The Sun.
London, England, 1869-09-24 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY, SEPT. 24, 1869.

Conceived and described by the ghastly imagination
of EDGAR POE, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue"
have, within the present week, been surpassed in
savage brutality and infernal atrocity at the suburban
village of Pantin, within easy distance of Paris, the
vaunted capital of modern civilisation.:The evidences
of this monstrous crime are now at the Morgue.
They consist of the inhumanly mangled remains of
six of our fellow creatures—six members of one
family—the mother, aged 45, and far advanced in
pregnancy ; the daughter, aged 18 ; her son (appa-
rently, by his garb, a youth from college), two years
younger ; another boy, about 13 ; and two children,
respectively, seven and three. Their destruction was
evidently accomplished, not by stealth, but after a
severe struggle on the part of some of the victims,
and in every instances through the medium of deadly
blows, of sheer brute force, of the fiercest butchery.
The unhappy mother alone had three-and-twenty
-wounds of the most pitiless description. The eldest
son, the stripling of sixteen, had manifestly en-
deavoured to defend the others to the last eitremity.
The boy of thirteen was unrecognisable in feature,
the head and face being almost destroyed. The
others, even the little children, were mutilated with
frightful barbarity. No motive for the diabolical crime
can be conjectured. The family was not only
comfortably, but, to a certain extent, elegantly
clothed, the lady-mother being clad in silk, and having
about her an untouched purse, a gold watch, and in
her ears, and on her bosom, articles of jewellery

The wholesale murder of herself and of her five.

children, and of a sixth as yet unborn, was ac-
complished after nightfall, on Sunday last, between
sundown and midnight. The last that was seen of
the victims was on the Sunday evening, upon

the arrival of the down train from Paris,
at the Pantin Station, where they were
observed by the railway officials to have
been some time waited for and (on the approach of
the train to the platform) received by three men,
with whom the mother and the five children passed
out of the Pantin Station into the country-road, by
which it stands. Subsequently in the darkness cries
were heard as of people quarrelling, the voice of a
child calling to its mother for help, the tones of a
man as if infuriated. Mistaken for the noise of a
mere drunken brawl by those who heard these
sounds, no notice was taken of them at the
moment and, silence following, the incident
was forgotten. It now appears not only

that they were destroyed 'during Sunday night,
but that everything was done with a view to the
concealing of the fact of their destruction before the
dawn of Monday morning. The massacre and the
interment of the victims was evidently a work of the
most deliberate premeditation. A trench had been
dug in a field near Pantin for the reception of the
bodies before the intended victims had arrived in the
neighbourhood. Suspicion, and more, it may be said,
than merely suspicion, points already to a young man
giving the name of JEAN KINCK, as one of the prin-
cipal persons concerned in the perpetration of this
atrocious butchery. Residing at intervals during
this last week at a tenement called the
Hotel du Chemin de For du Nord, otherwise at No.
12, on the Boulevard Denain, at Paris, just opposite
the Great Northern Railway Terminus, this wretched
JEAN KINCS, who is described as a villainous-looking
youth of twenty, wearing a fluffy moustache, and
describing himself as an engineer having a good deal
of nightwork to attend to, necessitating his sleeping
during the daytime in his hired apartment—this
miserable JEAN KINCK, it appears, has had brought

home to him a nuaiber of facts of the
most damning character, and of the most
appalling significance. First he was twice asked
for at his Paris address (No. 12, Boulevard Denain)
by this lady and her five chilerec, first of all at six
o'clock, and afterwards at eight o'clock on Sunday
evening. Secondly, at the very time when he was
being inquired for at Paris, namely, at six o'clock
on Sunday evening he was purchasing, for ten francs,
a shovel and a pickaxe, at a tool-shop (No. 209) in
the Rue de Flandre, at Villette. Thirdly, at 8
o'clock on Monday morning, JEAN KINCK, accom-
panied by another man came hurriedly to his Paris
lodgings, where he only stayed time enough to change
his clothes—leaving behind him, in the drawers of
his sleeping room, a bloody shirt and trousers covered
with mud; and, besides these articles of apparel, a
torn fragment of a necktie, exactly corresponding
with one by means of 'Which one of the half-dozen
victims was found to have been strangled. Roubaix
is pointed to as the locality in which additional in-
formation may reasonably be sought, both in regard
to the murdered and in regard to the murderer or mur-
derers. A hat left by JEAN KINCK at his Paris
lodgings bears on its lining the name of a
Roubaix hatter. The buttons on the coats or jackets
of the four boys, who were found to have been mur-
dered (together with their elder sister and their
mother) are stamped with the name of a Rou-
baix tailor. Since the murders, since JEAN
KINCK's last appearance at, and disappear-
ance from, his Paris lodgings--later in the
day on Monday a telegram from Rou-
baix reached the Hotel du Chemin de Fer du Nord
with the enigmatical intimation " Wait : we are not
ready." The day afterwards, that is, on Tuesday, a
letter wasdelivered there,addresaed to JEAN KINCK, and
bearing on it the Roubaix post-mark. So stands the
record, as yet, in regard to this wholesale and fiendish
deed of assassination. With reason has Lord BYRON
written " truth is strange, stranger than fiction."
The morbid dreaming; of EDGAR POE have—again
we must say it--been altogether surpassed.

