The Home Journal

An Extraordinary Malefactor.

RuLore, the murderer, who was recently hung at Binghamton, N. Y., can read all the European languages except the Sclavonian. His learning seems only to have enlarged the scope of his villainy without in the least elevating or rendering more acute his moral perceptions. In an interview with two of Governor Hoffman's Commissioners, appointed to see if he was sane, he was asked if he could account for "man's being brought into existence." His reply was that "we could neither conceive how man could be created nor how he could remain uncreated." Being asked if he believed in the existence of God, he replied: "I don't know; I assent to nothing but what is reducible to mathematical precision; I must prove it to my senses." In response to another question, if there was any difference between the life of man and a plant, he answered, fundamentally, not: but that the former might be more accountable, for he moves about and has will and choice, while the plant has not. The question was put to him if the fact of another existence, of rewards and punishments, would make any difference to him in regard to his acts. He answered: "No; I should do as I intended without regard to the existence of a God or a Devil, a Heaven or a Hell. I have felt this pride during my whole life." We should think a hundred questions were put to this man by two very learned gentlemen-questions relating to the highest matters of religion, philosophy and metaphysics-all of which he answered impromptu and with great ability. One of the examiners, Dr. Vanderpool, says: "He is the most remarkable man I ever came in contact with; a man of unbounded learning and enormous brain, conversant thoroughly with all the European languages, and with a perfect mastery of the Greek tongue; undoubtedly one of the most learned men living! The readiness with which he answered the metaphysical questions put to him was wonderful. He has a deep penetrating eye, not large, but intelligent, that keeps on you continually while engaged in conversation. For three hours we kept him in continual conversation. Sometimes it was very rapid, and generally extremely interesting. His ideas of Greek mythology are remarkable."

The gallows has seldom had such a specimen of humanity, tried for and convicted of the most enormous crimes. His life, so far as light has been thrown upon it, would furnish the material of a dozen novels of the Eugene Aram and Mysteries of Paris stamp. It is melancholy to think that one to whom nature evidently gave high capabilities, which have been improved by time and study, should have led such a life and come to such a fate. This last scene in his life, of holding a conversation upon the highest topics of thought with State authorities, only two or three weeks before his execution, is a dramatic picture without a parallel in this country.