The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1888-08-01
The Hired Assassin.
BY REV. GEO. C.. BECKWITH.

Everybody in Massachusetts sixty
years old remembers well what was
called "the Salem tragedy" of 1926.
Joseph and Francis Knapp, distant re-
latives of rich old gentleman in Sa-
lem, by the name of White, instigated
Richard Crowninshield, by the offer of
thousand dollars of the plunder, to
kill the old man, and seize his treas
ures. Crowninshield, entering the
house of his victim at midnight, and
creeping softly up stairs to the room
where he was sleeping, struck him
over the head with q bludgeon, and
then turning down the clothes, stab
bed him several times in the heart
with dagger. Everybody called him
hired assassin and he would have
been hung as an atrocious murderer,
if he had not, in his prison, hung
himself. The two Knapps were tried,
convicted and hung for hiring Crown
| inshield to assassinate Mr.. White.
Here is clear case of hired assas-
sination and wherein does it differ
from the profession of a soldier ?
Doubtless there is some difference !;
but in what does it consist, and to
what does it amount? How far are
the two professions or acts alike?
Let US look at the facts. Here is a
nation of ten, twenty or fifty millions,
that hire you as one of their soldiers
to- kill whosoever they may wish to
have killed. The nation, indignant
that the Chinese spurn their opium, or
that the Afghams reject their favorite
ruler, or that the Seminoles will not
give up their lands, the inheritance
of fifty generations, to some avaricious
white man, order you to 60 and kill
them, burn their dwellings, and butch
er, without distinction or mercy,
thousands of unoffending men, wo-
men and children.
We see now the facts in the two
cases and what is the difference :?
The deed is the same, except that in
one case a single man was killed, and
in the other thousands or scores of
thousands. The motive, too, is essen
TALLY the same-with the employers,
self-aggrandizement; with the hired
agents, pay. The difference, for there
is some, will not rebound much to the
soldiers credit over the assassin; the
soldier hires himself to millions of
men called a nation; Crowninshield
hired himself to only te0o men. The
soldier hires himself out to kill a0hona-
soever the nation may wish to have
killed at any time the assassin en-
cages to do specified act, to kill a
single man at given time, and that
man named beforehand. The soldier
is hired to kill by the month or year !;
the assassin is hired by the job. The
soldier is day laborer in the work of
blood assassin is jobber at the same
trade. The assassin is better paid than
the soldier; for the former was prom
ised thousand dollars for killing
one man, while the latter might kill
hundred in day without getting half
dollar for the whole. The soldier
agrees to kill any and all whom the
nation may bid; and if required to
shoot his own father or mother, broth
er or sister, wife or child, he must
shoot them, or be shot himself;
whereas the assassin, had he refused
TO kill the old man according to agree
ment, would not himself have been
liable to be hung.
Truly, the soldier makes a fearful
bargain. If he refuses to kill any,
whom the nation may bid him kill,
he must himself be put to death. He
nevertheless enters into the bloody
compact, not knowing but he may be
ordered to shoot or stab his own par
ents, wife or children. Not quite so
bad the assassin's bargain. Had
Crowninshield engaged to kill at any
time anybody whom the Knapps
might wish to have killed, with the
understanding that he should himself
be put to death if he ever refused to
kill anyone they should bid, there
would be a pretty close analogy be-
tween his case and that of the profess
ed soldier. But the assassin's position
was not so terrible. The soldier must
kill whomsoever his employers may
bid him kill, or the terms of his con-
tract make him liable to be shot or
hung himself.
Now, tell US why a hired assassin,
like Crowninshield, should be hung as
a monster of wickedness, while the
soldier, hired by twenty millions to do
the same deed by a0holesale, is admir-
ed and eulogized as a hero 2 To kill
naultit4des at the bidding of millions,
is deemed patriotic, glorious, worthy
of songs, and eulogies, and monu-
ments; but to kill one man at the bid
ding of another one is denounced as
base, infamous, diabolical, deserving
of the gallows, of eternal infamy.
Well did Bishop Porteus say,
zone murder makes william;
MilliOns lerOp