The Portland daily press., 1873-05-06
The Murder Of James Cullen.


The example of the crazy idiot, Cullen. ir
chopping off the heads of his captors is on,
that never could inspire any normal intellec
with feeling Of emulation. Universal bor
ror and execration were the Instant effects n
that monstrous butchery. Murder itself ac
CURED blacker hue from the unrelieye
atrocity OF Its latest exploit. The terrible ma
ture OF Cuicn's offense and his prompt arrest
TO be followed in the natural course of event
by an impartial trial, conviction and the pun
lshment which the laws of the State provide
Tor the worst offenders, were circumstances
calculated 10 give rise in all minds 10 a health
ful appreciation of the sacredness of human
lie, and the certainty of retrbution for crime
Mailt Is ;iC. 4 State where the murderer has
escaped punishment through legal techncali'
ties, the tricks of able counsel, or the modern
doctrine of emotional insanity" Does any
apologst for James Cullens hundred or NOR,
murderers happen to thiuk Of any
instance in the judicial annals of Maine
where there has been a clear failure O.
substantial justice in case of a homicide
r. anyone cite an instance where tie laws
.hed to be executed, and vigorously too.
against those who have shed blood? There
is every reason to believe. then, that all the
requirements of justice would have been sat
isfed as the result ola legal criminal prosecu
ton, if the Presque Isle butcher had been left
in the hands of the authorities.
And how does the murder of the murderer
by mob affect the situation? Murder is a
harsh word to apply to the acts of persons,
who are, perhaps, most of them, men of aver
age responsibility. But as harsh words are
the worst that they are likely to suffer, and
as they have received in advance full indem-
nifty for even these, in words Of fervent eulo-
gy and unqualified commentator, it is not
improper for US to call their act lust what
the laws Of the State call it-murder, and
murder in the first degree. But instead of
exciting the same aversion and horror as the
savage Cullen's demoniac work, this murder
is regarded by large numbers of our fellow
citizens as not only heroic but virtuous. The
actors in the second tragedy are pointed out,
not as monsters of iniquity, but as men
whose example is to be initiated. Here is
murder Wanting itself-murder putting on
airs! Wanton as tie deed was-without an
excuse that could satisfy the scruples of the
weakest intellect-its perpetrators and their
admirers expect our applause. 1t will be
difficult for the most adroit advocate of stran-
gulaton to make even plausible defense for
this unauthorized application of their favorite
panacea. The gooa of society cannot GER
tainly be subserved by familiarizing it with
such scenes as the hanging up of Cullen
without even the formality of mock trial.
Instead of teaching the young that life is sa-
cred, such transaction teaches them that
mans life is worth no more than
dogs, and that it may properly be
taken without the smallest precau-
ton against mistake or injustice By
no other means could respect for law and
the security for life and property which it
gives be SO surely and speedily broken down.
1.-THE hundred of Presque Isle may judge of
Cullen's guilt and may doom him to instant
death, they may judge of any other mans
odense and may doom him, too, and the
more thoughtless or vicious of the hundred
would not be slow, we may be sure, to avail
themselves of their newly discovered immu-
nifty. If the Presque Isle hundred may
usuip the functions of courts and officers of
the law, so may any other hundred or fifty
or ten, and so on till anarchy prevails
throughout the State. And for every desper-
ado appalled, by the swift retribution overtak-
Ing his fellows, the incipient criminality,
hardness of heart and general reckIesness of
ten others would be stimulated and confirm
ed by witnessing bloodshed, participating in
ils excitement, and receiving the plaudits of
the advocates of strangulation. 1t may be
said that the infrequency of crimes like cat
OF Cullen furnishes perfect safeguard
against the repetition of Lynch law violence
There is a men living in Auburn in the en-
joyment of liberty and, as we understand,
of the esteem of his neighbors. Six years
ago the people of Auburn felt as certain that
Verrill killed two unprotected old women,
with such additional circumstances of out
RACES and cruelty as made the homicide the
foulest and most maddening in the history of
Maine, as the people Of Pressure Isle are that
they know the assassin of Sheriff Hayden.
A few weeks afterwards the States attorney
entered q mol pros in the case of this same
man, and his innocence Is nop generally con-
ceded. It would have been rather a hard
ship for Verrill if there had been in Auburn
hundred men as reckless and impatient as
those of Presque Isle.
We can imagine no stronger case TO illus
trale the immense risk of mistake incurred
by those who take the law into their own
hands, than Verrill's universal conviction in
the hearts Of his neighbors, followed by his
legal and subsequently by his popular acquit-
tai. 1t is nothing to the purpose to say that
the law, as now administered, does not treat
murderers with sufficient severity. The law
and its administration conform to the DELHI
crate opinion of majority of the people ex-
pressed in due and legal form. 1t is some
thing more than notification for hundred
men in any part of Maine to push it aside,
and set up a Draco's code of their own in its
stead, and that, too on the spur of the mo-
meLt.
WE may be wrong, but from a remark
made by the Kennebec Journal, we infer that
it approves of the consolidation of all the rail-
roads east of Boston, by the Massachusetts,
Legislature that will not only prevent the