Thinking of His Mother Too Late.
THE repentance (as well as the sentimental piety) of murderers—when they are caught—very naturally excite suspicion and rebuke. Their better feelings are dormant so long as they can sin undetected, and when punishment comes they grow very tender. The Ledger makes these just remarks in a recent case:—"Do not let my mother know of this," was the earnest request of Cox, the murderer of Mrs. Hull, after his arrest and confession. And the daily papers have since published accounts of how the poor old woman, at her home in Richmond, was overwhelmed with anguish when she received intelligence of her son's great crime. Thus it is that the innocent suffer for the guilty—often with greater poignancy of grief than the guilty themselves experience. Cox had a letter from his mother on his person, asking him in the most affectionate terms to come and see her; but it had vanished from his memory until he had found himself in a situation which made it impossible ever to visit her again. Then his filial affection revived, and manifested itself in the vain request that she might be kept in ignorance of what he had done. No man stands alone. The thread of every human life is interwoven with the thread of other lives, and no individual can be helped or hurt without helping or hurting others also.