New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1877-04-06
Sermon on the Mount. preliminary to the vote
Oh the resolutions.
THINGS TALKED About.

1HfNUO fhBhED
There are days in the city when there seems
to be plethora of startling intelligence and
incidents, and yesterday was one or them.
The mysterious affair in Front-st was strange
enough to suspend for time the jargon OF
tho Stock Exchange, moved to its very center
by extraordinary railway fluctuations, or even
to stop while those debates to which the de-
nouement of the Hall hegira had given rise.
Already in the morning the shocking story Of
a woman of the town, burned to death in fe-
lonious way, had been one of the features OF
the newspapers. Even the foreign kilograms
were more dismal than usual, with lamenta-
BILE tale of a schooIhouse and sixteen scholars
all DESTROYED by fire in Norwegian village.
Nothing was lacking to make the news as
melancholy rs possible, except great railway
accident or fatal shipwreck; but these, by
the blessing of Providence. We were spared.
Old journalists have often noticed this for
tuitOus cOncOurse of horrors accumulating on
horrors head, but we have never observed
any effort to subject all these strange COIN
cidences to a single theory Of causation. We
suppose that they come as it were in bat
talions, by the merest chance, and, tangled as
the least connection. The astrolOglst, with his
extremely convenient science, refers us to the
stars, but even the stars, many as they are,
and potent as they may be in definite and par
ticuar matters, can hardly be made response
BILE for all this miscellaneous mishap. We
may talk about destiny, but generally when
we do so we do not mean much and only say,
at was to be-" because it has been. We are
naturally so fond of tracing effect to cause,
and of hunting up reconcile analogies, that
the "whysr and "wherefOres with which
everybody is willing to supply us amount to
very little as guessing and to nothing at all
as demonstration. All we can say is, that
there must be law for every contingency.
but it is unwritten, and, so far as mOrtals are
concerned it is unknown.
There is one popularity, however, in the
way in which the public receives frightful
intelligence which is worthy of attention. The
newspapers know very well that the people
never become accustomed, and so Indifferent, to
tbe really terrible. This we had occasion to
observe during the war. There was no abate-
ment of the fearful interest with which the
news of each succeeding battle was received.
The story of Bull Run shook the community
to its center, but it was no less shaken by the
story of Gettysburg. 1t is the same with
memorable murders. Nothing could exceed the
intense interest which the killing of DR.. Brr-
dell, twenty years ago, occasioned in New
York, but the horror of the Nathan tragedy
quite eGualed it. There have been explosions
in w-York-a great many OF them-befOre,
but that of yesterday, with its tragic circum-
stances, none the less made men cape and
wonder. The rationale of this, we suppose, Is,
that we never become accustomed to great vlo-
lation of natural laws, and none of the Western
races at least, accept the comfortable doctrine
of the Eastern fatalists. We are too logical
as well as too inquisitive for that, and so we
have corOners and cOroners' juries, though
sometimes they ponder to very little purpose.
But the perpetual pain which stories or spec
tacles of violent death occasion is one OF
Natures resources against their too frequent
repetition. In this way, perhaps, Sensational"
news as it is called. exercises wholesome
influence. We should have mean notion of
human foresight and prudence if experience
showed it to be otherwise. 1t has usually been
thought that familiarity with horrors makes
men careless of encOuntering them. This is
the particular but not the general rule. The
indifference is temporary and personal-the
general impression is abiding, and to it we
owe even the limited degree of safety in
which we live.