The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-01-22
TRAUPMANE.

The guillotine the other day passed it's |
sharp Judgment on an extraordinary muir |
derer. Traupmann was more and worse than |
a mere French phase of Antoine Probst. The |
latter murdered whole family with a savage |
stupidity for which only the wild-beast theory |
of human nature will account. The awful |
work of Traupmann had even less feeling in |
it. He butchered the Kinck family with a
horrible flippancy. Phenomena of crime like |
these are said to reveal much, but the won
der is that they reveal SO little. The absence
of nearly every clue to natural feeling is the
one most discernible fact in these cases.
Their revelation is wretched blank. The
public who seek for signs encounter an exhi-
bition of animal stupefaction or moral dead
ness. In this respect Traupmann was a living
corpse, and not one of his eight mangled vic
Tins was more dead than he. God created
man in His own image, thesimage of life, but
man can uncreate, as it were, in the image of
the devil and of death. Thus did Traupmann;
and if his crime was faithful reflex of his
soul, humanity may well abandon the task of
attempting to conceive its almost nullity A
murderer of this class might happen to be one
of the most uninterestng, unedifying of brute
beings, his individuality quite lost in the
enormity of his crime.
Traupmann, however, has been study,
and will be for some time, to French
thinkers. He was worse than stupid, for he
appears TO have had the venom and the
coldness of reptile. This prodigious cool
ness has equaled, if not surpassed, anything
that Paris has known in the way of evil SEN
sations. 1t was brought out in evidence that
he has said to the mother of the murdered
family:-'You will all be reunited. Yet L
shall bury you in the same grave Yet more
terrible was his statement:-'I struck them
after L killed them, in order to disfgure
them But Traupmann had a remnant of
sensibility; he could be even sensitive, and
the man who killed whole family could feel
a pang of virtuous Indignation at being lied
against. Here is a wonderful passage in the
| dialogue between himself and the President
of the Court which tried him.
| "Presdent-You said once, stranged the first
child; he did not utter cry. / then fetched the
second and then the third That was your confes-
| sion OF Nov. 23.
"Traupmann-You love falsehood rather than
truth if you will not believe what tell you now;
| to die But IL you knew my reasons for not dis
closing the names OF my accomplices, you would ap-
| "Presidont-One witness only heard cry; it was
| that Of a child who called out mamma.
| "Traupmann-That is false. The witness who said
that was wretched liar. would tell him 80 to his
face l ought not to be assaed by these false
"President-Then you were there?
"rraupmann-Yes, was.
"President-It is proved on all hands that you led
solitary life, and were possessed with the idea OF
making fortune.
|
about me. There is .commissary of police who
wanted to arrest my father. My father has more
honesty in his little hnger than that magistrate in
his whole BODY"
The glimpses of character thus afforded
only help us to the general truth that the
worst of murderers is, after all, human
being Traupmann evidently had plenty of
combativeness and personal pride witness
deposed that in 1864, when he received his
first communion, he had quarrel with his
brother and threatened to kill him, where
upon the witness said, ''You are second
Cain" Traupmann here interrupted the de-
ponent, saying with emphasis, '"rhe witness
is miserable liar, and not worth a rope to
hang himself with" But the GOODNESS of the
murderer singularly offset this instance of
excitement. His mo, Monsieur, in reply
to question of the President, "Could you
not save those poor children you delivered
over to your accomplices?" called forth that
functionarys remark, ''The GOODNESS with
which you say that makes ones blood run
cold Yet Traupmanns attorney drew from
him an extraordinary exhibition of feeling.
''Speak to him of his mother" said the
learned advocate; 'speak to him of his family.
If in this matter you ask for tears, you would
only have to recall the name of his mother u
At this point the prisoner wept bitterly and
sobbed, much to the surprise of the court,
although the spectators imagined him to be
acting.
Traupmanns last words at the guillotine
persistently reasserted that he had accom-.
plices. The only comment which need
he made upon them is his admission on the
, 18th of November that he had alone and un.
, aided, murdered Madame Kinck and her five
children, after having poisoned Jean Kinck
and stabbed Gustave. Two weeks afterwards
perhaps ashamed of his monster crime, per.
: h0ps with truth-he declared that he had three
accomplices Whether he had or not matters
little now to him or the world. The murderer
WAS dreadfully dwarfed by contrast with the
crime he had committed. He was but twenty
= years old; his aspect was ugly, his lips drawn
up, showing his teeth; he had large hands anG
: splay feet, and the size and seeming strength
a OF the former contrasted strangely with his
: slight even frail figure He conceived tha
! his passion for crime was cultivated or in
: spired by morbid reading of Eugene Sue
y The language of his advocate, Lachaud, sums
r up his case-
: "Gentlemen, here is young man of twenty years
and eight dead bodies OF his victims! Oh, beseecl
:, you not to believe that. The prisoner is subject q
one OF the most frghtful moral maladies which rem
der men irresponsible His crime?- is written il
the book, the Wandering 9ew Throughout tn
J. whole world there are men of science who are con
ceihed with this affair." and who have their eyes o
this youth OF twenty years. One OF them said TO m
yesterday, Look at him look at his attitude; loo
at his arms. Well If this man be feTocious beast
: 1t is best to muzzle him, and not to kill him."
DIR. Amedee Bertrand has not hesitated t.
t declare i'll the face of civilization that Traup
) mann was insane; and we can all imagin
, how. Crime is dreadful insanity, an
. nature itself seems to have conspired wit
" evil to make ugly the features of this man
Q and to misdirect his soul--to make him a
s idiot in one respect, and madman i