Sketches New and Old, Part 4. Read online

  I was now in tears. It seemed hard enough to go to Congress; but to behanged--this was too sad, too dreadful. The woman seemed surprised at mygrief. I told her the thoughts that were in my mind. Then she comfortedme.

  "Why, man," she said, "hold up your head--you have nothing to grieveabout. Listen.

  --[In this paragraph the fortune-teller details the exact history of thePike-Brown assassination case in New Hampshire, from the succoring andsaving of the stranger Pike by the Browns, to the subsequent hanging andcoffining of that treacherous miscreant. She adds nothing, inventsnothing, exaggerates nothing (see any New England paper for November,1869). This Pike-Brown case is selected merely as a type, to illustratea custom that prevails, not in New Hampshire alone, but in every state inthe Union--I mean the sentimental custom of visiting, petting,glorifying, and snuffling over murderers like this Pike, from the daythey enter the jail under sentence of death until they swing from thegallows. The following extract from the Temple Bar (1866) reveals thefact that this custom is not confined to the United States.--"on December31, 1841, a man named John Johnes, a shoemaker, murdered his sweetheart,Mary Hallam, the daughter of a respectable laborer, at Mansfield, in thecounty of Nottingham. He was executed on March 23, 1842. He was a manof unsteady habits, and gave way to violent fits of passion. The girldeclined his addresses, and he said if he did not have her no one elseshould. After he had inflicted the first wound, which was notimmediately fatal, she begged for her life, but seeing him resolved,asked for time to pray. He said that he would pray for both, andcompleted the crime. The wounds were inflicted by a shoemaker's knife,and her throat was cut barbarously. After this he dropped on his kneessome time, and prayed God to have mercy on two unfortunate lovers.He made no attempt to escape, and confessed the crime. After hisimprisonment he behaved in a most decorous manner; he won upon the goodopinion of the jail chaplain, and he was visited by the Bishop ofLincoln. It does not appear that he expressed any contrition for thecrime, but seemed to pass away with triumphant certainty that he wasgoing to rejoin his victim in heaven. He was visited by some pious andbenevolent ladies of Nottingham, some of whom declared he was a child ofGod, if ever there was one. One of the ladies sent him a while camelliato wear at his execution."]

  "You will live in New Hampshire. In your sharp need and distress theBrown family will succor you--such of them as Pike the assassin leftalive. They will be benefactors to you. When you shall have grown fatupon their bounty, and are grateful and happy, you will desire to makesome modest return for these things, and so you will go to the house somenight and brain the whole family with an ax. You will rob the deadbodies of your benefactors, and disburse your gains in riotous livingamong the rowdies and courtesans of Boston. Then you will, be arrested,tried, condemned to be hanged, thrown into prison. Now is your happyday. You will be converted--you will be converted just as soon asevery effort to compass pardon, commutation, or reprieve has failed--andthen!--Why, then, every morning and every afternoon, the best and purestyoung ladies of the village will assemble in your cell and sing hymns.This will show that assassination is respectable. Then you will write atouching letter, in which you will forgive all those recent Browns. Thiswill excite the public admiration. No public can withstand magnanimity.Next, they will take you to the scaffold, with great eclat, at the headof an imposing procession composed of clergymen, officials, citizensgenerally, and young ladies walking pensively two and two, and bearingbouquets and immortelles. You will mount the scaffold, and while thegreat concourse stand uncovered in your presence, you will read yoursappy little speech which the minister has written for you. And then, inthe midst of a grand and impressive silence, they will swing you intoper--Paradise, my son. There will not be a dry eye on the ground. Youwill be a hero! Not a rough there but will envy you. Not a rough therebut will resolve to emulate you. And next, a great procession willfollow you to the tomb--will weep over your remains--the young ladieswill sing again the hymns made dear by sweet associations connected withthe jail, and, as a last tribute of affection, respect, and appreciationof your many sterling qualities, they will walk two and two around yourbier, and strew wreaths of flowers on it. And lo! you are canonized.Think of it, son-ingrate, assassin, robber of the dead, drunken brawleramong thieves and harlots in the slums of Boston one month, and the petof the pure and innocent daughters of the land the next! A bloody andhateful devil--a bewept, bewailed, and sainted martyr--all in a month!Fool!--so noble a fortune, and yet you sit here grieving!"

