The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-09-18
The sting or Conscience ut Hunt
1ngton.

The sting OF Conscience ut Hunt
insten.
The loathsome crime of Huntington, like
the curses of the Arabs, has come home to its
nest. What the world has been saying for a
month Huntington assembled to say on Tues
day night last. The world has been saying
that crimes as essentially wicked may have
been perpetrated before, but that in o
civilized community it is without precedent
that between sympathy with the criminals in
one faction of the people and indifference to
the satisfaction of justice In the remainder,
this crime should be practically shielded from
the law by whole county. Huntington in
sackcloth and ashes met on Tuesday night to
acknowledge the truth of the accusation and
to resolve that their energetic action should
in the future wash the stain away. Slow as
the awakening of the Huntington conscience
has been, we are glad to see that it has
at last been alive to the sting OF
self-reproach. We wish they had done
this sooner. The delay has given
time to people, not unfriendly, for
the formation of opinions regarding the
psychological working OF the village mind
which have resulted in expressions that would
carry q profound grief to any man of fine
moral sense who might be ever SO remotely
connected with the Gehenna Of Long Island.
How can this community of Thugs, who
make their churches conspirators' lodges, who
fendishly outrage life in masks and Outrage
death In virulent anonymous scribblings,
wherein forgery Is the ightest defiance to
morality and society-how can they come and
60 without the brand of Cain upon them being
visible of all menu" has been among the
mildest Of the questions asked by the thought
full. We wish that the sting Of conscience
had shot pang through their moral organ
isms earlier. Men now will sit down and
question Huntington's motives in the awak.
ening to remorse as they did its dumb indiffer.
ence before. The tar and feathers on Kelsey
have been sticking to every one in Hunting.
ton; and, looking in the worlds eyes, they
have ct last seen how the world sees them
namely, as savages in war paint that defles
whoever touches them, and feathers that give
them that touch Of horrid jest-makine
tragedy, more awful, which is seen in the grin.
ming jaws of feshless skull. They are
abashed and shrink back from themselves.
Pity it is, indeed, that we cannot comprise
all their motives in that word remorse, which
is the self-stabbing of the polluted soul. Read
ing over the account of the meeting we are
rapidly sent from contemplation of the souls
of Huntington to tho mud and clay that lies
under the thick cowskin boots of the Hunting.
tonians We come from remorse to real estate.
1t is an odd thing that the dull earth should
have been more sensitive to the crime Of last
November than the people it nourishes, but
such is the fact Real estate, said one of the
speakers, has shrunk twenty five per cent in
value. It shrank as living thing shrinks
and contracts In the presence of something
that creates fear. Thus the soil spoke to the
soul through the pocket. 1t is strange,
indeed, the ways in which the curse Of crime
comes home to roost.