The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1892-12-15
MURDER IN NEW ENGLAND.
Crimes OF Unparalleled Atrocity in the
Land of Puritan People.

Crimes OF Unparalleled Atrocity in the
Land of Puritan People.
In respect to murders, remarkably in
genious and novel in their conception,
astounding in their execution or I'M
fathomable in their mystery, New En-
gland holds a bad eminence If it be
admitted that New England is the
scene OF more appalling murders than
is Wyoming or Dakota, it is not at the
same time an admission of an inferior
civilization. Moreover, if a certain
human vanity were not so anxiously
masked it might appear that, like every
other community, we have concealed
about us certain irrepressible and out
rageous pride in the fact that when we
do have murder here in New England
usually it is murder worth talking
about and which commands place on
the first page of every American news
paper.
Without calling up the memorable
White case in Salem, the killing of
Parkman by Prot. Webster, the dread
full mystery OF Bussey Woods, the mex
plicable Piper murder, the child sacri-
fee of Pocasset, Mrs Robinson, the
Somerville poisoner or the unparalleled
butcheries by Jesse Pomeroy. one needs
to turn back the pages of criminal his
tory, as we make it here in New En-
gland, but little more than two years
to find five of the most atrocious in
40 To-. he g. Lei,
The Turing of Hiram Sawtell into the
Lebanon woods by a latter-day Cain,
and the passionlcss murder and mutila-
ton perpetrated there by man of I'M
common intelligence in the hope of gain
ing thus double interest in petty
estate, was most preposterous carica-
ture of the unfraternal deed of him
who, thousands of years ago, asked:
Am | my brothers keeper"
Before the law could avenge itself
upon Isaac Sawtell the peace of the
state of New Hampshire was again vio-
lated by the bold assassination of
Christie Warden, in the presence of her
mother and sister. If this time differed
from the not uncommon outburst of a
desperate lover only in the time and
separation that interviewed between the
disappointment and the killing, far
more strange than such murder is''
were the flight, discovery, resistance,
surrender and Identification of the as
sassin, who, while detectives and re-
porters sought him thousand miles
away, found himself free from intruders
in the very barnyard of the home which
cruelty he had bereaved, undisturbed
in his midnight devotions at the new
made grave and grimly enjoying all the
while, in the Boston papers, the reports
from host of baffled pursuers. His
Identification as one who in his youth
had been the marauding terror of
town in the very neighborhood of his
innocent farm labors, his fruitless court
ship and his crime only served the more
clearly to distinguish him as villain
fit to adorn the most picturesque and
terrible legend.
The crime for which DR. Graves, of
Provi ence, now awaits the extreme
penalty of the law, stands absolutely
alone and without precedent among
contemporary murders Here we have
a case, as the jury found, where a man
kills his victim more than two thou
sand miles away. A doctor drops a
liquid concoction into the postal pouch
at Boston and its recipient is poisoned
to death in the Rocky mountains This
is murder by mail!
Surely no murderer was ever freer
from suspicion than young Norcross, of
Somerville, and no murder was more
difficult of explanation than that which
he committed in the New York office of
Russell Sage. The most searching in
quiry left the record of his life until
its closing week singularly blame less.
Among all his acquaintance not one
was found who could remember an in
cident or word that presaged the wo-
full inspiration that drew this quiet,
conservative and prosperous young note
broker from his home and office one
day to his frightful crime and death in
| New York twenty-four hours later.
And only by trousers button was this
exemplary youth of Thursday identified
as the fiendish robber and bomb thrower
of Friday. If dynamiters Turk in such
fair DISCUSSES, who among our neigh
bors will be next to cast bomb.
Among all strange outbursts of muir
derous passion the Fall River case is the
most complete. Every element of a
great sensation is present. The victims
were man and wife, wealthy and re-
spectacle. The accused is a woman of
refinement and their daughter The
deed was done with every circumstance
of furious brutality and in the open
day. Thus far to the public and the
press the mystery surrounding the
whole case wears an impenetra BILE front
Crimes such as these are not the fruits
of our New England civilization.
Rather are they its pests, which always
flourish best where the spoil is richest.
Boston Globe.
| A singular Superstition.
| In regard to the habit of cartridges of