human
Besides the fragments of the skull, have been found six ribs of the right side and four of the left; the middle portion of the spinal-column; the liver, spleen, and kidneys; the pelvic bones, the right and left humerus, the femoral bone and the tibia and fibula of both legs. The body had burnt open at the chest, and the heart and lungs had been entirely consumed. The liver had been simply roasted and the kidneys fairly fried. There is a horrible probability that the wretched victim was forced into the furnace alive, and suffered all the agonies of the bitterest death man can die, while wedged in the flaming flue. The teeth were so terribly clinched that more than one spectator of the hideous skull declared that only the most frightful agony could have set those jaws together. Perhaps, stunned and disabled by the murderous blows of his assailants, the unconscious body of the poor German was forced into the furnace. Perhaps the thrusts of the assassin's pitchfork, wedging him still further into the fiery hell, or perhaps the first agony of burning when his bloody garments took fire, revived him to meet the death of flames. Fancy the shrieks for mercy, the mad expostulation, the frightful fight for life, the superhuman struggle for existence--a century of agony crowded into a moment--the shrieks growing feebler--the desperate struggle dying into feeble writhings. And through it all, the grim murderers, demoniacally pitiless, devilishly desperate, gasping with their exertions to destroy a poor human life, looking on in silent triumph, peering into the furnace until the skull exploded, and the steaming body burst, and the fiery flue hissed like a hundred snakes! It may not be true--we hope for humanity's sake it cannot be true; but the rightful secrets of that fearful night are known only to the criminals and their God. They may be brought to acknowledge much; but surely never so much as we have dared to hint at.
gpt
When his city editor, in compliance with the urgency of a steeple-climber, consented to send a reporter to take observations of the city from the top of the cross surmounting the spire of St. Peter's Cathedral in Cincinnati, Hearn was the man selected. In mentioning the assignment to him, the city editor handed him a valuable field-glass, with the suggestion that he might find it useful. On taking his departure with the climbers, Hearn quietly handed back the glasses with the remark in undertone, 'Perhaps I'd better not take these; something might happen.' He made the trip to the top of the spire, though the men found it necessary to haul him part of the way in mid-air and to bodily place and hold him on top of the cross. And he produced an account of that thrilling experience that went the round of the newspaper world.
human
Vocabulary of the Gruesome became famous, since I have learned from his friend and associate, the artist, Mr. Farney, and also from others, certain facts which demonstrate that this vocabulary was gathered not only or chiefly because of the exigencies of his work as a reporter, or to express the revolting in thrilling words, but because he had a spontaneous lickerishness for the things themselves. He positively delighted in the gruesome. With his fingers he dug into the scorched flesh and the exuding brains of the murdered man's body when it was taken from the furnace, and in another murder case he slid on the floor, as if on ice, in the congealed blood of the victim.
gpt
He even drank blood at the abattoirs with the consumptives when that craze had fallen upon the people of Cincinnati.