The Newtown bee., 1889-11-01
NUMBER A.
Lessons From Rudolph's Crime.

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 There are moral lessons underlying he revelation of Rudolph Stocffcl's guilt, which has been fully detailed in the BEE, hat should not escape especial notice. The folly of unrighteousness and the of it's penalty were never more fully illustrated, nor the fact that there is heathenish state of society existing like plague spots throughout this Christ ian New England.
 In the first place, there is Andrew J. Peck, defying the law. of God and man in his retired home on an untraveled road, with not q house in sight whose in mates might witness against him. Cum ming. cruel, implacable. no one dared modest him, nor meddle with the mis- tresses who replaced one another at his house. Coward though he was at heart, reputation made of him resistless out law, richer in this worlds goods on pa per than in fact He made light of threatening with death those who cross ed his path and was shrewd enough to escape the legal consequences of his crimes. Long immunity begat a false confidence that his passions might be gratified to the full without let or him drance.
 Here steps in q more brutal and less cunning, but equally unprincipled char acter in Rudolph Stoeffel, the charcoal man. A man mean enough to insult q neighbor's wife in her husbands absence and threaten to disembowell her is Iipe for any mischief. That is Rudolph. who | often returns home full of liquor frcm the proceeds of his sales in Danbury and Bridgeport. His horses annoy Peck and neighborly strife grows from this and similar incidents that infiames Rudolph into repeated threats against Peck's life. This bluster ripens into plot and, fired with liquor procured in Bridgeport and on his way home, Rudolph equips him. sels with a butcher knife, revolver and gun and lies in wait for Peck from II o'clock at night until returning day lures Peck from his opium-soakcd mis- tress to his front door. There Rudolph sights him, sobered, no doubt, by a vigil
  But what farce our laws are that, for sooth, would mitigate the penalty of crime because its wicked perpetrator steels heart and conscience with cursed fire water.
 The brutal assassin has triumphed over the more cunning outlaw, but it is only for little. His uneasy conscience uu- bosoms the crime to Neighbor Tyler. even to the disgusting detail that its vic tim hopped about like q grasshopper as | the fatal shot struck him. The murder CT gloats over his bloody retrbution, but, fearful that he has not covered his tracks deep enough for security. vainly tries to burn his way from Newtown's slight lock up. Our jury system, one of the greatest farceS of our 18th century civilization, tides him over a first trial. but Rudolph proves the falsity of its re- suit by giving the whole story to fellow prisoners at Bridgeport jail, who try to destroy and bury the tell-tale gun and | then, their own cOnsciences aroused. they lay bare the crime which timid neighbors | itstu liot ttIC ulsttpst Ilt closes with one villain in dishonored grave and the other behind the bars at Wethersfield.
 But what of Christian New England. suffering such wickedness to riot to its logical conclusion. How many of the ministers of Gods word, think you, with ill easy driving distance in a half dozen ldirections, have ever been in either of these blasted homes with words of neigh ly warming or with the living truth And, remember that this is but a single crime that has poisoned the ear of pub licity, to many, even ill this same vicin- age, unknown, save by vague rumor. to the great world at large. Remember. too, that not one of those spiritual lead CTS but has urged his flock to renewed contributions for foreign heathen. This ought ye to have done and not to have left the other undone." With New Eng land rotting at it's moral core and anarchy breathing fire and fury, nothing but the peaceable, purifying gospel of peace can save our proud land from rottenness and corruption. Legislation will never puri- | fly the ballot-box, nor missionaries in for eign lands save our own heather, but cit iZen and voter, ennobled and purified by a ray of Heaven, may make even these United States more of a Paradise than they now are. Let us not forget. either. | that it is not necessary to learn an un- known tongue, nor cross stormy main to prove a Good Samaritan to our own neighbors.