The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-08-02

NHW IUHkt mug. II IbIU
The Murder Of MIR. Nathan.

murderer, the reporters of New York had been
given permission to soar to the Hottest height
and to the loves depth to which fancy's wing
could wait them. l can imagine the Smiths,
Browns, and Joneses of the various newspapers,
bursting, in a sweat of intelligence, into edi-
torial rooms, laying in triumph the huddled
heaps of facts before managinS editors, and
being instantly directed to write up
their accounts, and append to each a ''theory."
Reportorial invention was certainly never put
to q severer test. Nearly every one of the Sun
day and the daily papers has had a theory" of
ats own. From o consideration of the various
hypotheees, il might be imagined that the brood
of reporters had been brought up In the shadow
Of the detective wing, and that the shell through
which they picked their way into newspaper
existence was circumstantial evidence. Il is not
often that full swing is given to the New York
reporter. 30 much that comes to his mill turns
out not to be grist, that when corn of a suffi-
ciently criminal character does fall in his way, he
must DO excused for grinding ii very small
indeed. The murder of Mr.. Benjamin Nathan,
last Friday morning, was of this character, and
the reporters fed upon it like oxalic acid on an
ink spot. Let us try to appreciate, while we
compassionate their efforts, admitting, at the
same time, that it is q pity that they are not
forbidden to weaken, with ill-considered theories
of their own, the effect of the facts which they
80 industriously collect. There are some readers
who like to think a little for themselves, and
who, without overweening discomfort, could
dispense with the suppositions which those gen.
tiemen beautifully rain upon them.
Knowing that l can detail here no item of
news Of which the telegraph will not have in
formed you before this letter is printed, l shall
attempt nothing more ambitious than a collee-
ton of such odds and ends as occur to me of
gossip and reflection. Since the hour when the
murder became known, the north side of
Twenty-third street directly opposite the resi-
dence of the Nathan family has been occupied
by curious gazers whose number sometimes
swelled into q crowd, sometimes dwindled to a
group. ] believe that since the moment when
Che news of the crime became public scarcelyan
hour has passed without finding a bevy of in
~quisitive watchers, besides the police, stationed
upos that opposite pavement. 1t is no
figure of speech to say that the
stages which go near that point slackened
their speed in order to allow passengers to
satisfy the hunger of their eyes. The same thing
may be said of the cars. Whenever one of them
came near the intersection of Twenty-third
street and Broadway the passengers, with few
exceptions, jumped up, and, as if actuated by
one will, stuck their heads out of the windows,
and riyeted their eyes upon the spot that MUIR
der had put beyond the reach of the common
place. The hour was one of Joy and triumph to
the policemen. 1t gave them a coveted pretext
for using their %'locusts, y and for practising that
sort of blackguardism which the protection of
the blue coat and brass buttons renders safe.
Strange as it may seem, respectable men were
heard to abet the detestable conduct of the New
York Sunday Mercury in casting suspicion upon
Washir gton, Mr.. Nathan's youngest son. The
reason toat the Mercury took the course which
it did Is simply that its reporter, in endeavoring
to gather news at q rather late hour, was re-
pulsed by Washington. The reporters of the
Mercury are not pre-eminently distinguished for
refined feelings, gentlemanly manners, or reli-
gious principle. The instructions which they
receive from Mr.. Whitney are not precisely such
as would tend to fit them for the kingdom of
heaven. But when they ''go' for a piece of
news their tenacity Of purpose is wonderful, and
the piece of news usually has to succumb. The
Mercury reporter, however, called on Saturday
at an hour when such intrusion was particularly
repugnant to the family. During every one of
the twenty-four preceding hours the house had
been visited by q stream of ''interyiewers, ~
and it would have been strange indeed
if the crushed spirits of the mourners
had not asked for q little rest. 1t
was Mr.. Washington Nathan through whom
this request found expression, and whom, there
fore, the Mercury selected as the victim of its
spite. This accounts for the two columns of
malicious perversion that on Sunday morning
appeared upon the first page of the Mercury, and
Iabored to fix the crime on Washington. That
an unprincipled and filthy paper like the Me,-
sary should do SO ought not, perhaps, to cause
much surprise; but that any respectable man of
sense should take up such arguments as were
used in the Mercury, and should endeayor to
give them consistency, is q fact at once aston
ishing and painful. / have but little doubt that
hundreds of people made up their minds yester-
day that Washington Nathan was the murderer
of his father. When that cruel suspicion deep
ened until it seemed to catch the blackness of
fact, 1t was easy to imagine q series of causes
equally consistent and just.
! hope that, without being accused of starting
a 'theory," 1 may be permitted to make a re-
mark about the diamond studs which were
stolen. 1t seems to be taken for granted that
stolen diamonds can always be disposed of
without difficulty or danger, provided their set
ting be destroyed. 1t must be remembered,
however, that jewellers have, with regard to
diamonds, a memory quite as remarkable as de
~$ectives have with regard to faces. There are
in this city jewellers who are so extremely eX-
pert in this particular that no diamond which
has passed through their hands, no matter what
change of setting it may experience, can any
more escape Identification, should it come to
them again, than an escaped convict. sentenced
by Judge Bowling, can elude, in or out OF dis
guise, that magistrates remarkable memory.
The singular aptitude that many jewellers pos
sess of recognizing, under any circumstances
-. xphfoh haUn nnaQ hQap in their nos.