Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1871-11-19
THE PARK AND HARPER MURDERS

We confess to good deal of surprise at
finding the following article in the editorial
columns of so orthodox a Radical journal
as the Cincinnati Times and Chronicle.
Had it emanated from a Southern Demo
cratic paper, it would have been regarded as
the very essence of Ku-KluXism. II plainly
says, when you hear of a murder having
been committed in a brutal manner, where
it is clear that theft is the prime object, you
may set it down as the work of negroes.
And then it winds up by showing how diff
cult it is Gin this time of Judge and iuries7
to convict a homicide. Can it be possible
that the Indiana Ku-Klux have acted upon
the implied suggestion in the closing para
graph? The Times and Chronicle says in
its issue of Nov. Is:
ssTbe paticulars CT the horrible murder
Of the Park family and the confession of
one of the murdefefs, given in our last even
ing's edition, afford us ground for some in
teresting comparison witlfa crime fully as
revolving which, though happening but a
few weeks ago, seems to have diedout COM
pletely from public and official memory. We
refer, of course, to the Harper murder in
Kentucky.
In this last case, as in the former. the
people and the officers were baffied by the
very thing that should have enlightened
them. Our detectives are too often men
of but one single line of thOught-very ex-
cellent in that, to be sure, but unable TO get
out of it-stretching and COMPRISING every
crime TO fit it, after the manner of Procrus-
ties with his bed. Let but crime be en-
tirely out Of the ordinary run, and their
heads 60 up Immediately, with very little
chance Of ever recovering the scent; while
the points which are out Of the ordinary
should be the very ones TO lead an acute
mind to discovery.
"The distinctive feature of both these
murders was the same-the O1tre character
Of the killing-the supereBOgatiOn of the
deed, the needless and inhuman cruelty of
its manner, and, in fact, the absence of any
substantial motive. The heads of an aged
man and woman were pounded TO a Jelly
with Ratchet in the Harper case, and notE-
ing stolen from the house but few trinkets.
The lives Of five persons were beaten out
with an AK in the other, to get at a hundred
dollars and some old clothes. Low intel
lect, brutal ferocity, almost idiOtic absence
of judgment are as patent in each case as if
inscribed in flaming letters; and il does
seem as If he who ran might read TO what
class of people his investigations should he
narrowed. Yet in the Harper case the er-
ratio efforts toward detection have been
scattered over every description of man
kind: and in the late crime the same course
was commenced and terminated only bv
the entirely fortuitous folly of a negro.
whose conduct showed guilt SO plainly that
even the detectives could not overlook it.
"Every collection of court statistics, every
enumeration Of Criminal Judge and precelt
ofcriminal author, inform us of the startling
growth of murder in these free and enlight-
ened United States; and yet our system of
jurisprudence grows daily more enent to
the criminal, and our modes of detection
daily a greater farce. Verify it does seem
that in the Jewish days of the "Avenger of
Blood, " justice was meted out to the homi-
eide more surely and impartially than in this
time Of Judge and jIIries."