The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1894-12-19
A DREADFUL CRIME.
THE MURDER OF CATHARINE
GING.
A Type of the Times.


We had an article in the REPRE-
SENTATIVE, two weeks ago, showing
the awful reign of wickedness which
was affecting this country,-the end
less series of briberies, arsOns, swind-
lings, suicides, murders, with which
our daily press literally teemed. And
right upon the heels of that publica-
tion came a crime which emphasized
everything we said:-a crime which
for its atrocity stands almost unparal-
leled in the history Of the human
race.
A poor girl, waif upon the strug-
Cling sea Of life, following the trade
Of dress-making, forms the acquaint-
ancs of an arch-tiend, a young man
of this city, of respectable antece-
dents, who, if he is to be believed,
teaches her to gamble, and involves
her in a series Of business transac-
tions, which end in her turning over
to him insurance policies on her life,
to the amount of $4,000 For this sum
he deliberately plots to murder her,
plots and schemes during weeks and
months, while acting the lover to the
victim. Then, by a promise of $4,000
he persuades the engineer. Of the
Ozark flats, named Claus BliXt, to do
the deed. The girl is induced, for
some purpose unknown, to go out rid
ing, at night, with the assassin, and
in a lonely place he shoots her, as she
sits next to him, in the back Of the
head, with revolver; and not salts
fed with that. which meant certain
death, he beats in her face and
crushes beth her temples with the
revolver, and deposits her, dripping
and soaked with blood, on the road;
turns the horse loose and returns to
the city and his family.
We can make some excuse for homi-
cides committed in the heat Of
passion, but to "break into the bloody
house of life" cody. dispassionately
deliberately, after weeks and months
of plotting, and for money, is some
thing ineXpressibly terrible. But
when you add to this the fact that the
victim was young and handsome
woman, who probably loved her mur-
derer, and you have a compound and
complication Of hell-broth which
shocks language from its pedestal.
And, worse than all this, the real
acknowledgements not lowly or
ganized brute, like BliXt, but an intel
ligent, we'll educated man, moving in
the higher circles of society, a product
of our refined civilization and the
child of the conditions which sur
round us. He possesses in supreme
degree that heartless Indifference to
the rights Of others, that abnormal
selfshness, and that passionate greed
for wealth, which characterize Oul
times. In him the age can see, in ar
exaggerated form, its very form ant
features; the features of the wolf-era
all teeth and cruelty. And yet the
dreadful Indifference of these wretch
es, to the right of the poor milliner t,
her life, is of piece with that Othe
selfishneSs which incites so called re
spectacle men, to violate the law, ant
plunder the people, by usuriou
charges, until they are reduced to
worse state than that of CaGharint
Cling in her coffin. For the living suf
fer more from oppression than tn
dead do from the worm.
after life's fitful fever she sleep,
agonies of the living victims of mis-
government?
We print in another column lette
from an esteemed friend on this sub
ject. He, sees as we do, that this mur
der is but an outcrop of the demoral
ization which afflicts this country, il
such horrible and overwhelming pre-
portions. But we cannot agree witt
him as to his plea for mercy for thOs,
murderers. The human family toda
has the same right to exterminate it
own monsters, that our ancestors haC
centuries ago, to destroy the tiger
lions and wolves that rOamed in tn
forests. The man whose selfishness
SO abnormal that he will send h
neighbor to bloody grave, to get hi
paltry possessions, is no longer men
Der of the human brotherhood. II
should be smashed as you would
scorpion. To let such creatures liy
and breed is a crime against tn
whole family of man. We may pc
ceive that Hayward when he used
kiss the packages of money won
gambling, and hug them in ecstacy,
type of the ruthless Money-powt
which now dominates the world. W
may concede that he has "held I'll
mirror up to our baser nature; an
Showed the very age and body of I'll
time its form and press ure,' in awf1
and bloody features; but that is no e.
cuse why he should live.
The Minneapolis Tribune suggeste
the other day that these red-hande
monsters may escape; that the co
fession of BliXt was made under pror
ises or duress, and on some technic
ground cannot be used against Ha
ward that Bill Erwin has been hire
for large sum- to defend them: ar
that all that money and genius can {
will be done to turn them out unpu
ished to range through new paStur