  "No, madam," I said, "you do me wrong, you do, indeed. I am perfectlysatisfied. I did not know before that my great-grandfather was hanged,but it is of no consequence. He has probably ceased to bother about itby this time--and I have not commenced yet. I confess, madam, that I dosomething in the way of editing and lecturing, but the other crimes youmention have escaped my memory. Yet I must have committed them--youwould not deceive a stranger. But let the past be as it was, and let thefuture be as it may--these are nothing. I have only cared for one thing.I have always felt that I should be hanged some day, and somehow thethought has annoyed me considerably; but if you can only assure me that Ishall be hanged in New Hampshire--"

  "Not a shadow of a doubt!"

  "Bless you, my benefactress!--excuse this embrace--you have removed agreat load from my breast. To be hanged in New Hampshire is happiness--it leaves an honored name behind a man, and introduces him at once intothe best New Hampshire society in the other world."

  I then took leave of the fortune-teller. But, seriously, is it well toglorify a murderous villain on the scaffold, as Pike was glorified in NewHampshire? Is it well to turn the penalty for a bloody crime into areward? Is it just to do it? Is, it safe?

  A NEW CRIME

  LEGISLATION NEEDED

  This country, during the last thirty or forty years, has produced some ofthe most remarkable cases of insanity of which there is any mention inhistory. For instance, there was the Baldwin case, in Ohio, twenty-twoyears ago. Baldwin, from his boyhood up, had been of a vindictive,malignant, quarrelsome nature. He put a boy's eye out once, and neverwas heard upon any occasion to utter a regret for it. He did many suchthings. But at last he did something that was serious. He called at ahouse just after dark one evening, knocked, and when the occupant came tothe door, shot him dead, and then tried to escape, but was captured.Two days before, he had wantonly insulted a helpless cripple, and the manhe afterward took swift vengeance upon with an assassin bullet hadknocked him down. Such was the Baldwin case. The trial was long andexciting; the community was fearfully wrought up. Men said thisspiteful, bad-hearted villain had caused grief enough in his time, andnow he should satisfy the law. But they were mistaken; Baldwin wasinsane when he did the deed--they had not thought of that. By theargument of counsel it was shown that at half past ten in the morning onthe day of the murder, Baldwin became insane, and remained so for elevenhours and a half exactly. This just covered the case comfortably, and hewas acquitted. Thus, if an unthinking and excited community had beenlistened to instead of the arguments of counsel, a poor crazy creaturewould have been held to a fearful responsibility for a mere freak ofmadness. Baldwin went clear, and although his relatives and friends werenaturally incensed against the community for their injurious suspicionsand remarks, they said let it go for this time, and did not prosecute.The Baldwins were very wealthy. This same Baldwin had momentary fits ofinsanity twice afterward, and on both occasions killed people he hadgrudges against. And on both these occasions the circumstances of thekilling were so aggravated, and the murders so seemingly heartless andtreacherous, that if Baldwin had not been insane he would have beenhanged without the shadow of a doubt. As it was, it required all hispolitical and family influence to get him clear in one of the cases, andcost him not less than ten thousand dollars to get clear in the other.One of these men he had notoriously been threatening to kill for twelveyears. The poor creature happened, by the merest piece of ill fortune,to come along a dark
alley at the very moment that Baldwin's insanitycame upon him, and so he was shot in the back with a gun loaded withslugs.

