The Mulliken automobile manslaughter case, which was tried before Judge Eldridge, of the district court of Dukes county, last summer, and which aroused great interest among Vineyard people and automobilists, will come up in the superior court at Edgartown the last of the month.

The case is the result of an accident which occurred on the State road, near Tashmoo. Ariel B. Scott, an aged resident of West Tisbury, was driving up the island on his cart loaded with some shingles in bundles, and Edward Mulliken, a summer resident of Cottage City, came riding along behind him in his automobile. With him were a friend, Mr. Holbrook, and his chaffeur. It is the government's contention that on Tashmoo hill the automobile speeding at a rate of over 15 miles an hour, and suddenly rounding a curve behind Scott, frightened the latter's horse so that it shied violently and threw it driver from the cart. Scott sustained injuries which, the government claims, caused his death early the next morning.

An investigation made by State Officer Thomas A. Dexter shortly after the accident led to Mr. Mulliken's arrest on a charge of manslaughter. At the trial in the district court, District Attorney Wood conducted the government's case, and Mr. Mulliken was defended by Walter I. Badger, of Boston, and Charles H. Brown, of Vineyard Haven. Every inch of the government's case was stubbornly contested, and was somewhat weakened because Mr. Wood, to prove that Mr. Mulliken was driving the auto, had to put on the stand Mr. Holbrook, who, except for establishing this vital point in the prosecution's case, proved a very favorable witness for the defendant. The speed of the machine was a matter of dispute, that it scared Scott's horse was denied, and finally the defense, by indirection, maintained that the old man's death was the result of an overdose of morphine. On all the evidence, however, Judge Eldridge held Mr. Mulliken for the grand jury, which subsequently indicted him for manslaughter.

Mr Mulliken is now in Florida, where he spends his winters.

Aside from the great interest felt on the Vineyard, where the victim was well known, Boston automobilists are awaiting the result of the trial with some concern. They feel that it is one of the first cases of its kind, and that the rulings of the court as to what constitutes liability for such accidents or what would be construed as "criminal negligence'' in a man who is running an automobile, will be cited all over the county in future cases of the kind