Note Book of an English Opium-EaterDe Quincey, Thomas
Philosophy
Note Book of an English Opium-Eater
De Quincey, Thomas
Opium abuse -- England
Naturally, on the Sunday morning that dawned four or five hours later, the
case was too full of horror not to diffuse itself in all directions; but I
have no reason to think that it crept into any one of the numerous Sunday
papers. In the regular course, any ordinary occurrence, not occurring, or
not transpiring until fifteen minutes after 1 A. M. on a Sunday morning,
would first reach the public ear through the Monday editions of the Sunday
papers, and the regular morning papers of the Monday. But, if such were
the course pursued on this occasion, never can there have been a more
signal oversight. For it is certain, that to have met the public demand
for details on the Sunday, which might so easily have been done by
cancelling a couple of dull columns, and substituting a circumstantial
narrative, for which the pawnbroker and the watchman could have furnished
the materials, would have made a small fortune. By proper handbills
dispersed through all quarters of the infinite metropolis, two hundred and
fifty thousand extra copies might have been sold; that is, by any journal
that should have collected _exclusive_ materials, meeting the public
excitement, everywhere stirred to the centre by flying rumors, and
everywhere burning for ampler information. On the Sunday se'ennight
(Sunday the _octave_ from the event), took place the funeral of the
Marrs; in the first coffin was placed Marr; in the second Mrs. Marr, and
the baby in her arms; in the third the apprentice boy. They were buried
side by side; and thirty thousand laboring people followed the funeral
procession, with horror and grief written in their countenances.
As yet no whisper was astir that indicated, even conjecturally, the
hideous author of these ruins--this patron of grave-diggers. Had as much
been known on this Sunday of the funeral concerning that person as became
known universally six days later, the people would have gone right from
the churchyard to the murderer's lodgings, and (brooking no delay) would
have torn him limb from limb. As yet, however, in mere default of any
object on whom reasonable suspicion could settle, the public wrath was
compelled to suspend itself. Else, far indeed from showing any tendency to
subside, the public emotion strengthened every day conspicuously, as the
reverberation of the shock began to travel back from the provinces to the
capital. On every great road in the kingdom, continual arrests were made
of vagrants and 'trampers,' who could give no satisfactory account of
themselves, or whose appearance in any respect answered to the imperfect
description of Williams furnished by the watchman.
With this mighty tide of pity and indignation pointing backwards to the
dreadful past, there mingled also in the thoughts of reflecting persons an
under-current of fearful expectation for the immediate future. 'The
earthquake,' to quote a fragment from a striking passage in Wordsworth--
'The earthquake is not satisfied at once.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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