The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1873-12-18
Letter from Boston.
Correspondence of the journal.
ROSTON Dec

10 wv Nllstl ny Which, lIllCt
human beings are ushered into eternity. |
Your readers are ere this, make no
doubt, familiar with the sickcning details
of this three-fold murder, and as they read
these lines will experience yet again the
involuntary shudder which accompanied
their reception of the horrible narration.
Mr. kimball, the murderer and suicide,
who spends the evening at the card table
with his wife and friends and bid the lat
ter good night in a natural and pleasant
tone OF voice, is certainly not, cannot be,
the same man who, on the morning fol
lowing. is discovered. razor in hand,
drawing the keen, bright edge across his
barred and already bloody neck; his step
daughter sent in advance to that borne to
which he is rapidly fastening, driven
thither by the same weapon with which
he now sewers his own life-thread: while
the wife of his bosom, also in the cold
embrace of death, bears on her throat the
tell-tale imprint Of his vise-lke grasp.
Insanity, and insanity only, can have
transformed the inotfensve George L.
Kimball Of last night into the demon OF
this morning
And then. again. the terrible and des-
peratc suicide of j c. Roberts at the Cot
tage Farm Station on the Boston Il Albany
Railroad, on Tuesday last, coming as it
did between the Dorchester and Charles
town butcheries. and hence somewhat
dWared in comparison with them, was
indeed Il fearful ending of a crazed and
wronged man. He is detraudcd Of the little
property he has striven 50 long and weari-
daily from bad TO worse; his family will
soon be suffering for bread, and he unable
to prevent; his Wife, his little ones, shall
they starve, and he look on day by day As
they GROW more and more emaciattd. and
draw nearer and nearer TO the death they
already so painfully resemble? How can
he bear the thought He silently kisses
them all as he leaves his once prosperous
home, and the wild and unnatural look
| which they see in his eye strikes terror TO
! each fond heart and fills them with dark
preSentiment of the foreshadowing terror.
| The husband and father. ON leaving his
| loved ones, wends his steps direct to the
railroad; he walks back and forth As If
awaiting somebody OF something; the
train approaches he draws nearer TO the
track the shriliwhistle sounds its note of
alarm; he heedS it not; will he Get out Of
| the way of the onruShng engine? No
he leaps into the very jaws of death ;
three spokeS are broken ont Of the
cowcatcher by the force of the blow, and
what but 4 moment before was a sentent
being is now but a pulpy and indScrimi-
nate mass Of quivering flesh.
| Why, what with murders, suicides,
robberies and assaults, one would think
the little man in black had broken loose,
only we don't like TO put everything ON 10
the shoulders of that muchmaligncd per-
| sonage. But thank fortune we have an adj
ministrator of Justice here IN Boston who
| is thoroughly alive TO the necessity of
meeting the wrong-doer with clenched ifs
rather than open palm, and such as come
| before him are sure to receive Il blow
| straight from the shoulder and one which
| will be long remembered by the recipient
and serve as 4 warning to others amcnable
to outraged law and order
| AT the close of the war in 1860, nearly
all our cities and larger towns We're in
tested by gangs of garro ters, who sent
terror to the hearts Of such rs were COM
pelledt be out late, and also had the not i'm
| pleasant affect Of causing husbands TO be
| and families, with whom they had pre-
viously enjoyed little more than a speak
ing acquaintance, Everybody was alarmed,
and the steets We're almost deserted soon
after sunset; and as each night repeated
the refrain of another man gaToted, ="
people felt more and more at the mercy
of the desperadoes, and nothing short Of
dire necessity could tempt even the bravest
abroad after dark This state of affairs
continued for some time, until finally Il
young fellow Just discharged from the
army, wherein he had lost an arm. was
overpowered and secured by Mr.. White,
whom he was attempting to CARROT
Young Catur q think such was his name)
was tried and convicted, and Judge Russell,
(now collector of this porD in order to
make an example of the prisoner and thus
deter others from continuing the netarious
business, sentenced him to twenty-five
years hard labor in the State Prison.
This had the surprisingly good result Of
at once putting a stop to the choking
operations, and not a case Of the kind has.
! think been recorded since. BY a Singu-
lar coincidence, u judge Of the same name
in New York treated a case in that city IN
like manner with like beneficial conclusion.
Judge Aldrich of this city, convinced
that the only proper way to punish crime
is to make the penalty sufficiently heavy
and certain to give the culprit TO under
stand that justice is not to be tritled with
with impunity has the past week sentenced
four men in accordance with this convic-
ton, and it is to be hoped that like happy
results will follow with those recorded
above. In the first case John Williams
and Henry Connolly We're convicted Of
highway robbery In delivering his SEN
tence the Judge said that this was the most
fragrant case Of highway robbery that had
ever come to his notice; man being
knocked senscless and robbed almost with
in the shadow of the Court House This
class of cases was becoming alarmnglv
common in Boston, and if there was any
law which shoald be strictly enforced it
was the one relating to highway robbery
He proposed to award a sentence which |
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