New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1855-12-28
THE NEyy.UAXEN MURDER.

The late strange murder at NeW-lla'ch heous
to have grown out Of religious deluson very slngu
lar in it, details bu in its general char ter
sufficiently common The Widow Wekenan, the
v. ,.@rr 81 1900. - ''i1"i
Sly, the man who committed it; Justus Mat
thews. TIE man who was murdered, and the four
other persons who were in the house at the time
of the MURDER and who if they did not actually
assist in it knew of it and connved at it, all Ap-
Lear TO have been the wretched victims Of hal
lucnaticn falling little, i; anything, short of
Insanity.
The Widow Wakeman was believed by her fol-
lowers, and doubtless believed herself, to be a
person who had risen from the dead and had been
sent as a special messenger to redeem the
world The very existence Of the world was in
deed believed to be bound up in her life, since it
wss imagined that Immediately upon her death
the end of the earth and the Judgment-of which
these persons seem 20 have had = great dread
would follow. But with all her supernatural
gifts and graces, tie Widow Wakeman, as usu-
ely happens in such legends, had also supernat
ural enemy to enccunter-nO less a enc, in Iced,
than the devil himself at least one of his imps.
This evil spirit it was believed, had first taken
possession Ct the body Of one Hunt, who, it is
alleged, had unsuccessfully tried to poison the
messenger" with arsenic. Next this evil spiIit
was supposed to have passtd into the person of
Jusius Matthews, the man upon whom the muir
der was perpetrated Having thus become the
"msn of sin" Matthews was accused not, Indeed.
of any overt acts of personal violence, but of be-
witchiDg the messenger" With his eyes, and in
that way greatly distressing her, AID even endan-
gelirg her pre- cous life aud thereby the duration
of the world. Matthews himself seems fully TO
have believed in the fact Of his being thus pos
sessfd d, and Of exercising this malign power. lie
Yves anxious to have the evil spirit driven out of
bin, and for that purpose came to Siy's house in
New-Nayen, where the Widow Waterman lived,
and where was the scene Of her religious teachings
ard exercises. lie there submitted to be blind
folded and to have his hGrds tied behind him,
iet ping himself retired in room bslow.
apart from the TEST, who were singing aud pray
pg above. II the witnesses are to be believed, he
even expressed Willingness t. die If the evil spirit
could not otherwise be driven from him, and the
precious health ard life of the messenger Sc
cured. Elder Sly appears 10 have been perfectly
satisfed that nothing short of TIE desth OF Mat
thews would answer; aud while the others were
going on with their religious exercises, he pro-
ceeded to murder him, with ihe full knowledge aud
coDse1 of the rest, and apparently. at the express
rstieation of the Widow Wskemsn.
A bloody tragedy of this s0r:, enacted under the
very caves, as it WERE of Yale College, in the in
telgent, enlightened and pious City of NewHa.
ven, must strike every one who hears of it with
sudden aid creeping horror. Yet, the sort of de-
ution out of which it grew is BY no means rare or
uncommon. In what did that deiusion differ, We
should like to ask, from that which has made so
many ecclesias.ics believe not only that they had
power. both in earth and heaven, to bind and to
loose, but also that it was their rightto deliver
over the enemies Of the church to the secular arm
to be put to death In what does this delusiOn
differ except in its bloody cstsstrOph he nor does
even that difference always exist-from that which
makes up tho staple of the inuumerabls mirscu-