Year: 1859

The Washington Tragedy.


The recent killing of Key, at the city of
Washington. by Sickles. has set the whole
newspaper press of the country to moral
izing on the state of society at the National
Capitol. It is known to most of our read
ers that the cause of this sad affair was the
improper and criminal relations existing be-
tween Mr. Key and the wife of Mr.. Sickles.
Popular sympathy. as usual in such cases.
is almost unanimously with Mr.. Sickles, the
provocation being deemed ample justifca-
ton for the deed, and when the facts. as yet
unknown. come to be developed, this feel
ing win probably grow stronger. and read a
fearful lesson to those who may attempt to
invade the honor and happiness of anoth-
er's home. We clip the following in rela-
ton to the matter from the Chicago Press
and Tribune:


Whatever may be said of the individual
actors in the late tragedy at Washington
whether Sickles be applauded or condemn
ed, whether the murdered man be laid in
the potter's field or willows be planted to
weep over him while the world forgets him,
whether the wife and paramour be driven to
the society of drabs or otherwise-ths les
son which it brings home to society at the
national capital comes not moment too
early. 1t is no secret that ''life in Wash
ington" is at best a perilous gauntlet for all
pure men and women who are condemned to
a sojourn among its influences, while for all
others it is a very slough of the worst vices
which poilute human nature. The Sickles af-
fair is only singular in its bloody conclusion.





Not unfrequently the constituents of par
ticular members of Congress are informed
that the charming influences of woman are
employed with great effect on the Legislation
of the country. If accounts are true,
Sickles himself was not strictly entitled to
throw stones among the blocks of glass
houses which surrounded him. So noto-
riously corrupting are the grand banquets
and routs and reunions which follow each
other in that treasury gorged Vanity Fair,
that many members of Congress whose
families pass the season at the capital never
allow their daughters to accept an invita-
ton. If they escape without some pruri-
ent suggestion forced upon them by the
language or actions of the biackguards and
libertines who throng all the fashionable
quarters, the chances are ten to one that
their names will be peddled from saloon to
club room as the certain prey of this or that
poisonous reptile who has had their hands
or waists in dance.


To this class belonged Philip Barton Key,
who has expiated his crime against social
order with his life. Whether or not Mr..
Sickles was the man to give full force to the
lesson which has just been taught, it was
high time for an example of this kind to be
made Il was time to have blood added to
the uncleanness of Federal society, and the
only wonder is that it has been so long de-
ferred. We find every variety of comment
bestowed upon the homicide and the crime
which preceded it. Without discussing The
punishment due for so high an outrage up
on the dearest relations of life-a punish
ment which can be inflicted only by the
person aggrieved, and solely according to
his notions of equity-we repeat that it was
full time for defamation of the snakes that
infest the Federal city. to be begun.