Catoctin Clarion

EVENTS AND COMMENTS.

The Parr murder in Philadelphia, with his own suicide as a sequel, stands at the very head of murderous tragedies. Parr was a gray-headed man of 62 years. He was a terror to his own family. When he came back to Philadelphia after frequent periods of absence his children would hide from him. A month ago he made his appearance after being months away. He did not rest until he found a married daughter. He fell upon her like an unnatural monster and she was murdered in the presence of friends who tried to protect her. He was speedily arrested. He did not deny or attempt to palliate the deed. He talked about it in prison with disgustingly profane levity. The brutal details of the murder shocked every reader. The common expression was that hanging was too good for such a wretch. Last week the case came to trial. It was a long time before a jury could be empaneled and Parr expressed his impatience at the unnecessary fuss. A lawyer was assigned to his defense but his crime was so open that there was no ground for defense, not even that of insanity. The best his counsel could do was to plead that there was morbid disease of the brain leading to murder. His conviction was of course a foregone conclusion. He was found guilty.

And now the court room became the scene of a most startling and exciting tragedy. The judge had just concluded his sentence of death when Parr who was standing up, sunk helplessly into his seat. His face became deadly pale and his stout frame shook with convulsions. His ghastly appearance and exclamations that he was going to die created intense excitement. The suspicion now became a certainty that he had taken poison. He was carried to another room rigid as a corpse. Physicians were sent for. The news spread and the court house was soon surrounded by an excited crowd. Several physicians had meantime arrived and commenced their work. It was fearful work, and some of it made spectators laugh. Parr was indeed cheating the gallows of its due but paying a more horrible penalty for his crime. The physicians were trying to save him for the gallows while he was undergoing a more fearful execution. They tried giving him an emetic, but he struggled against it. Men held his legs and his arms and, his mouth was forced open with a hair brush while the medicine was poured down his throat. His face became black, but he was only strangled, not dead. They raised him to a sitting position and beat him on the back. He was rubbed with ice on the spine and signs of life came. Then morphia was injected and he became unconscious. Then the latest improvement of stomach pump was brought into use. The pipe was forced into his mouth, but Parr had life enough to force it out again. The stomach pump was found of no avail after hours of work. An injection of turpentine brought no better result. Neither did a pint of whiskey. Never did surgeons work more industriously. Their treatment was anything but gentle. They dashed ice water in his face. They rubbed, they kneaded, they kicked the wretched body in the rear, all to save his life so that justice might hang him. They worked hard until after midnight. Parr's groaning and writhing showed him to be still alive. After the surgeons were thoroughly tired out with their heroic treatment, he was finally given a shock with a galvanic battery. In a few minutes there were signs of animation. He raised his arm and uttered a feeble exclamation, "oh, my," then relapsed into a stupor from which he never awoke. The surgeons had been at work nearly fourteen hours in their ineffectual efforts. He was dead by his own hand. No one saw him actually take the poison, nor is it known how he procured it. His body was given to the surgeons for examination, and then delivered it to his relations who could scarcely afford to give it decent burial. Enough of Parr.