New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1857-02-11


sions which have strangely shaken the public
un6. There are q feE superficial reasoos
which might account for The beginning, bot
NJ, for the Continuance Ct the agitation HoQse-
holder, with their wives and daughters, might be
troubled for light or two with the idea that ttey
WIRE rot safe from knives and nooses Il their VIZ
tucus beds. Persrns engaged in three or four 10
r. ems. who had suffered themselves TO be entsu-
gled By a. many artfu woneo, migh'feel tie sh.do"
Of sn approaching Nemfss fall coldly upon them.
People VITO have provoked penonai enmity In any
form. might well shudder st such bloody conclu-
.on. But the public feeling reused in these differ
or, WAY. would soon have subsidized. Events are
continually occurring to stimulate such an interest,
,hcuph moth pr in the ordinsry-cour Of crime
could have prevented its speedy subsistence.
What, then, has occasioned the remarkable eI-
citenent respecting the Burden murder For our
OVID part, We are wiling to trace It, no. 10 per-
spal confidence anticipating Ike retrbution; not
merely 10 morbid love Of the horrible and the
terrible: not 10 that vulgar desire Of detail, which
is upque s.onsby strong; not TO a numerical pas-
sion for counting blood-stains no. TO q mere s2pe-
lite for scandal ard gossip. l. it, we think, rather
to be referred TO the intellectual ac,isity which has
been aroused by this remarkable deed; TO the scu-
men ard analysis which it has provoked; 10 the
stt sdy determination of the people TO know al the
facts connected with this tsk'sg of. No ordinary
homicide car, Of courte, sustain this Interest.
Compared with this, all other killings seem vugar.
A man WHO wsnders, in the lunicy Of intoIcadOn,
into low, dirty beer chop full Of brasOs and cracks
men, may reasonably expect to have his skull frac-
tured; Nan who, at midLigh. has the temerty
TO pass through bad LeighborhOCds, will not be
a,tcLished by the club or the gsrrOte; . man CON-
peed 70 travel the highway at unreasonable hours,
is naturally bid to stand and deliver; and il, re-
fusiDg to do either, he is shot down, the COroner's
inquest excites no more attention than paragraph
detailing big FIRE or bursting fresbet But 40
assassination, without the apparent motive Of
cupidty, perpetrated in the fancied security OF a
domclle, ard effected under circumstances which
justify double theory, has an irresistible facina-
top, and males every man in the. CON-
munity Coroner. 1t is Lot easy 70 say,
whether the Imagination or the reason OF
the public be in such cases the predominant
faculty; or whether in its eIcitations, the com.
nunity is guided more BY fancy than BY facts.
II certainly discovers, very early after such
an incident, that there is powerful if not
predominant appeal to the imagination in great
murders, and this is precisely the feeling which
tremb'es through the somber curtains Of tragedy,
and VII Oh scaIes US into an unutterabe dread over
the pages Of Macbeth-whlch has lent dignity even
TO the commoDpaces Of George Barnwell" y and
Of Arden Of Feyersham which calls up ghosts
Of the eted dead to squeak aud gbber about our
cCuchet-which informs the traditions AMI legends
over which silly maids are wont 10 CULVER
We would lot underestimate the idealsm Of
murder, but it is not to be compared certainly for
any practical purpose with that intense nationality
with which society sezes upon an unusual homi.
eide and insists upon it's deliberate and philosoph-
ical investigation. It has been our duty to watch
the efervescence Of the public mind during the
course of recent events We have received many
communications, good, bad aud indiferent we
have talked with hundreds, and hardly with one
who did not have his or her theory; and
we must confess to certain degree Of assonish-
nent at the general skill in sitting evidence which
has been developed; at the latent logic Of the COM
munity; at the capacity for disecting testimony
which has been exhibited. Persons not at all Of
professional turn Of mind have shown themselves
to be excellent lawyers with fine detective talent.
We certainly feel that in oil this there is an in
stnctye effor. toward selfpreseryasion, and de-
termination that society shall not be made unsafe
without struggle. lie who FOR purposes of gain,
or prompted BY the whispers of reyeugeful spirit,
is stripping his right arm for deed Of midnight
murder, should remember that TO this inquest Of
the world, to this scrutiny Of the aggregate mind,
will his most secret acts be subjected. He may
eecape detection but escape is hardly possible.