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?
Je ne crains pas le nom que je laisse après moi."