The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-09-06
The Kelsey Trsgeay-What Il To BE
the Ultimate solutions

The Kelsey Trageay-What Il To BE
the Ultimate solutions
All who have read the wonderful novel by
which Wilkie Collins first established reputa-
ton will recollect the impressive scene in the
lonely summer house where Count Fosco
dilates upon the frequency with which murder
is concealed and its perpetrator escapes. The
massive figure of the remorseless and accom-
plished villain contrasts with his arch rhetoric
and debonnair address, and while Lady Clyde
listens and winces q melancholy air blows
over the autumn leaves as though giving
voice to some horrible foreboding. Posi-
bly, the memory of some such scene as this
has foated through more than one mind that
has acquainted itself with the history
of the Kelsey tragedy; not that there
is anything in the one which is o
direct reflection from anything in the
other, but that over both, intensified to an
indefinite extent in the bloody melodrama of
Huntington, fingers that awful spell which
makes the flesh creep and the cheek whiten
and the Imagination falter before the POSSIBLE
ties it conjures up.
In this inscrutable Long Island mystery are
elements so foul 80 unnatural, so inhuman
SO utterly contradictory of what any one would
fancy possible in the middle of a community
believed to be Christian, that they cannot be
swept from public recollection and comment
with the ightness of ordinary gossip. Neither
is it desirable that they should be. We take
no delight in dwelling upon crimes which,
like this Of Huntington, prove how deep
seat devilishness may have in human bosoms.
We have no desire to dip our pen
in blood and write with the ink
of sensation. But some sins are
SO horrible that strong language becomes weak
when applied to their description, and the
only way to enforce the proper moral is to ex-
hibit the horror again and again in all its
vastness and nakedness, until the sentiment
tallst who weeps an excavation for every vice
that does not injure him personally is startled
out of his morbidity and put on the track Of
that sound sympathy and healthy feeling
which demand that wickedness should meet
with retribution. We think that some such
view as this is ratified by the terrible and
shameful deed at Huntington-a deed so ter
rible and shameful that for the credit Of
human nature we await with impa-
tience the revelation of any fact that
shall prove it to te not quite SO
horrible as it first appeared It
is on this account that we learn with pleasure
that the condition in which it is claimed that
Kelsey was seen by circle of observers, among
whom both sexes were represented, seems to
exonerate the feminine portion OF them from
the charge of immodesty and inhumanity
which have been brought against them. If
later report speaks truly, this portion Of the
audience which beheld Kelsey after he had
been tarred and feathered was not informed
of the kind of spectacle held in waiting, and
the victim, moreover, was half hidden with a
sack or jacket which depended from the waist.
We hope-nay, we believe that this version of
the affair is true. Respect for womanhood is
father to the wish, and we are gratifed for the
slightest CLEAN which relieves the frightful
darkness of the surroundings.
Above the surface of the Huntington
tragedy two important points project One
is the fact that murder has been committed,
and the other is the fact that the perpetrators
are unknown. We have nothing to say at
present respecting the kind and degree of
punishment which Kelsey deserved, if all
that is alleged against him be true. That
question has nothing to do with present con-
siderations. The awful central circumstance
survives that in the midst of peaceful,
happy and prosperous community, where holy
church bells tolled on Sabbath moons and
decent householders met regularly in the
temple of God; where some of the best favors
of Providence were Bhowered and young
people grew up in the light of religious train
ing and example, deed has been committed
which many savage, with no light but the
dim radiance of uneducated conscience, would
suffer torture rather than perform. All that
remains to be done now is to detect the
criminals and measure to them that punish
ment which SO immense q crime demands.
All that can be achieved is to exonerate all
who may deserve exoneration, and, having
detected, tried, found guilty and sentenced
the proper parties, to leave them until their
hour of punishment alone with their remorse
and God.