New-York tribune., 1871-12-18
FRIDAYS HORK.

fHIDHl y UONh'
Last Friday, the day made sacred by Chris
tan custom to legal murders, the citizens OF
Camden, n. j., enjoyed the scnsatiOn-rarr,
we believe, to thrni-Of hanging. The story
of the murderer is a text which breaches its
own sermon, and for that reason, horrible rs
are its details, we commend them to the
consideration of our readers. Tho Ware
family consisted of father mother, children,
and the fathers mistress; and the glimpse we
have of their daily domestic life reveals
depth of obscenity, vilcncss, and barbarism
beside which travellers pictures of the family
relations of naked Africans arc actually
decent and civilized relief. The hatred
between the parents and their children
was so well-known and settled fact
that when John, the son. murdered his
father aud aftcrward robbed him in one of
their daily fights, it excited no surprise and
little horror among the ncighbOrs. Johns Sis
ter, to make conviction certain, hired a nephew
to swear that the murder was prcmcdtated;
and his wife, who we suppose had enough of
him. finding that he had requested that his
body should be instantly given to surgeon
after execution, with some fantastic hope OF
being restored to life by means of magnetism,
urged vchemenly that tho experiment should
not bc made, and that the body should be
kept by tho officials until death was certain.
If there were any better life than this squalor
and lust and vcnomOus ill-will this Old man
and his children apparently, from their coming
into the world to their going out, knew moth
ing of it. OF the modestics, the chccrfulness,
the tender, kindly affections, common as the
daily air in other homes, they had less idea
than the brutcs. The very hogs beside whose
pen the son killed the father, foul as their
bodily habits may be, care for their young.
These Wares, men and women, Christian
teachers would tell us, are not descendants OF
either swine or monkeys, but hold each OF
them an immortal spirit which can be made
noble actor in this life and u fit denizen OF
heaven But what are the facts! 1T there
were any such chance for them they knew
nothing of it. If there were any Absolute
Power who with touch could fill their lives
of guzzling and fighting and dcbauchcry with
cleanliness and pure affections, nobody had
told them of Him; Christ was to them simply
n name to add zcst and relish to an oath;
they could not read of Him. or of any life
outside of their own daily limit of work or
about some human lives, compared to which
the pens or cages of the beast are
but trivial barriers. The home III which
this ignorance and heathcnisn was to be found
was not in Barbary or Patagonia, but in
pleasant Ncw-Jcrscy village, full OF churches,
halfway between Ncw-YO and Philadelphia,
who send their annual thousands TO the cause
OF foreign missions. Nobody interfered with
1,,xu nnfI
brute killed the other, and was promptly sem
fenced to death by Christian law; then the
efforts made to draw from him a confession of
his faith in Christ and hope of Heaven would
be ludicrous' if under the circumstances they
were not terrible. Ware, however, stOlidly
refused to add another to the list of triumphant
gallows saints. " do MT believe in jesus" he
said, quietly; 81 do MT know anything about
"him."
An effort to prove insanity was made
founded on the fact that, sick of his wretch
cdncss, he had years ago twice attempted his
life; but the jury wisely enough judged it Il
proof of some vcstiges of human reason and
feeling. His cell was crowded with clergymcn
and young men of the Christian Association;
some Jealous missionary wrote a letter in his
wife's name, urging him to repent, and sent
him the pous Frauds but he listened with OBJ
durate Indifference good men, old and young,
went with him to the scaffold. urging him with
tears to give some sign OF hope in Christ the
very Sheriff, horror-struck at his duty of send
ing an unrepentant soul to its judgment before
God, took his hand after the rope was on his
neck and the world was hid from his
eyes forever, and asked for some sign that he
looked to Jesus. But Ware shook his head
and so went to meet the God whom he did
not know and could not trust. In his con-
fessiOn he says: of had ever received half
"the attention before got into this cage that
81 have since, never would have been here"
We do not know whether the Christian men
about him understood his meaning, nor
whether, as one Friday after another cele-
bratcs the cruciixion of the Nazarene by this
kind of work, any of us remember that there
is a Judge which looks behind the trial and
the murder, and utters the sentence, as of old
"The voice of thy brothers blood cricth
against thee from the ground"