An air of braggadocia

12-02-2009   Brooklyn, NY

Has the pertinence of getting news out to the public destroyed the quality of how it’s presented? Has attention to certain details (like clothing and setting) vanished as time passed? Perhaps it has something to do with the level of closeness the press and public had with crime scenes back then? 

One thing I enjoy doing with my free time is going to the library and reading through old newspapers. Looking at old microfische always has a certain 1960’s sleuth-like feeling that accompanies it. There was something about the way beat writers presented their pieces back then, it seemed to bring the reader directly to the scene of whatever incident had taken place. The papers today don’t seem to capture the same essence. For instance, there was an article in the papers today about a man who had been hit by one car, hooked by another passing car and dragged through the city for twenty miles. The driver of the second car thought he had hit a pothole and kept driving, all the while dragging this poor bedraggled corpse underneath. The articles on this event weren’t remarkable and were written rather blandly. Compare that to the article below about a crime that had been committed almost 120 years-ago. The people have long been forgotten, but in reading the article you get a more personal feel for those involved.

 

In the end, it turned out that McElvaine was after only $200 of Luca’s money that he intended to take to market that day to purchase goods for his store. I suppose people have been murdered for less since then. The perpetrator also had two accomplices who were summarily caught. All three were executed. In looking at further snippets related to the incident, this appeared to be the desired outcome of many of the residents who knew Mr. Luca. One doctor’s feelings seemed to have summed up the view of the whole city:

“When in front of Mr. Luca’s residence I saw his wife with her head out the window and she was begging some one to bring me to the house. I entered in the company of Dr. John E. Ensell, of 125 High Street, and we commenced giving the dying man whisky, but he expired in two minutes. It was the most diabolical murder I ever heard of, as poor Luca was literally cut to pieces about the arms and body, and there was not a gill of blood left in his frame after his death. He lost it all from the wound in his left arm, and I think that this particular case requires a little Southern justice. Those three murderers ought to be strung up to the nearest lamp post, and it would be a relief of Brooklyn to do so.”