The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1897-08-15
THE TRUE EUGENE K A
3HB STORY OF TIE FAMOUS
fSscH0oLMAsTER MURDERER.

IIousenlnn'r Fart In the Criuno aud in Con-
vietinE Aram-The Original or Buiwer's Tale
grom TIE mneteenth Century. bv permission Of the
Leonard Scott Publication Company.
Eugene Aram was born at Sp.hcrdalo in York
phivo in the year 1904. Ills father was a gar.
dpner, but a gardener OF moro than ordinary
nkill; he possessed a remarkable knowledge of
botany, and was an excellent drsughtsman. He
hnd originally been in the service OF DIR. Comp
toh, tho Bishop OF London famous for his
Resistance TO James H., and. on leaving the
Bishop, had gone into the service Of Sir
Edward Blackett at Newly In Yorkshire.
Yorkshire was tho native county of the Arams.
Their name they derived from the village OF
Aram, or Haram. on tho south bank of
the Tees. In tho reign Of Edward III.
tho family was possessed Of three knights
fees near Newark. They would seem to have
gradually gone further south. until one Aram is
found q professor OF divinity at Oxford; another,
whom Eugene saw. a Commissioner of tho Salt
Tax under Queen Anne, living at his scat In
Hertfordshire The branch to which Eugene
belonged, and which had apparently remained
in Yorkshire. must have fallen from tho high
state of their ancestors. or had never emerged
hteiithe Others from their original obscurity.
The FIRST is the moro likely supposition; for
BttfSne 7'Aram. though driven by circum.
stances to associate with the shopkeep-
els ana ale drapers Of Yorkshire villages.
was always feared and respected as a
very high. proud man, solitary and retiring.
His portrait, too. in the Netcodte Calendar, said
by those who have seen him to be a very accu-
rate likeness, shows q face in which there is
little trace OF the rough and homely; and
throughout his life he seems to have attracted
the regard and confidence Of those whose sta
lions in life were above his own.
Eugene's father had bought n little house at
-. T. III L. G-N. 4 1t.
wife and child. visiting them in his intervals Of
leisure. Here Eugene was sent to school and
Instructed in The Testament. At the age of Il
he Joined his father at Newly. and, with the
help Of Sir Edward Blackett, who seems to have
been attracted by his intelligence and zeal for
study, entered upon that career of intense
and unwearied application 10 various branches
OF learning on which rests his real claim to hon
orable recognition. and which only the misfor-
tune Of circumstance has rendered ~fruitless Of a
great result. He first applied himself to mathe-
niatics. and, self-tauEht, mastered the problems
OF the higher algebra. But his studies were In
corrupted at the age of IS by his being sent to
London to fill tho place OF bookkeeper. After
remaining two years in the counting house
Aram was attacked by q very severe form Of
smallpox, and. giving up the counting house,
returned home. Here the young man resumed
his mathematical studies, and at the same time
dived into poetry, history, and antiquities. But
these new mistresses quite seduced him from his
boyish love; poor mathematics were cruelty de-
sorted; "the charms Of the other three" he
writes. quite destroyed all the heavier beau.
ties OF numbers and lines whose applications
and properties I now pursued no longer"
As tho time had como when Eugene must
choose q profession. he settled upon that Of
u~ohoolmaster. He returned to Nctherdale, his
birthplace. and there engaged himself as teacher
In the village school. At Netherdale, according
loAram. he committed the first great error of
his life, took the first unfortunate step which
ttarted him on his progress to the gibbet-he
married.
OF his wife's family nothing is known. except
that Aram thought her very much beneath him.
Ihunned her in the street. and never spoke to
her In public. Those who remembered her dc.
Bcribed her as a tidy little body, a very weak.
soft kind of woman, to whom Aram made an
indifferent husband. a kind of woman who can
hardly have affected the destiny Of Aram 30
powerfully as he subsequently asked his friends
To- believe One friend. more indiscreet and rcck-
lass than the rest, speaks of Mrs. Aram as low.
MEAN. and vulgar, unworthy tho lofty intellect
Of her husband. for whom a Newton and Eras-
mus could alone have been worthy companions.
But We shall see that the sublime visionary could
stoop at times-and for purposes of his own-to
society that would have been very distasteful
TO Newton or Erasmus, and far lower and
moaner than that OF his vulgar wife. But when
We are. confronted with the high pride of the
profound and solitary scholar shocked and
wounded by the yulgarity of the tidy little body,
We must make very sure that the high pride 10
not selfish vanity, and the domestic picture
presented tho canting old story of the great man
who 10 unhappy and unappreciated at home.
GANhatever the Joys or disappointments of his
AaRID ~ pptaA lie rapnt ,aal TO-. -.
Increased tenfold. A consciousness of his de-
ffcfcncies, which he acquired rs soon as he be-
gan to~'teachothers, and an irresistible covetous-
usss for knowledge, drove him to unexampled
industry. He taught himself English and
Greek, grammar from Lilly and Camden by
learning the entire books by heart. He then en-.
tered on Latin. puEzling out the meaning of the
language. for himself. spending sometimes a
whole day over five lines. and never leaving a
pasaage till he had perfectly comprehended it.
Then followed tho Greek Testament, of which
he parsed every word as he proceeded. When he
had done this he felt himself strong enough to
read Hesiod. Homer. Theocritus, Herodotus. and
Thucydides. These labors. the achievements,
be II remembered. OF a self-taught, compare
lively uneducated man, occupied some ten
years. In the study Of language he had hit on
the true bent OF his intellect, the department of
learning in which he could hope to achieve
something; and neither change Of place nor
force Of circumstances ever from this moment
htndered his continual researches.
When. in 1874. william Norton. Esquire"
his friend. sent a horse and man to fetch tho
learned schoolmaster to Knaresborough. the
change of scene only meant a change of study;
Hebrew succeeded Greek, and he began to go
through the Pentateuch in the original tongue,
a. at Nethcrdale he had gone through the Greek
Testament. And. he writes, he would have done
moro during the ten years he kept the school at
Knsresborough II other things had not en-
~croached on his time.
What were those other thingsl There was
the school. there was a family OF six children,
and there was pecuniary embarrassment. The
ton years schoolmasterinu In Knaresborough had
mot been profitable; by the end of the year l744
Aram had m~ortgaged the house at Bondgate
which he had inherited from his father, and owed
o considerable sum of money 10 his friend Mr..
Norton. who had probably put him into the
school In the first instance. But. in the face of
subsequent events, tho question suggests itself,