Cheyenne transporter. [volume] (Darlington, Indian Terr.) 1879-1886, 1883-11-28
THE EMPORIA HOMICIDE.
rho cold BIOOded Murder of w. H.
-" Mcmillan.

cOmmlUJeu Ill Eli pVllhOu Il CTludy nlgDU.
adds another item TO the continuous
record of horrors spread before the
country by the daily telegraphic report.
Distance. like time, has wonderful
mitigating effect upon the nerves. We
hear, with comparative indifference, Of
q crime perpretrated, or an accident
suffered, either n hundred years ago or
n hundred miles away. The Java
earthquake, destroying $4,000 lives, in
September, awoke scarcely more than
q languid and passing interest in the
minds of American newspaper readers,
even though they received news of the
catastrophe couple of hours after it
occurred. The $4,000 miles of distance
moderated the shock until its vibra-
tions but barely caught newspaper at
tention. Crimes of the most atrocious
description occurring every day in our
own country are felt to be the essential
feature of news in an interesting tele.
graphic report, and cause no especially
disagreeable sensation, except in the
places where they occur. The cold
blooded murder in our own city has
caused q profound sensation here, and
in Topeka, where the murdered man
lived and was well and fayorably known.
But elsewhere the accounts of this
crime will be read with no greater
interest than newspaper readers in
Emporia and in Topeka feel every day
as they skim hastily over the sensa-
tional column of telegraphic news. A
year hence this murder and the horror
it creates will be almost forgotten, ex
cept by the relatives and near friends
of the victim, and possibly those of the
murderer, if he is detected. Time and
distance are the potent barriers provid-
ed by wise Providence to tighten the
burdens humanity has to bear, and if
it were not for these barriers, the race
would sink into despair. Could we
feel the shock of every murder and
every accident related every day in the
telegraphic dispatches, as we feel the
shock of murder and OF accident when
they occur in our midst, we should
either have to dispense with news
horrors they relate.
The Emporia murder is one of the
woYst, because the most cold. blooded
and unjustifable, committed at any
place or time. Robbery seems to have
been the object. The victim and his
murderer were probably strangers.
Yet as a man who is no doubt n stran-
ger in EmpOria was seen early in the
evening breaking in two the sickle bar,
with one end of which the fatal blows
were struck, there must have been
several hours at least of deliberate
intent to waylay either the victim or
anyone who mighttake the path he did
along lonely railroad track. Had it
been murder for revenge or of long
intent, more usual weapon would
naturally have been prepared. Rob
berry was an object, because, the body
was plundered OF all valuables. The
blow must have been unexpected, be-
cause the victim did not raise hands or
wrist to guard his head. The surgeons
think the weapon was used by left
handed man, and the blow was struck
from behind. The murderer may have
met his victim, passed and then turned
and struck him. The murderer's self
control is shown by the thorough rf1ing
of his victims clothing, and his desire
to avoid detection by his placing the
body on the track in position to be
run over by an expected train. The
throwing of the weapon or dropping 1t
some sixty feet from the body shows,
too, that in his hurry the murderer for
got that its discovery would suggest
that murder had preceded accident.
Some man OF evil habits, driven to the
alternative of work or crime for some
needed money, chose the latter course,
and the determined action he took
suggests an amount of selt-possession
that may now be enabling him to walk