Daily Globe

RIVALING FRANCE IN HER MURDERS.

Of course 'twas a Frenchman who said that "the true test of a nation's civilization is the way in which it commits its murders," and therefore Mr. Christine, or Christian, or Chastine Cox was a peculiar lien on the admiration of the country for giving an exceptional lustre to its record, studied by the Frenchman's gauge.

Verily, 'tis not an auspicious direction for emulation, and there is a vulgar prejudice to eminence in this line, yet America is not going to be behindhand in furnishing as complete evidence (especially circumstantial) of this anomalous civilization as France or any other competitive country.

Mr. Cox albeit quite an exemplar, still marred the finish of artistic accomplishment in a few particulars. but the best generals and the adroitest of criminals will make mistakes. Nevertheless in consideration of the few careless touches which furnished such a rich diagnosis during the interval of Mr. Cox's temporary absence in Boston, exacting connoisseurs may condone the blunders. If he were to repeat the little episode, he might improve upon it, and even wear a flower in his button hole—perchance smile as he does now—when called into court to hear a prosy account of his adventure from the lips of the law. Heretofore he had no chart to direct his course. Of the promising portents and possibilities to every square inch of his skull with their annulling counterparts, too, he was ignorant. But since Dr. Fowler has put a phrenological head on him, he must regret more than ever that he has got to lose it through a very unpleasant stricture.

If Mr. Cox had turned his attention to the stage he would have made the most realistic Othello in the world, and beaten Mr. Ira Aldridge, one of his own race, in that signally great part. He might have required a fresh Desdemona each night, but that would be the crowning excitement which enthusiasts of the Zola school would delight in.

When Matilda Heron played Nancy Sikes, and had a rib or two broken by the vivacious Bill, the announcement never failed to cram the theater each night thereafter, because the spectators wanted to be in at the finish—if it was likely to be death. The neatness of Mr. Cox's method would preclude such bungling, whether in business or in play.

No cutting, shooting, poisoning, or blows for him. Only a sermon, orderly, composed corpse demurely bandaged as if by deft "surgical skill" with scientifically singed eyebrows, these be the tokens of Mr. Cox's murderous manipulation, which would put to shame the careless, disrespectful and disorderly handling of the average medical student. The serenity of Mr. Cox is, he asserts, largely due to libations of boiled water, sweetened and allowed to cool. This keeps his personal temperature even and his equanimity equal to any emergency. Surely this either raises the odium from whisky as a source of criminal impulse or proves that eau sucree is to be the beverage of that "civilization" the Frenchman describes.

Mr. Cox's nervine is insipid but his work wasn't weak for all that, and it is to be regretted that we haven't record of the photograph which experimentalists tell us is feasible in such circumstances as those in which Mr. Cox figured. When he held the candle close to the eyes of his victim, they might have had enough vitality to receive a good retina photograph of the tawny villain. Such a ghastly stereoscopic view of him in death glazed eyes, would be a fitting accompaniment to Dr. Fowler's elaborate chart of his head, and its fulsome letter-press. Mr. Cox is a humorist too. When his hapless victim asked "who was there?" and he answered "the doctor," it was a double throw of grim facetiousness, whose uppermost meaning might be that either he was "taking a dirty advantage of the profession," as an Irishman would say, or announcing an unwelcome husband.

But Mr. Cox's vagaries and love of precious stones are likely to be abruptly jerked out of life—just for his essay in the advancement of the peculiar "civilization" of the Frenchman's test. Sir Benjamin Pine writes: "the diamond trade is a trade in blood. I believe there is a semi-precious stone called the blood stone. This term ought to be applied to the Cape diamond. If the ladies of England knew the blood shedding and misery by which these stones are obtained they would loathe to wear them." The same is true outside of the traffic. Mrs. Hull's jewels will be distributed, and worn without any qualm about their history.