  Take the case of Lynch Hackett, of Pennsylvania. Twice, in public, heattacked a German butcher by the name of Bemis Feldner, with a cane, andboth times Feldner whipped him with his fists. Hackett was a vain,wealthy, violent gentleman, who held his blood and family in high esteem,and believed that a reverent respect was due to his great riches. Hebrooded over the shame of his chastisement for two weeks, and then, in amomentary fit of insanity, armed himself to the teeth, rode into town,waited a couple of hours until he saw Feldner coming down the street withhis wife on his arm, and then, as the couple passed the doorway in whichhe had partially concealed himself, he drove a knife into Feldner's neck,killing him instantly. The widow caught the limp form and eased it tothe earth. Both were drenched with blood. Hackett jocosely remarked toher that as a professional butcher's recent wife she could appreciate theartistic neatness of the job that left her in condition to marry again,in case she wanted to. This remark, and another which he made to afriend, that his position in society made the killing of an obscurecitizen simply an "eccentricity" instead of a crime, were shown to beevidences of insanity, and so Hackett escaped punishment. The jury werehardly inclined to accept these as proofs at first, inasmuch as theprisoner had never been insane before the murder, and under thetranquilizing effect of the butchering had immediately regained his rightmind; but when the defense came to show that a third cousin of Hackett'swife's stepfather was insane, and not only insane, but had a nose thevery counterpart of Hackett's, it was plain that insanity was hereditaryin the family, and Hackett had come by it by legitimate inheritance.

  Of course the jury then acquitted him. But it was a merciful providencethat Mrs. H.'s people had been afflicted as shown, else Hackett wouldcertainly have been hanged.

  However, it is not possible to recount all the marvelous cases ofinsanity that have come under the public notice in the last thirty orforty years. There was the Durgin case in New Jersey three years ago.The servant girl, Bridget Durgin, at dead of night, invaded hermistress's bedroom and carved the lady literally to pieces with a knife.Then she dragged the body to the middle of the floor, and beat and bangedit with chairs and such things. Next she opened the feather beds, andstrewed the contents around, saturated everything with kerosene, and setfire to the general wreck. She now took up the young child of themurdered woman in her blood smeared hands and walked off, through thesnow, with no shoes on, to a neighbor's house a quarter of a mile off,and told a string of wild, incoherent stories about some men coming andsetting fire to the house; and then she cried piteously, and withoutseeming to think there was anything suggestive about the blood upon herhands, her clothing, and the baby, volunteered the remark that she wasafraid those men had murdered her mistress! Afterward, by her ownconfession and other testimony, it was proved that the mistress hadalways been kind to the girl, consequently there was no revenge in themurder; and it was also shown that the girl took nothing away from theburning house, not even her own shoes, and consequently robbery was notthe motive.

  Now, the reader says, "Here comes that same old plea of insanity again."But the reader has deceived himself this time. No such plea was offeredin her defense. The judge sentenced her, nobody persecuted the governorwith petitions for her pardon, and she was promptly hanged.

  There was that youth in Pennsylvania, whose curious confession waspublished some years ago. It was simply a conglomeration of incoherentdrivel from beginning to end; and so was his lengthy speech on thescaffold afterward. For a whole year he was haunted with a desire todisfigure a certain young woman, so that no one would marry her. He didnot love her himself, and did not want to marry her, but he did not wantanybody else to do it. He would not go anywhere with her, and yet wasopposed to anybody else's escorting her. Upon one occasion he declinedto go to a wedding with her, and when she got other company, lay in waitfor the couple by the road, intending to make them go back or kill theescort. After spending sleepless nights over his ruling desire for afull year, he at last attempted its execution--that is, attempted todisfigure the young woman. It was a success. It was permanent. Intrying to shoot her cheek (as she sat at the supper-table with herparents and brothers and sisters) in such a manner as to mar itscomeliness, one of his bullets wandered a little out of the course, andshe dropped dead. To the very last moment of his life he bewailed theill luck that made her move her face just at the critical moment. And sohe died, apparently about half persuaded that somehow it was chiefly herown fault that she got killed. This idiot was hanged. The plea, ofinsanity was not offered.

  Insanity certainly is on the increase in the world, and crime is dyingout. There are no longer any murders--none worth mentioning, at anyrate. Formerly, if you killed a man, it was possible that you wereinsane--but now, if you, having friends and money, kill a mate, it isevidence that you are a lunatic. In these days, too, if a person of goodfamily and high social standing steals anything, they call itkleptomania, and send him to the lunatic asylum. If a person of highstanding squanders his fortune in dissipation, and closes his career withstrychnine or a bullet, "Temporary Aberration" is what was the troublewith him.

