“Whoever shall record the annals of the circle of States which environ the mighty Lakes of the New World, must occasionally pause from the swelling narrative of a wilderness subdued, of savage and foreign enemies conquered, of Territories and States organized, of the sudden apparition of cities, roads and cultivated fields teeming with population and wealth—from such and similar signs of an unprecedented material development—and pause upon some startling outbreak of human passion, which, though a mere eddy in the mighty current—though only an episode of domestic life—will often be found no less suggestive of instruction than thrilling with interest.”

—from Report of the Trial of Mary Ann Wheeler, for the Murder of John M. W. Lace, Her Seducer