The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1897-11-16

wouldn't II he had known that the one
way to save the life so dear TO him was
TO sit calmly and face calamity. The
coward can do almost anything to save
his life.
1t need hardly be mentioned that
criminal lawyers are well aware OF the
value OF a clients impassivity. Though
the innocent victim involuntarily shud-
ders, shrewd legal advice does not con-
slider II polite that, Of all men, the ac-
tual perpetratOr of the deed should show
any emotion when a witness tells how
the dagger was twisted In victims
heart. II Is scarcely 10 be expected that
Thorn did not know when he entered
the court room on Wednesday morning,
what would be the nature Of the Mack
Noman's testimony lie understood
that the one chance Of saving the mis-
erpble life which Is so dear 10 him was
to appear In no way phased by what she
had 10 say, In the creatures mind there
was so vivid q comprehension Of the re-
quirements that he smiled when the
Mack woman said that she had never
been intimate with him, That smile
reached out implorIngly for the straw
that might save him,
CoWARp'S HEIGHT OF BLISS,
oh, no, you gulled yellow readers, It
did not rspreseht the nerve which the
yellow Journals suggest as being allied
to courage, Il was the very intensity
OF q towards fear; Of his greed of eX-
istence. To save his life he Is equal to
any form of meekness OF OF repression;
he win crawl on his knees, weep like a
baby, be as mute as the Sphinx, each
with an Intensity that a truly nerYy
man Is unequal TO. Probably he even
performed the murder with sang froid
lie thought he was taking another's life
without endangerlng his own, for the
infection OF injury when he 10 convinced
that he VIII receive no Injury In return
Is the height OF bliss TO the coward,
If Guidensuppe had suddenly turned
on Thorn at the moment when Thorn's
finger, according to Mrs. Nack's awful
story, was on the trigger OF the revolver,
probably Thorn would have dropped his
weapon without dlscharging 1t and
would have made no resistance to the
beating which Guldensuppe would have
given him.
II is peculiarly true, In fact, that the
utter coward, however clever he may be
at sang frold when sang froid is neces-
sary TO save his life, he Is seldom equal
to eXerting any physical force for the
same purpose. Probably Thorn could
not have licked schoolboy on Wednes-
day. The coward is so full of fear that
his muscles are always deprived OF
strength, and he Is unable TO look any
person in the eye II he thinks that per-
son is going 10 strike him.
MuRDERERs LOSE THEIR NERVE.
Let us suppose that Sheriff Don't had
told Thorn that he must die then and
therc--lhat Thorn had known that he
must die then and there-how quickly
would his yellow nerve have departed
A Bringing thing in human form would
have fallen at the sherlff's feet, 1t is
unlikely that 1t would have walled. 1t
would have had the strength only to
make his lips move.
All these merry" murderers lose their
NERVE" when they find they must die,
though sometimes up to the last mo-
ment they are so cold With fear that
they dare not think OF death, or else
they are buoyed up by the hope that
they will finally be saved In one way or
another for they cannot really believe
that they can lose Il thing so dear TO
them as their miserable little lives,
So fearful of certain death was Car
lyle Harris that In the mania Of his
cowardlce he tried TO cheat tho chair
by suicide. Those who poison wives
and shoot in the back have not oven the
nerve Of sheer brutality OF murderers
who face their victims,
And the yellow journals, when they
try to make out that the supposed com
posure OF Martin Thorn on Wednesday
was the calmness in facing death which
we have come TO associate with great
heroes, are in poor business-as they
usually are. r'ter