The daily Madisonian. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1841-1845, 1842-12-09
From The Pennsuipdnian


IL ambition glows in your bosom-lf the love of
distinction disturbs your rest-if you want TO be-
come great man by short cut there is no method
so brief and expeditions as that of killing somebody
Any other mode OF achieving greatness requires time
talent, assldulty ard toll One NAV also strive long
years to secure it, and fail after ALL The prize is
certain only by one method, and that is homicide
10 DO TINS, talent IS unnecessary-indusry is not
called for in the simple affair of murder and an H.
slant does the work of years No matter how de,-
picable man may have been, sooner is he STAIN
ed with blood than he becomes an object of romantic
interest IL is nothing that his previous life has made
him forlorn outcast; when he has killed somebody
every one focks around him with poencss, civil
Ties and attentions The newspapers filled with
accounts Of his personals casual remarks are trea-
sured up-thc expression of his counenance is faith
fully deneated--what he eats, drinks and smokes
how he walks and how he sleeps is scrupulousy re-
ported to the admiring community. His very dress
almost demands to be engraved as a plate of the
fashions-the homcidal fashion for the season and
all the world is duly informed of how he wears hi.
glowing hair. Wonderful man, that-my heart
bleeds for him. Pr'ythce why ? Don't YOU
know he killed Somebody Ii is an act which
seems suddenly to invest its perpetrator with every
possible virtue, especially if he never had any be-
fore. Beauty, grace, wit, intelligence honor, chr
valry, valor--pury and tenderness of heart all ave
yours, at the tring cost of robbing fellow creature
of what you can restore. Ii almost appears "a
blood were necessary to elicit goodness and to unite
voices in mans commentator.
This is most unwholesomc and mischieyous state
of things. II is little less than bounty upon crime
rewardng the criminal and destroying all abhorren,c
with which his offences should be viewed 1t would
be better indeed, for justice, TO suffer the worst of
offenders to pass unnoticed, than that the public
should thus be thrown into fever Of false and PERM
cious sympathy. An UNPUBLISHED muder itself does
not half the evil that is created by the of
a capital trial under our present system especially
when all experience shows that conviction is mat
ter of exceeding difficulty, and that the prescribed
punishment is matter little to be dreaded. If the
gailows were removed altogether, it is probable that
the heroic circumstances which now surround assa.-
sins and give them, VIII lie living, species of canon-
eaton, would be, to great extent, DESTROYED aud
that their offence would then be no more respectable
or provocative of sympatbsing admiration, than the
miserable petty larceny of the most squalid negro
that ever trembled at the bar of the sessions Any
change would, in fact be for the better as nothing
could be worse than the whole thing as il stands at
present. What is wanted, is certainty Of punishment
without the pomp, pageantry, and distinction which
invests men when trial for killing. Crime should
be degradation, not quasi honor, as the worst de-
scrptons OF 1t are just now. But still while law,
are the laws, let them be sterny and nexorably car
red into effect.