The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1894-06-23
CRIME INCREASES.
More Murderers In this State
Now Than At Any Other
Time.
SOME UNPLEASANT FACTS
Cape May Has a Murderer. But
No Jail to Keep Him In.
Special to the jersey City Nsus.

SpeciGl to the jersey City Nelrs.
TRENTON, June %, 1s94.-There are fifteen
murderers behind the bars in New Jersey.
This is high water mark. These fifteen are
in seven counties-six are standing within
the shadow of the gallows and nine await
trial.
New Jersey Justice is not SO swift after
all, for four Of her condemned men breath
free air because of the slow progress of the
Appellate Courts, which stand between them
and their executioners. Two of these must
hang on Friday, June ~, two others OF some
subsequent period, unless the Court OF Errors
and Appeals on Tuesday reverses the Judg--
ment Of the court wherein they were found
guilty of murder.
A BUT NO JAIL.
Even little Cape May county, way down
where the State becomes so pointed that it
disappears into the sea, the people find them
selves in a condition unprecedented in its
history. For the first time within the mem
DRY Of the present generation they AYE a
murderer preparing for the gallows, without
ever having a Jail in which to keep hin
PRISONERS BOARDED OUT.
As q rule Cape May people are thrifty and
virtuous, and it frequently happens that
there are months when its little Jail was
without an inmate, and then the monotony
was only varied by the incarceration of some
colored chicken thief. The Jail was SO little
used that it became d~ilapidated, and, acting
on the advice of the State Board of Charities
Aid, the county had a bill passed during the
recent Legislature empowering them to issue
bonds for a new jail. The 20x30 one-roomed
Jail was torn down and another building
more in keeping with modern architecture
was started. They were no sooner without
an abiding place for evildoers than Robert
Pierce gashed his wife's throat from ear to
ear. The Sheriff was obliged to take this
murderer over to Bridgton, in Cumberland
county, and board him out. The Chancellor
his board bill will cease on the 2eth OF this
month, and in some place in Cape May
county on the 18th he will pay the penalty of
his misdeeds.
BURLINGTON A WICKED U "
Burlington county is the biggest for area
in the State. 1t contains the finest farms,
the wealthiest farmers and is the cradle of
Quakerism; yet. at the present time, it is the
banner murder county OF New Jersey, for
three murderers are locked up in its old
dingy Jail. One is under sentence of death,
and the other two are awaiting trial. Bur
lington county IN times gone by has had as
many as two murderers within its confines.
but as rule they were generally tramps who
had manslaughtered during rowspn some of
the fruit farms and cranberry bogs. Two of
these unfortunateS are young mon who may
be classed as jealous lovers, for both sent
pretty young women into eternity in a brutal
manner. Wesley Warner planted his knife
in the breast of Lizzie Peak, and William
Massey struck Lizzie Holloway, of Borden
town, about three weeks ago, and gave her
the wound Of which she died.
In the Trenton Jail there are two foreign
ers whose days of time are numbered. One
is the desperate convict Wallwitz. who muir
dered State Prison Keeper Lippincott, and
the other an ignorant Hungarian who killed
| the woman who gave him shelter
INCREASE OF CRIME.
While seven Of these murderers sent I'M
offending women into eternity, none of them
necessarily attracted 50 much attention as
the crime of Bernard Alt.nberger, who, on
May ID, lured Katie Rupp, a German do
nestle, to a point near Snake Hill, in Jersey
City, and shot her. This case stands con
spicuously in the foreground because of the
cold blooded manner in which the deed was
done and the absence of all motive.
The notable increase in the murderers Of
New Jersey bears out the claim of pencil
ogists that there is an absolute increase of
crime and in the number of criminals in
New Jersey. Frederick Howard Wines,
who compiled the comparative figures of the
conyicts in the pe~nitentiaries in the United
States for the census, sets forth facts and
figures that bear out the general statement.
The ratio of the number OF cOnvictS to the
total population has increased during the
past ten years. The population of the
State is put down at l,444, 933 the number
of ~convicts at ] ,557, and the ratio is LOIS to
the million. For the period ending 1881 the
ration was but 926. The absolute increase
being $40, and the relative increase 152.
AN U~NENvIABLE RECORD.
New Jersey is not a large State; yet it
stadns ninth in the order of states, according
to its convict population. In the New Jersey
State Prison they nave a good sized colony
of murderers. TIL last count mad show
As, divided into several groups. There are
81 who are murderers simple and pure. There
are 6 who are in the first degree classification
and 10 IN the second degree. The first de-
gree people are all serving life sentences,
having had their necks saved BY the clernency
of the Court Of Pardons