The New York herald., 1879-07-06
The Seymour Murder.

Beyond some evidence of the presence of
strangers in the grounds of the Theological
Seminary at about the time of the murder
no progress has been made toward the dis
covery of the authors or circumstances of
this crime. With their characteristic in
stinct for the hopeless side Of crime the
police at first adopted ''a theory" that it
was a case Of suicide, which was the one
explanation that was absolutely untenable
and impossible. They were not deferred
by the many indications on the surface
which Immediately disproved that sugges-
ton, because that theory is convenient and
dispenses with the necessity of finding
murderer. But they have said little of that
for the last half day, and now attribute the
death to an accidental shot discharged by
some person in the neighborhood,
with an intention, perhaps, to hit q
cat. Where were these persons probably
standing at the time? For this theory re-
quires o consideration of distance. One of
the reasons why the police at frst believed
this to be suicide was that the small size of
the missile indicated pistol which could
not have sent bullet SO far into the body
unless the shot was delivered at very short
distance; but now they suddenly seize
theory that implies distance out of all re-
lation to such considerations-at theory that
implies a rifle range for that little pistol.
For If the person who fred was on the
plateau he made no mistake of o man for
cat; if he was in the street he must have
been far out in it to see even the victim,
placed where he was at distance from the
edge of the embankment; and if he was
thirty yards distant. And the police now
actually hold that this little ball, which they
once thought could only penetrate if fired
within ten or twenty feet, was actually fired
from across the street, and from an upper
window. They suppose themselves forced
to this theory by the course of the bullet in
the body, as to which there Is an error Of
moment in all their arguments. 1t is said
the course of the bullet was downward, and
it is ned from this that the man was
either in STOPPING position when shot or
that the shot was fired from some point
higher than his body, all Of which is
theory constr ucted on a false basis.
If the report of the autopsy is correct the
course Of the bullet was not from above
downward, but was in an exactly horizontal
line. Deputy Coroner Miller at the autopsy,
as reported in the HERALD of Saturday,
found that the bullet had entered between
the fourth and fifth ribs in front and lodged
between the seventh and eighth ribs close
20 the spinal column. Now, these two in
tercostal spaces are exactly opposite to one
another As the ribs are numbered from
above downward, the statement that the
bullet was lodged Mt the end of its flight in
n space that, in the numbered sequence, is
three ribs further down than the space at
which it entered in front, leads naturally to
the hasty inference that the course was as
assumed in the erroneous argument; but
the space between the seventh and
eighth ribs behind Is exactly on o
level with the space between the fourth
and fifth at the breast bone. This is due
to the form of the ribs. which have double
curve and do not start out horizontally
from the spine and so form level circles of
bone around the body, but run downward
and outward from the spine until they have
fairly turned ut either side. The spinal
end of the fourth rib is opposite the an
terror extremity of the first. The person
who fired that shot stood on the same level
with his victim. He was on the plateau
and not far away, and not directly face to
face. Some half drunken, irritable, vio-
lent intruder may have fred the shot,
and as the frequonters of such places