The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-08-08

Rtotn o,lr o,pn oOrrepondent.


lished, the mortal remains of General Charles
G. Halpine will have been conAded to the earth.
The funeral takes place this morning from his
residence, No. SO West Forty-second street.
Everything that public and private tribute can
do TO show honor to his memory has been done.
These tributes he deserved. All the world
knows what he was publicly; but all the world
does not know what he was in the more
screened and secluslve circles of society, or
among the invulnerable sanctlties of home. He
was as fond of children as a child itself is,
and one of the prettiest sights was
to see this strong, powerfully-built man
bending alike his body and his mind to satisfy
the sweet tyrannies which he encouraged chill
dren to exercise over him. None of his pohu
cal or newspaper duties ever caused him to for
get those of home. He was never moody at his
own hearthstone because he was brilliant in
society; he never seemed to allow the thought
TO enter his mind that because he was master
under his own roof-tree, he had right to bling
there temper less generous and sweet than
that he took out with him into the world. For
q long time past he had been subject to severe
headaches and congestivc attacks. The extreme
susceptibility of his nervous system precluded
his remedying them by the natural healing
which sleep would have yielded to less finely
strung body and brain, and the amour
of ether and chloroform he got into the
habit of inhaing was not without it
dismal reactionary effect. Amid all his bril-
liancy, he was unfortunately situated for one
whose shining talents furnished so great
reason for the preservation of health. Yet had
he chosen to prolong his life, and nurse himself
by those small and patent precautions which
people of his temperament find il 50 difficult to
observe, it must have been in q less prominent
sphere than the one he occupied, and we may
be sure that to such man a different mode OF
life would have been worse than death. Like
many another man in his station, he was goaded
on by the dismal omniscience of circumstances,
through the feverish applause of the world and
the ftful gloom of occasional self-despondency,
In doing all that was expected of him up to the
last moment of his life. When once the use of
any an@sthesia is commenced, we all know how
Immediately the repetition settles into an un-
conquerable habit. The bromide of potassium
and the bromide of ammonia, which his physi-
clan prescribed, might safely have been taken
without any of that reaction which so weakens
the will and judgment, and demoralizes the
whole nervous system; but the sufferer probably
found them too slow in their action, and so
substituted ether and chloroform, those match
Meanwhile distinguished men of almost every
class have united to do him honor. The IRISH
Legion, the Fire Commissioners, and the
Knights of st. Patrick have passed betting
resolutions, and the presence OF a large number
of cavalry and infantry will give a military
character to the funeral. The undrawu portion
of his income, which probably amounted to
$50, 900, will most likely revert to his widow, if
such proposition can be made TO prevail with
Governor Fenton.
have already mentioned The Spicer poisoning
case more than once, and the reason l return to
it again is because of the very peculiar interest
thousands of readers here feel in it, on account
of the strange rendering of the verdict. The
Coroner's inquest was finally concluded on
Wednesday, nearly three weeks after the poison
ing had taken place. Il Is mission with some
city editors of newspapers to proceed on the
assumption that no reader ever recolects any
thing that was in the newspaper tAe day before.
Permit me, for the moment, to borrow this idea,
and remind the reader OF the facts in the Spicer
case, TO the end that he may exercise his inge-
nuity in unravelllng a mystery that seems to
be unavailable.
On Sunday afternoon, uly 10, Mr.. john
Spiccr, middle-aged man, sent his colored ser.
want named Adkins to Sixth avenue drug store
for Seidlitz powder. According to the testi
mony, the powder was handed to Adkins in a
sealed envelope, and passed from him to Mrs.
Spicer, wife of the dead man, in the unbroken
and sealed condition. Mrs Spicer says that she
laid it in this condition upon the bureau in her
husbands room, and that he opened and took it
himself alone. Within a few moments after
swallowing it he exhibited symptoms of having
been poisoned by strychnne, and within fifteen
minutes he was seized with frightful convuI
sions, that SO curved his spine inward to
leave the depth of a foot between the inmost
point of the curvature and the bed whereon he
lay, and in another instant lett him purple
faced corpse. Four persons now appear for
suspicion to fasten upon. These are the drug
store clerk who prepared the powder,
the servant who bought it, the
wife who received it, and the man
who swallowed it. In the case of the drug store
clerk the suspicion must be one of simply an
egregious and objectionable blunder; if Adkins
or Mrs, Spcer be suspected, the ugly word
murder inevitably lifts its voice, and 1t the dead
man himself be called in question the affair is,
OF course, one of suicide. Yet at each OF these
points suspicion Is opposed, II not totally dis
AIMED. The fatal powder was taken from a
drawer containing scores OF other po Wders pre-
pared at the same time and place. sold 10 many
different people without any i'll results, and
pronounced by competent medical e eSamlnerS to
be genuine Seidlitz Powders. Then IN regard to
Adkins the colored servant, nothing in the
whole course of the testimony occurred which
could land the shadow Of q Just suspicion upon
him. Even Mrs. Spicer, who, ii she were
guilty would scarcely have missed this in
genious means of transferring her guilt