  Is not this insanity plea becoming rather common? Is it not so commonthat the reader confidently expects to see it offered in every criminalcase that comes before the courts? And is it not so cheap, and socommon, and often so trivial, that the reader smiles in derision when thenewspaper mentions it?

  And is it not curious to note how very often it wins acquittal for theprisoner? Of late years it does not seem possible for a man to soconduct himself, before killing another man, as not to be manifestlyinsane. If he talks about the stars, he is insane. If he appearsnervous and uneasy an hour before the killing, he is insane. If he weepsover a great grief, his friends shake their heads, and fear that he is"not right." If, an hour after the murder, he seems ill at ease,preoccupied, and excited, he is, unquestionably insane.

  Really, what we want now, is not laws against crime, but a law againstinsanity. There is where the true evil lies.

  A CURIOUS DREAM

  CONTAINING A MORAL

  Night before last I had a singular dream. I seemed to be sitting on adoorstep (in no particular city perhaps) ruminating, and the time ofnight appeared to be about twelve or one o'clock. The weather was balmyand delicious. There was no human sound in the air, not even a footstep.There was no sound of any kind to emphasize the dead stillness, exceptthe occasional hollow barking of a dog in the distance and the fainteranswer of a further dog. Presently up the street I heard a bonyclack-clacking, and guessed it was the castanets of a serenading party.In a minute more a tall skeleton, hooded, and half clad in a tattered andmoldy shroud, whose shreds were flapping about the ribby latticework ofits person, swung by me with a stately stride and disappeared in the graygloom of the starlight. It had a broken and worm-eaten coffin on itsshoulder and a bundle of something in its hand. I knew what theclack-clacking was then; it was this party's joints working together,and his elbows knocking against his sides as he walked. I may say I wassurprised. Before I could collect my thoughts and enter upon anyspeculations as to what this apparition might portend, I heard anotherone coming for I recognized his clack-clack. He had two-thirds of acoffin on his shoulder, and some foot and head boards under his arm.I mightily wanted, to peer under his hood and speak to him, but when heturned and smiled upon me with his cavernous sockets and his projectinggrin as he went by, I thought I would not detain him. He was hardly gonewhen I heard the clacking again, and another one issued from the shadowyhalf-light. This one was bending under a heavy gravestone, and dragginga shabby coffin after him by a string. When he got to me he gave me asteady look for a moment or two, and then rounded to and backed up to me,saying:

  "Ease this down for a fellow, will you?"

  I eased the gravestone down till it rested on the ground, and in doing sonoticed that it bore the name of "Joh
n Baxter Copmanhurst," with "May,1839," as the date of his death. Deceased sat wearily down by me, andwiped his os frontis with his major maxillary--chiefly from former habitI judged, for I could not see that he brought away any perspiration.

  "It is too bad, too bad," said he, drawing the remnant of the shroudabout him and leaning his jaw pensively on his hand. Then he put hisleft foot up on his knee and fell to scratching his anklebone absentlywith a rusty nail which he got out of his coffin.

  "What is too bad, friend?"

  "Oh, everything, everything. I almost wish I never had died."

  "You surprise me. Why do you say this? Has anything gone wrong? Whatis the matter?"

  "Matter! Look at this shroud-rags. Look at this gravestone, allbattered up. Look at that disgraceful old coffin. All a man's propertygoing to ruin and destruction before his eyes, and ask him if anything iswrong? Fire and brimstone!"

  "Calm yourself, calm yourself," I said. "It is too bad--it is certainlytoo bad, but then I had not supposed that you would much mind suchmatters situated as you are."

  "Well, my dear sir, I do mind them. My pride is hurt, and my comfort isimpaired--destroyed, I might say. I will state my case--I will put it toyou in such a way that you can comprehend it, if you will let me," saidthe poor skeleton, tilting the hood of his shroud back, as if he wereclearing for action, and thus unconsciously giving himself a jaunty andfestive air very much at variance with the grave character of hisposition in life--so to speak--and in prominent contrast with hisdistressful mood.