Note Book of an English Opium-EaterDe Quincey, Thomas
Philosophy
Note Book of an English Opium-Eater
De Quincey, Thomas
Opium abuse -- England
Vain would be all attempts to convey the horror which thrilled the
gathering spectators of this piteous tragedy. It was known to the crowd
that one person had, by some accident, escaped the general massacre: but
she was now speechless, and probably delirious; so that, in compassion for
her pitiable situation, one female neighbor had carried her away, and put
her to bed. Hence it had happened, for a longer space of time than could
else have been possible, that no person present was sufficiently
acquainted with the Marrs to be aware of the little infant; for the bold
pawnbroker had gone off to make a communication to the coroner; and
another neighbor to lodge some evidence which he thought urgent at a
neighboring police-office. Suddenly some person appeared amongst the crowd
who was aware that the murdered parents had a young infant; this would be
found either below-stairs, or in one of the bedrooms above. Immediately a
stream of people poured down into the kitchen, where at once they saw the
cradle--but with the bedclothes in a state of indescribable confusion. On
disentangling these, pools of blood became visible; and the next ominous
sign was, that the hood of the cradle had been smashed to pieces. It
became evident that the wretch had found himself doubly embarrassed--
first, by the arched hood at the head of the cradle, which, accordingly,
he had beat into a ruin with his mallet, and secondly, by the gathering of
the blankets and pillows about the baby's head. The free play of his blows
had thus been baffled. And he had therefore finished the scene by applying
his razor to the throat of the little innocent; after which, with no
apparent purpose, as though he had become confused by the spectacle of his
own atrocities, he had busied himself in piling the clothes elaborately
over the child's corpse. This incident undeniably gave the character of a
vindictive proceeding to the whole affair, and so far confirmed the
current rumor that the quarrel between Williams and Marr had originated in
rivalship. One writer, indeed, alleged that the murderer might have found
it necessary for his own safety to extinguish the crying of the child; but
it was justly replied, that a child only eight months old could not have
cried under any sense of the tragedy proceeding, but simply in its
ordinary way for the absence of its mother; and such a cry, even if
audible at all out of the house, must have been precisely what the
neighbors were hearing constantly, so that it could have drawn no special
attention, nor suggested any reasonable alarm to the murderer. No one
incident, indeed, throughout the whole tissue of atrocities, so much
envenomed the popular fury against the unknown ruffian, as this useless
butchery of the infant.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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