The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-10-31

grim ana gnaStly nonOrS OF MS perdlUt II.
No human eye eritnesSed the
dtgfdl crime IN the belfry.
There he left her. She was dead, but he fan
cied himself safe from detection and exposure.
The heaven pointing spire of the Redeemer's
church was his only eontidant and accomplice.
No human eye had witnessed his assault upon
poor little Blanche Lamont. No ear had heard
her first shrek of terror and amaZement as
this monster fell upon her, or the last stitied
moan of dying agony that preceded the awful
silence OF her final rest. Neither man nor
woman mad, with horrOrstricken gaze, fol-
lowed the murderer as he climbed the ascent
OF the steeple stairs with his CHASTITY burden, or
stood by as he barred its whiteness to the breath
OF the upper air. None, save the God whom he
feared not, had seen him as he extended the
naked and slender form on the belfry floor,
laid the thin arms across the undeVeioped bo-
som, propped the head and Strengthened the
meager body in the dust. Not human being
had oeheld his retreat from the awful presence
OF the death which was his work, and the Sc
cret was safely locked in his own breast. There
lay the speechless and untestifying corpse, and
what was 1T now to give him fear?
For time the grath of God
seemed 10 StuHlber.
1t had been nothing but girl after all and
concerning her there would be the same old
story TO which he could help to give currency
the same old story OF a vanished girl, dis
tracted family, an ineffective and perfunctory
search among the houses of i'll repute, a reluc-
tant conclusion that this little one, like others
of EYES daughters. had gone to her moral de-
struction; q picture turned to the wall, name
never spoken, and oblivion, personal and So
cial, for poor, lost Blanche Lamont And he
was right for the moment. Tie wrath of the
God whose law he had violated and whose
temple he had defiled seemed to SUM Der.
The murderer went his guilty way with his
undivulged crime, while his victim rotted in
| the spire that pointed its slender finger to the
| sky as If approaching its ruler for His unmov-
ing indignation. Gentlemen, who was this
imperturbed and constituencies criminal? To
this question there can be, under the providen-
! 10 li-h h Int
sWer, and that you Will return by your verdict
Many silent aoitneSSeS
hare gtUeR testimony.
Blanche Lamont disappeared after the close
OF her school hours on Wednesday, April 3,
1895. Eleven days later on Easter Sunday,
her body was discovered in the belfry of the
Emmanuel Baptist Church. on Bartlett street,
and bearing.upon 1t unmistakable evidence,
amounting 70 proof, that she died by unlawful
violence. She had attended on the Sd OF April
the Normal School, as q pupil. She left it al
about O'Clock in the afternoon, to return 10
the house of her aunt, Mrs. Charles G. Noble
229 Twenty-hrst street. She had in her pos
session some text and manuscript books, held
together by strap, the usual paraphernalis
of a schoolgirl. She never reached home
After the body was found, q careful search in
and through the steeple and upper parts of the
church brought to light all her clothing and
all her books. She had, therefore, proceeded
by some route, more or less direct, to the
church. OF this, independent of the testi
mony of any living witness, there can be nc
doubt.
Won his 1Udy TO the confidence
Of the liUing girl
Whoever the person was who induced her tc
do this, he was of necessity one who had means
of access to the building at unusual hours
He was provided with keys, or q key, by which
its doors, usually closed and locked during the
week, could be opened. He was, therefore, one
in authority; one who occupied some position
OF duty and Christian responsibility in the
congregation. He was, therefore, one who
could visit the sacred eQifca hOnr
however unusual, without exciting suspicion
of his motives or conduct; perhaps without
II observed. He was one who by reason OF
his position, executive and Christian, could
win, and who had won his way to the conf.
dence of the living girl; one who had come to
know her well; who had paid her such atten,
ton as appealed to her girlish pride and
vanity; one who had visited her at her home,
escorted her to OF from the meetings, religious
or social. of the society, with the appreciation
| OF her aunt, and who understood just what in,
ducements could be successfully held out tc
her to enter alone with him on weekday
when no services were held, the building
where both attended on the Sabbath with the
Worshlping congregation.
IT required man OF an, utterly
abnormal nature.
He had learned to know, as no other mar
could know, just how to overcome the pru
dence instructive in Well-brought-up girls o.
her age; how to beat down her maidenly re-
serve and turn her aside from the direct home.
ward path she customarily followed, and con.
duct her alone to the church. He was also one
who knew the hours of the day when the
building would probably be deserted by others
possessing, like himself, the means of obtain
ing access to the interior departments, audi
! forum, Sabbath-school, library and the like
for legitimate purposes. And such an hour be
selected. Without such selection he was liable
to be interrupted, detected and exposed. II
needed precisely such an acquaintance with
Blanche Lamont and precisely such knowledge
| OF the habits OF Others to safely lure a CIR
there at the hour she went. No other man
could have done it, and no other man did it
To accomplish what this monster did required
a man of an utterly abnormal nature, OF extra
ordinary strength of will and absolute density
philosophy designates as moral idiots. Great
ures OF keen perceptions, shrewd in devising
intelligent in execution, with mental faculties
even above the average, yet wholly unable tc
distinguish sin from holiness, virtue from vice
creatures without the capacity for remorse OF
| self-condemnation after the commission of the
most revolving crime, sleeping after the perpe
| tration of murder, even such as this you are
considering, with the peace of child wearieC
| with play.
The dangling rope Of the
GatlolOs that yedr71ed.
How else shall we characterize the wretched
pelng who could lure to such place an limo
cent girl. murder her by strangulation, deposit
| her body in such tomb, strip it as a cadavel
ready Tor surgical dissection, secrete her cloth
| ing ana her books, rob her OF the few small
ornaments she wore, and, with the dreadful
image OF such p crime ever before him, with
the ialnting cries OF a strangling child sound
Ing in his ears, with the horrible sensation OF
| the trail body writing in the sinewy clutch
OF ms oony fingers ever thrilling his hands
| and motionless before him and clingine
| 10 hlfn.nke his shadow-who could yet go forth
among ms fellow men and women, attend
| tlon OF human and divine law, sit in the hum.
pc service OF the prayer-meeting, and wait on
niue chlidren In the Sabbath-school, remain
| hoi1 a