WOMEN'S rights are one thing, their duties are
another. This is a matter to which, in discussing the
the problem of their social status, due prominence
should be given. The best advocates for the privi-
leges which women should enjoy, are those who most
fully recognise what they are able to accomplish.
The principle of giving honour to whom honour is
due is so intimately interwoven with the constitution
of society that we have little hope of
seeing women elevated to that position
which they ought to occupy, until they are afforded
more and better opportunities, than they at present
possess, of exercising the peculiar talents with which
they are endowed. Let such opportunities be given,
and the appreciable results which will follow will
secure their appropriate rewards, the chief of which
will be the admission to an approximate condition
of social equality with men, of those who are too often
regarded as living only " to suffer and bo strong."
Presuming this view of the case to be a correct one,
it is obvious that what has to be done is to allow
women to take their proper share in those schemes
which occupy the time and attention of men.
Fearing usurpation, we have practised exclusion,
and have thus deprived ourselves of co-operation
which would, in many instances, have been invaluable.
The world is getting wiser, and though there will of
course exist great diversity of opinion as to how far
into the arena of masculine pursuits women should
bo allowed to advance, the verdict of all whose
verdict is worth having, has been given in no uncer-
tain tones in favour of largely extending the sphere of
their usefulness. As a :step in this direction, and ono
likely to prove unusually effective to an end so much
to be desired, we have read with real satisfaction an

announcement put forth by the National Association
for the Promotion of Social Science. This society
with a name so unwieldly and an object so important
commences its thirteenth annual Congress in Bristol
next week. While it has always been the practice
of the Council to welcome ladies as members,
and many papers of importance have at various sit-
tings been contributed by them, they have deter-
mined this year to do something more. Without
dispensing with their aid in the ordinary departments
of the Association, the council believe that there are
many questions which may be advantageously con-
sidered by a Conference, consisting exclusively,
or almost exclusively, of ladies. Such a
Conference will, therefore, be organised at the
forthcoming Congress, and the best results may be
anticipated from its deliberations. Thus, at the time
when the general members of the association are dis-
cussing questions of international and municipal law,
or the principles of economy or trade, subjects such as
reformatory and industrial schools, the employment of
women, the education of girls, and infant mortality,
subjects of high, if not of imperial importance, will
be earnestly—and who shall say otherwise than
calmly ?—deliberated upon by those to whom they are
matters of special interest. Thera are always in the
constant habit of attending the various meetings
of the Social Science Association so many
women whose names are already intimately
connected with works of philanthropy and charity,
and who have taken a foremost place in the advance-
ment and education of their own sex, that there need
be no fear that the conference so happily conceived
will prove other than a success, either in the numbers
that attend it, or the practical issues that are attained
by it. One subject there is, which just at this time
may be especially commended to the notice
of the ladies when assembled in solemn conclave. The
facts that have lately been brought to light about our
workhouses, and the revelations that have been made
as to their management, have not been without their
results. They have opened the eyes of the com-
munity to evils of which they had never dreamt, and
have set society clamouring for reform. Are there
no suggestions that the approaching conference might
make which might be carried into practice for the
manifest advantage of the women in our poor-houses ?
And in close proximity to this is that other subject,
sadder and darker still, of women not poor but
criminal. Just to hand is the report of the
directors of convict prisons, which supplies
us with the fact that the number of female
convicts received into the prisons last year was two
hundred and eighty-three, thirty-three being women
whose licenses were revoked ; while one hundred and
seventy-four were admitted who had not previously
undergone penal servitude. On all hands it is admitted
that if the poorer classes of our female population are
to be properly assisted in the time of their distress
and successfully reclaimed when they have fallen, it
must be to a large extent, at all events, through the
instrumentality of their own sex. There
are matters enough of paramount importance
which will crop up when the approaching Con-
ference opens its meeting to furnish a pro-
gramme so full that a week will fail to exhaust
it. All that we can hope is that the practicability of
the suggestions made will be in an equal ratio to
the kindliness of heart which we are surd will prompt
them.

trbly tot
C N jp

HER MAJESTY.

BALMORAL CASTLE, Sept. 21.
Her Majesty, accompanied by Princess Beatrice,
went out in the morning.
In the afternoon the Queen, accompanied by
Princess Christian, drove to the Linn of Quoich,
attended by Lady Churchill.

LATEST INTELLIGENCE

(REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.)

AMERICA.
(Per French Atlantic Cable.)

NEW YORK., Sept. 23.
The steamer Cambria (of the Anchor line) ar-

rived out to-day.
The violent fluctuations in gold have unsettled
values, and caused a partial suspension of business

generally.

The rise in gold is owing to the continued opera
tions of the bull clique.
Exchange on London is nominally quoted 104.

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