The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-06-08

The last act in the terrible tragedy which, in
the vlole death OF eight innocent and unsuspecting
persons, disclosed to us and appa hng possibii-
ties in the preparation OF crime has tnis day oeen
con; ummated by the execution of the chief actor,
Antcn Probst, the murderer This multiplication
OF murders will stand in criminal history as some.
thing horribly unique. That whole household,
consisting OF eight persons, were killed in the same
way, one after the other, the day time, by
single individual, without any outcrY resistance,
or any knowledse or suspicion ON he part of the
Victims that the teariu work of death was going on
that alter six of the hapless sam pause
Of houIs occurred, and then upon the arrival OF the
hast two the bloody butchery was again commenced
and consummateds and that through repetition of
the same device all, the b red boy, were lured
into the barn, and their manged bodies lett there
together, sleepiug that sleep that knows no waking,
was conjunction circumstances that could hardly
have occurred once in ten thousand times.
Ihe apparent inadequacY OF motive also stamp
this eight Iold MURDER with siuguaIity all IT
own The crime out Oh all rea don to the end to
Le attained by 1t, Tue creature desired money, nd
tn, re- were q thousand ways awful and unlawiu
whereby he might have oDIaIned At, without heaping
upon his SOU sucn accumu atod load of damning
guilt but no, h seemed 10 be possessed with tn
Cea that the simp les and easast way to attain HI
ed, AID 20 e-cape detection, to xii the entire
family.
RetributIon, in this instance, has followed cos
upon thu the nee Of CRIME Sc-rc ~ had the guilty
wretch sQuandeTed upon has brutal lusts the price
OF blOod-murder casting its i'll gotten booty into
the lap of haIlotry- before the aYenger upon
his track
The escape OF a murderer an civilized communities
is every day becoming more and more difficult
Science is multiply ing the tests by which the most
secret of deadly taknps OF may be brought TO hight
The telegraph intercepts tue ght of the escaping
criminal, and at the very mOmonJ when he Iancles
himself secure, Justice lays her iron hand upon his
shoulder, aud leads HIM away to swift punishment.
Even though the murderer hide is terrible secret
in the of his guIy heart, yet he cannoV
keep It, 1t consumes hIm Ike inward Gre.
Though no human eJ e may have seen him perform
the dreadful deed, yet the Al-seeng Eye beheid
him, and now fa hes terror through his
trembling soul. How wonderfully Daniel Webster
portrayed this feature murder in mis- great speech
upen the Crowninsaield case, when, afer descnb
ing the workings of guilty conscience. he summed
upIy saying that there refuge for the crim.-
nal except in suicide or confession, and suicide
itseig confession"
we ought TO be thankful, perhaps. that sometimes,
whom murders do occur, they are Of such charac-
TER as 10 exhibit the horrible crime in its most re-
voting aspect Often murder attracts to itself q
strange interest by les association with the eXhibi.
tionoE human passions in their most intense form
such as ambition, revenge, jealousy, OF evea love.
There may in such instances be such thing as the
"poetrY OF murder" and we absorbed in con :
templatiug the passion, that forget tine guilt of
the crime. But IN tn instance there is nothing to
relieve the hideousness of tho transaction. Murder
stands before us in its most oting aspect naked
Va all its hslIish deiormity-a thing to be turned
from with unmitigated and unmeasured loathing,
philadelphia, though one of the most orderly OF
cities and though originally so largely imbued with
the peacen Quaker cement OF population, has still
furnished many notable murd r cases 1t may be
interesting as a matter of history 10 recur briefly
10 the striking OF these, cOnfnIng ourselves to
those in Ehch the perpetrators were tried aud exc
cued. We commence with that of
ONE ARMED TOM
Tom Robinson, a soldier who had lost an arm in
the Revolutionary War, was hung on the 10th OF
October, 17st, iOT highwaY robbery and attempt to