When a young man starts out and follows drinking and card playing, he will come out just as I have. Whiskey will ruin any man. Whiskey and cards have been the ruin of many men. Drop it! Go no further. Quit now.

Question: Do you think you will have forgiveness
for your sins?

No; I know I have not.
What about the clothes of the old man Loves? I took nothingfrom the house, except a piece of tobacco. I got no money; he had no money. I thought he had money, but he had none. I did not do the killing–my partner did it.

My life ought to be a warning to all. I have been raised well; and knew better than to murder; but I did it.

I hope the young men especially will take warning from my fate. There are worse men looking at me than I am–plenty of them, and I hope they will reform. I always believe there was a hell, and I still believe it. I know Mrs. Hartman as one of the best women who lives. I think she was a true Christian. She told me to mend my ways and quit my evil doings. I have prayed to God to forgive me. I believe I am prepared to meet Him. I fee that I have done wrong, and am sorry for it. I know I am bound to die, and I know that no one can save me. Men and talk alike are useless to save me.

Subsequently he again got up and said he had given his body to Dr. Stun, to be used for dissection, for the benefit of mankind. He then sat down, and was chained to Catchings, who was cool and collected. Sheriff Wilson then...

ADJUSTED THE ROPE.

Payne looked on coolly, seeming, as the dread moment drew near, to be more collected. Catchings still showed no sign of terror or confusion. Payne asked that what money he had might be sent to Rockwall county to his friends there.

The prisoners were dressed in calico shirts, blue blouse and dark jeans pants. Payne wept and prayed when the rope was being tied around his neck, and hope all would meet him in Heaven. Catchings neither spoke nor changed his countenance. Payne, after the cap was drawn over his face, commenced again to pray, and continued until launched into eternity.
THE DROP FELL

At 2:10, and in seven minutes Drs. Halenquest, Splon, Mulkey and Watkins declared life extinct. Payne died the harder of the two. Catchings died first, his neck, according to the doctors, having been broken in the fall.

CONFESSION OF JACK MOORE ALIAS BILL PAYNE
taken from him by your reporter–yesterday, is as follows:

I propose to make a short confession, promising to tell nothing but the truth. I can certainly have no motive for telling a falsehood, feeling that I am doomed man, having no hope of pardon, and there being no possibility of escape. I make no other calculation bu to expiate on the gallows, next Friday, the murder of John Love, for it was I that struck the fatal blow.

I was born in Montgomery, Shelby county, Illinois, in the year 1851, and am the youngest of eight children. My father, James Moore, is an octagon negro Indian, and mother a full blooded Indian. Father served four years in the Federal army, is a Free Mason, and well thought of by all his neighbors. He owns five hundred acres of land in Shelby county, abut one hundred of which is in cultivation.

I was sent to school about one year during which time I learned to read and write. In 1870 I cam to Texas in company with Mr. Atchinson, who now lives at Farmersville, Collin county, in this State with whom I lived and got along well, until one day while at mill, I had a difficulty with a white boy named Jones, when I was advised to leave that section. I then went to Shelby county, in this State and spent a few days with my uncle, Jack Jones, for whom I was named, after which I rambled from place to place.

