Horrible Murder.--La Morgue.--Suicides.--Vanity.--Anecdote.
--Influence of Modern Literature.--Different appearance of
Poverty in France and England.
We have been made positively sick and miserable by the details of a
murder, which seems to show that we live in a world where there are
creatures ten thousand times more savage than any beast that ranges
the forest,
"Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,
Pard, or boar with bristled hair."
This horror was perpetrated on the person of a wretched female, who
appeared, by the mangled remains which were found in the river, to
have been very young. But though thus much was discovered, it was many
days ere, among the thousands who flocked to the Morgue to look at the
severed head and mangled limbs, any one could be found to recognise
the features. At length, however, the person with whom she had lodged
came to see if she could trace any resemblance between her lost
inmate and these wretched relics of a human being.
She so far succeeded as to convince herself of the identity; though
her means of judging appeared to be so little satisfactory, that few
placed any reliance upon her testimony. Nevertheless, she at length
succeeded in having a man taken up, who had lived on intimate terms
with the poor creature whose sudden disappearance had induced this
woman to visit the Morgue when the description of this mangled body
reached her. He immediately confessed the deed, in the spirit, though
not in the words, of the poet:--
"Mourons: de tant d'horreurs qu'un trépas me délivre!
Est-ce un malheur si grand que de cesser de vivre?
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