The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-08-22

/ For instance, the whereabouts of Washing
ton Nathan before 12 o'clock was immaterai,
for we know that after midnight the father
was alive and awake, and speaking words Of
affection to the other son. Ii was very WE'LL
under the circumstances, if only for the
qualification of natural curiosity, stimulated
by what had appeared in the newspapers, for
MIR. w. Nathan to say where he was and
what he had been doing before he went
home. But, strictly speaking, it was imma-
terial; and we are compelled to say that, if it
were his or their doing, he and his friends
were badly advised when they produced the
girl from the Fourteenth street rendezvous
to corroborate an immaterial averment. It
gra' ed on us as we read it. If his statement
we're doubted, nothing was easier than for
the police, by private inquiry, to verify it,
without the presence of the yelled woman to
prove it in public. This is our only criticism;
and no one familiar from experience or study
with such inquiries will fail to admit that
irrelevant matters perplex tbs search for truth
marvellously. The first effort even of police
logic is to get rid of them. Far more i'm
portant would it have been to know what
clothes the sons and young Kelly wore the
night of the murder-we mean the day
clothes--and what became of them; and vet
this was not thought of. -..-.
DIR. Beach's testimony, abstract as in some
respects it is, we deem very valuable. 1t
was given with precision, SO that no one
could doubt what exactly he meant to say.
1t is, of course, to be regretted that he wa
not on the ground sooner but, assuming
there was no material change of circumstances
and none is pretended-his scientific judg-
ments, being open to inquiry, stand, if not
impeached; and they have not been. They
show, it seems to us, that more than one had
hand, if not in the deed, at least in the sys-
fanatic effort Qt nj rds
that the dead man did not fall where the
corpse was found, but probably by
combined strength was carried thither; that
there was an amount of violence utterly un-
necessary for the accidental, mercenary
murderer, but just such as one who dreaded
Identification would inflict; and, in corrobo-
ration of DR.. Peckham, that the deed of blood
was done at or shortly before o'clock; thus
revealing, in connection with the testimony
of General Blair and the police officer, the
astounding and incomprehensible fact of
murder for money, and the murderer remain
ing in the house with no possibility of plum
der, and the consciousness that there were
those at hand-four, it seems, at least-ready
to detect and seize him. A little after mid
night, when Mr.. Nathan last spoke; still
later, when Washington went towards his
bedroom, all was darkness in that unguarded
chamber. At o'clock, when the discovery
was maue, tue gas was burning brightly,
''two-thirds turned on" 1t must indeed have
been reckless assassin who, either before or
after the crime was done, lighted the gas aud
left it burning. The murderer in poetry
and brave one, too-long ago said:-
81 am afraid to think what have done.
Look ont, dare not"
The assassin of to-day turns on the gas,
and sits or stands quietly in the room with
his victim for more than two hours watching
the progress of the a2gos naortis, and, as it
were, waiting to be caught