Columbia Democrat and Bloomsburg general advertiser. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1850-1866, 1857-09-12
Murder will Out.


after occupying public attention for weeks
and four months, and ministering to the
love for the marvellous to degree quite
beyond all example, it had about finished
its course. But just as the public interest
in the strange eventfpl history was dying
out, and the feeling had become general
that there was nothing more of any account
to be exhibited, suddenly new scene
opens more extraordinary than any which
| had preceded it-a scere all the more
startling in that it brisgs with it a transi-
ton from the purest tragedy to the broadest
farce.
The account Of the attempt Of the self
sty led Mrs. Burdell to make herself the
putstive mother Of suppositious heir to
the es ate of the murdered Doctor Burdell,
presents the ridiculous side Of crime in
way altogether unique. The woman, whose
craft in iniquity had proved itself superior
efforts of the most capable ministers OF
justice, and fairly bafled and staggered
the keenest sense of the community, now
makes the most pitilul fool Of herself ever
heard Of. Search Though the Decamfron
from one end to the other, apd you will find
no such object of dirision, no such example
of sin taken in and done for, as this in
comparable Mrs, Cunningham now presents.
If Dante had had the locating of her, she
would undoubtedly be moored for all
eternity in an ocean of inextinguishable
laughter. But yet, in spite OF all the
matchless Righteousness of the figure she
has just been making, there is depth Of
vileness in it that forbids one to yield to
the sense of che ludicrous. 1t is in truth
beyond all measure sorrowful that there
, should exist woman capable of so unsexing
herself, as to play such an ineffably base
part for the mere greed Of gold. 1t shames
human nature it outrage womanbood.-
The mind at once, in its impatiepce of
such monstrous perversity, reverts to the
was won't to appiy to her, and finds
momentary relief in the idea oftheir literal
, truthfulness. At the very last, every
understanding is prompted to a better
! appreciation of the character and capabili-
ties of this creature. No one can doubt
that the woman who could take upon
herself the part detailed in another column,
and carry it through to the very end with
such brazen .hardihood and hypocrisy, was
capable Of doing murder. No one can now
find it hard to believe that she is full from
the top to the toe Of tie direct wickedness
that she has a nature in which every
) access and passage to temorse is herpsti-
cally stopped up. The conviction is almost
irresistible that the same disposition which
employed these means to obtain gold, did
not scruple also to employ ths other, apd
; that it has been the same spirit that has
shaped and guided the scheme from first to
last. There is no sensible moral difference
between the spurious paternity and the
spurious marriage-between the, foul, Ut.
a natural birth, and the foul, unnatural
murder From beginning 60 end it is all
of piece. Yes, the cluse of this last
development shoot back farther than the
beginning of the present bloody business,
and take strong hold of the mysterf GUS
circumstances attending the sudden death
Of Mrs. Cunningham's first husband-clues
1 carrying with them q significance which
will to many minds confirm what has here
to fore been vague suspicion into positive
assurance. 1t is hardly probable that new
legal proof, as to past crimes, will come
out of what has last occurred but it is yet
A a satisfaction to know that some measure
4 Of punishment is now sure to overtake the
o wretch who has hitherto baffed every effort
of human justice. The proofs of q State
Prison olense are upon her that no art of
,s man or devil can explain away or eludc.