John Marnchien, said to be a mulatto, but more probably
a "Manilla man," was a seaman on board the Raby Castle, English ship in the China trade. So was Karl Anderson, a Swede, who shipped at Penang. Anderson took it into his head that Marn- chien was a " Russian Finn," that is apparently a Lapp, whom sailors think as unlucky as a black cat, or a parson, or a corpse. He attributed to him every squall and every accident, affirmed loudly that he must be killed, and at last off the Cape killed him. The murderer was a quiet, inoffensive person, who evidently be- lieved his own theory, and the question is whether his crime was morally murder, the verdict of the jury of able editors which usually sits on such cases being, as to the majority,—No. Is the jury, then, prepared to spare every mother who kills her child in order that it may get to heaven ? If Anderson is insane a different issue is raised, but if, as is admitted, he is sane, why should either his superstition or his benevolence save him, any more than the mothers who so frequently commit an analogous crime ?
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