I borrowed a mule from Henry Patterson, a colored man, to ride to my Uncle's. When I got through my visit I started back with the mule, and had gotten about fifteen miles when he got tired. After whipping him about two miles, with but little effect, I rode him out into the bushes, took off my saddle, hung it up in a tree, and then took my knife and deliberately cut his throat. The blood spurted in my face and on my clothes and gave such a war-like appearance that my uncle, on meeting me, asked the cause of my return and bloody appearance. I told him I had been attacked by a man while quietly riding along the road, and that I killed him and dragged him a few yards from the road into the brush and left him; that in the round my mule had gotten away, and gone on home, I supposed. My uncle said I did exactly right, and proposed that I take his horse and went to Patterson, told him the mule had been stolen from me, but that I would replace him with the horse I was riding; so I gave him my uncle's horse, which was quite satisfactory. In about a week Patterson and myself went to Marshall, and as we returned, stopped at a negro's, Saturday night, at whose house there was a ball. We had a keg of whisky with us, and succeeded in making nearly all the party drunk; got into a row, and I fired my derringer into the crowd and left quite unceremoniously. The sheriff pursued, but without avail. I next turned up in Buck Snoot, and remained four days and a half. Then I returned to my uncle, and told him exactly what disposition I had made of his horse; promising to replace him, with just as good a one; which I did in a very short time, simply by transferring a horse from a lot in Rusk county, to my uncle. I remained with my uncle about two months, working on the farm. Soon after leaving him, I made the acquaintance of four negro boys about my own age; to whom I made the proposition, that we go to the livery stable in Carthage; hire a horse a piece, and go South, which we did. We sold the horses in Chissno, Nacogdoches county, and footing it back to Shelby county, where we were all arrested, tried, convicted, and sent to the penitentiary for five years. The sheriff who had me in charge, told me I could get away if I tried; and that if I succeeded, to be sure to change my name. For the first five days I was kept within the prison walls; the second week, on a farm one mile from Huntsville, from which place I was sent to work on the railroad, where I remained ten months, when I bounded a passing train; being mistaken by the train guards for a trusty convict. Pretty soon, while the train was on an up grade, I jumped off; turning a complete somersault before I reached the ground I traveled seven nights afoot; laying in the brush in the day time, before I got rid of my prison suit. I got my meals by call at a place after dark, and asking to have something brought to me, stating that I had money to pay for it; but the instant I got it I was away. When I reached Rusk county, a white man gave me citizens clothes, and I threw my prison garb in an old well. He engaged me to work on his farm at fifteen dollars per month, and five additional, I stating to him that I wanted to attend a horse race, across the East fork of Trinity river, and make a raise. I told him I would be back in two or three days, but I never went back, and never sent him the money I borrowed.

Some time after I met my benefactor near McKinney. He asked me if my name was Joah More, I told him no, that my name was Bill Payne, which was my assumed name. He said I looked very much like a d___d nigger who had swindled him out of five dollars, and that if he ever met him, he meant to give him a d__d good thrashing. I was now not from the place where, some time before I had shot and killed a nigger for insulting me in a ball room by jumping on my toes while I was dancing. From this section I went to Greenville and hired to Berry Williams, jailor, to drive a wagon for him. In a little more than a week, I got drunk, went to a store and bought two pairs of pantaloons; but through some mistake carried off several more pairs than I paid for. For this I was arrested and put in jail for ten months, although as God knows no theft was perpetrated, it being nothing more than a drunken man's mistake. After my release, I was soon in more rows, and held under bond to answer four different indictments; one for carrying concealed weapons, another for drawing my pistol at church, the third for cursing the preacher, and the fourth for knocking a nigger down with my revolver and beating him speechless. I would have killed him but for another nigger pulling me off. Our difficulty grew out of a disturbance between myself and a white man named West, whom I had knocked down with a pair of tongs one night in a grocery, for drawing a chair on me while taking a drink of whiskey. I having given him the d__d lie in reply to his calling me a liar. I learned from other niggers that West paid him four dollars to whip me.

I then went to the Choctaw Nation, and stayed there a little over 3 year, driving stock for Benjamin Dickerson. Then I came back and stopped a while at McKinney and Plano, but having in view Greenville as my stopping place. When I got to Greenville I found my crony, Eugene Catchings, in jail there, and with other friends got up a bond for his release. Then I went to Rockwall, and in a few days committed the terrible crime for which I am to pay the penalty on the gallows.

The confession of Eugene Catchings was printed and sold on the grounds. It corroborates, in all vital points, the confession of Payne, and sold like "hot cakes."

Thus once more is the majesty of the law vindicated in the great State of Texas.