The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1888-06-23
WHAT CONSCIENCE DOES.
French Murderer Voluntarily Gives Him
self Up to Justice.

sell Up to Justice.
Charles Dickens in Martin Chuzzle-
w.t." and Erckmann-Ch atrian in THE
Polish jew" have depicted the case of
criminals who preferred surrendering
themselves to justice rather than to
longer endure the feeling that they were
being hunted down like wild beasts,
but such a case of conscience has
actually happened here in Paris. This
same feeling has just driven murderer
to give himself up to the police after
they had hunted for him in vain every
where. A poor devil named Cornl1
killed dealer in birds at the little
town of Saint Maur, and then he wan
dered over the face of the earth in
company with a man whose acqualnt-
ance he had picked up on the rohd.
The two made no long halts at wayside
inns, they avoided towns and villages,
slept under hedges or in such sheltered
corners as they could find, and they
made long detours to dodge the @end-
armes. In this way they crossed four
departments; occasionally they were
noticed and were chased by gardes
champetres, who perhaps knew in
stinctively that they were suspicious
characters on whom it might be well
to lay their hands, and, although they
managed to escape arrest, they
had the fear of it constantly upon
them, and the specter of the guillotine
was ever before their eyes. Perhaps,
| too, remorse, or at least regret for
a useless crime, hung heavily on Cornu,
numbering his sleep just as it did that
of the successful Macbeth. Finally
the two tramps arrived safely at the
frontier and stepped across into Bel
GUM. They were now, comparatively
speaking, safe from pursuit, and Cor.
nus companion, who doubtless, also,
had his reasons for stunning the gen.
darmes, had papers to prove his ident-
lty when, on reaching Antwerp, they
applied for passage as emigrants to the
Congo. He was accepted, but as Cornu
had nothing to show who he was or
where he came from, he was refused,
the agents of the Free State of Congo
being determined to keep the wilds of
Africa uncontaminated by the presence
of European criminals. It was not in
the heart of the dark continent that
the repentant, or least regretful, muir
derer could be permitted to begin a
new life. Before separating the two
made a division of the few francs that
remained in the joint purse, and then
Cornu mechanically commenced re-
tracing his steps toward his own
country. He re-crossed the frontier,
followed the same roads, slept under
the same hedges and lodged the same
gendarmes; finally, footsore and starry
ing, he reached the capital, went
straight to the Palai5 de Justice and
said to policeman: ARREST me;
am Cornu, the murderer of the bird
dealer of Saint Maurn Now it was
misery as much as any thing else that
put Cornu in the hands of Justice. But
one of the ways in which remorse some
times acts on a guilty man is that ii
makes him feel himself isolated from
the rest of mankind. There are muir
derers who are haunted by aveng-
ing furies quite as terrible as those
which women, crowned with writing
serpents and waving lurid torches,
represented on the ancient stage, and
such men can only find refuge from
this mental anguish in a prison CELL
Paris LETTER