The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-08-01
SPIRIT OF THE PRnss
Editorial Opinions Of the Leading Journals
upon Current Topics-Compiled Every
DAY for the Evening Telegraph.

THE TWENTY-THIRD STREET MURDER.
From. the N. Y. World.
In the morning of Friday, when the streets
we're already astir with the early life of q
summers day, it was suddenly announced
that q citizen of this city had been struck
down by robbers in his own house, while his
sons, who would have died for him, slept I'M
conscious of the horror enacting below; that,
overcome in the unequal strife, he had been
left dying on the threshold of his own
bed.chamber; while the assassins, pass
escape from his violated home as undis-
turbedIy as they had achieved their
entrance into it. And this took place, not in
any remote, lonely, suburban quarter-not in
any vile "~back-slum, p" the haunt and hiding
place of shames and sins-but in the very
heart Of the most fashionable, the liveliest,
the most %thronged, and the most prosperous
distric' Of the metropolis, at but a few PAGES
from the most famous and brilliant Of our
public avenues, and directly opposite one of
cur largest and most popular hotels. L h
town was startled with q sudden sense of in
security when, some little time ago, two
thieves had the audacity to appoint an inter-
view with O diamond merchant in q room on
one of the upper corridors of the st. Nicholas
Hotel, and having got him there, to bind and
plunder him as coolly as if they were per-
AOlLObAhE NAANAA SAAb1N IA bOGLS "a" u AlS
Of California or New Mexico. The murder
Of Mr.. Nathan enormously transcends this
act in both audacity and in a~trocity. It is as
if the thieves of the st. Nicholas had seduced
their victim into q first-Aoor parlor and fallen
upon him while the inmates of the house
we're thronging to their meals. And it is to
this feature Of the outrage that the in
tensity of public indignation which it
erouses must be traced. The death in such
a manner nf eunh q oitiZeD % Mr. Nathan
ut any time and in any circumstances, would
have deeply stirred the public feeling. 1t is
not q private but O public wound when the
hand Of midnight murder cuts short the life
of q man honored and honorable among his
fellows, Just and kind and generous, as was
Mr.. Nethan-a man full of the domestic
virtues which sweeten the life of society and
Of the public spirit which ennobles and
dignifes its prosperity.
But when the life of such a citizen is taken
at such q time and in such a place the public
wound becomes the apocalypse of formidable
disease and danger.
The revelation which shocked and angered
the city so deeply for O season two years ago,
when MIR. Rogers was slain at his own door,
is Numbered anew in our ears to-day. The
doing of these deeds tells us, not only that
We have q horde Of criminals prowling at
large among US, but that these criminals are
losing fast, if they have not already lost, all
that wholesome terror of the law and of the
authorities which is our truest police and the
ultimate reliance of public order.
1t is in this most alarming particular that
these outrages upon society in our own city
resemble the Grecian murders. Men have
been murdered on the highway in
other communities than Greece, but the
a~ssassins who slew them skulked to
the doing of their crime and skulked
away from the doing Of it. They did
not assume to treat with the law as its equals,
or TO parade themselves openly ia the face of
its ministers. And 60 men have been muir
dered in their own houses in other cities than
New York. But though the murderers went
and came by hidden ways, the law, for all
their hiding, traced, found, seized upon, and
chsstised them.
The effect of the inpunity of the assassins
Of Mr.. Rogers has been felt in the subse-
quent multiplication Of similar attempts
among us, till it now eliminates in the horror
which on Friday appalled, the city. 1t must
20 no further. For the doing Of justice upon
the V~illanous murderers of Mr.. Nathan we
must necessarily await their capture, and the
community will exact Of the police for their
discovery and seizure On unstinted, uniag-
gi0g energy and activity. But there is duty
of prevention as well as of punishment ex-
pected of this force to-day. All things
point to an extreme probability that
the person or persons who slew Mr..
Nathan were not Of the class technically
known as professional burglars. but rather
lurkers and loungers who crept into the house
unobserved at some unfortunate moment,
and, hiding, waited for the silence and the
darkness to begin their work. Be this as il
may, ii is certain that the metropolis is now
infested. and has for some time been infested,
with numbers Of this most obnoxious class OF
common enemies and d~epredators. All whc
move about our streets on their lawful oc
casions have observed them lettering at cor
ners, tagging behind quiet passengers, peer
ing into areas IN doorways. They are oil
divers grades, from the ragged tramp who
'bunks' in neglected Railways and alleys to
the hashy scoundrels who roam about the
passages and the portals of public-housea
and hotels. These men are known to the
police. 1t is q special function of the police
to mark such persons in their patrolling o
the city; and it should be, if it is not
their special duty to break up thei
habits and ease us Of their presence. w,
hear a great deal ever and anon of tn
raids made by the police at night upol
the lost women who perambulate our tho
rou6hfOres. Why do we hear nothing o
raids" by day and by night upon the still
more dangerous lost men who equally will
these unhappy creatures roam our pavement
in search of prey? Here is an obvious worl
to be donej and to be done peromptorily. |
our police authorities rightly estimate thei
relations to the public service, they will los
10 time in doing this work, and doing i
thoroughly.
1t seems that we are to have man hangei
among Us for killing a policeman, though tn,
killing was done, as the criminal alleges, il
a moral desperation of self defense. Tn
execution of Real, if it take place, will affor,