Such a correspondence in the essential features inevitably suggested an appalling mystery of unity in these crimes,—­either as the crimes of one man, committed under some impulse of motiveless malignity and thirst for innocent blood—­or as the equally appalling effect of imitation acting contagiously upon a criminal imagination; of which contagion there have been, unfortunately, too many examples—­horrible crimes prompting certain weak and feverish imaginations, by the very horror they inspire, first to dwell on, and finally to realize their imitations.

It was this latter hypothesis which found general acceptance.  Indeed it was the only one which rested upon any ground of experience.  The disastrous influence of imitation, especially under the fascination of horror, was well known.  The idea of any diabolical malice moving one man to pass from city to city, and there quietly single out his victims—­both of them, by the very hypothesis, unrelated to him, both of them at the epoch of their lives, when

     “The bosom’s lord sits lightly on its throne,”

when the peace of the heart is assured, and the future is radiantly beckoning to them,—­that any man should choose such victims for such crimes was too preposterous an idea long to be entertained.  Unless the man were mad, the idea was inconceivable; and even a monomaniac must betray himself in such a course, because he would necessarily conceive himself to be accomplishing some supreme act of justice.

It was thus I argued; and indeed I should much have preferred to believe that one maniac were involved, rather than the contagion of crime,—­since one maniac must inevitably be soon detected; whereas there were no assignable limits to the contagion of imitation.  And this it was which so profoundly agitated German society.  In every family in which there happened to be a bride, vague tremors could not be allayed; and the absolute powerlessness which resulted from the utter uncertainty as to the quarter in which this dreaded phantom might next appear, justified and intensified those tremors.  Against such an apparition there was no conceivable safeguard.  From a city stricken with the plague, from a district so stricken, flight is possible, and there are the resources of medical aid.  But from a moral plague like this, what escape was possible?

So passionate and profound became the terror, that I began to share the opinion which I heard expressed, regretting the widespread publicity of the modern press, since, with many undeniable benefits, it carried also the fatal curse of distributing through households, and keeping constantly under the excitement of discussion, images of crime and horror which would tend to perpetuate and extend the excesses of individual passion.  The mere dwelling long on such a topic as this was fraught with evil.