Gallipolis journal. [volume] (Gallipolis, Ohio) 1837-1919, 1854-11-16
GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY.
CouEr SCENE OF rHRIIIrSo INTEREST.


We have heard that the people of old
Connecticut used to whip their cider
barrels for working on Sunday, and if il
were true the pious souls were quite as
consistent as the wise heads who now
open the food gates Of intoxication, and
then apply legal penalties to provide
against the consequent mischief. No, il
moral suasion, is the only preventive
for liqur selling, let us have moral sua-
sion for all crimes which drunkenness
leads TO. The winding up of that thrill
ing story. 'Mapleton, or more work for
the Maine Law has a court scene in
opening with the above idea, which we
copy at length:
As the court was about to commit the
cause to the jury, the prisoner was
asked whether he had anything to say.
Whereupon Mr.. Douglas rose deliber-
ately, and looked on the court and spec
tators with great composure. His tall,
manly person, brilliant eye, and emf
nently Intellectual face, emaciated as he
was by disease and pale with confinement,
impressed every one with his personal
dignity and superiority to any one who
were sitting in judgment upon his life.
MAY it please the Court and gentle
men of the jury" he said, deliberately
and cody, 'little did l think that
should come to this. Born of parents
who were able and ambitious to give
their son the best education the country
affords, l had the advantages above
most others for reaching widely diff
ferent destiny from that to which seem
to be doomed. The afiuence in which
l was Graded proved my ruin. l was
made to believe that it was manly to
take a social glass. 1 fell in with COM
panions at college who nourished in me
this delusion. Our potations were
deep, revels boisterous. studied law,
but left my profession to look after my
fathers business, which was of nature
to keep the poisoned cup ever before
me. 1 drank till 1 had supplied the
place of natural repugnance to strong
drink with maddened appetite which
defied control with the articles within
my reach.
Your Honors, and gentlemen of the
Jury, the State would hold me respon-
sible for the consequences of drinking,
on the ground of my knowledge Of
them beforehand. This seems specious.
Yet my experience assures me that the
madness does not begin with drinking,
but with the cause that led to it. It
dates from personal contact with alco-
hol, accompanied with the conscious
ness of the option to drink or not to
drink. Ny wife saw the state of the
case and advised me to flee to country
where society had not yet introduced
my enemy. listened to her advice
and brought my family into this then
wilderness country. For few years
we lived in security and peace We
prospered in the world and acquired a
competence. But the State then To-
Gated one of its licensed grog shops
near my door. guarded against the
danger for months. My family stood
sentinels around me-" and as he said
this his chin quivered and the tears
rolled down his manly cheek. al forti-
fed myself with resolutions and prayers,
knowing that my life and that of my
wife and family were involved.
But, your Honors and gentlemen of
the Jury, my enemy subdued my strong
holds and led me in chains. was sur
prised into the trap the State had set for
say this in no spirit of recrimina-
tion-and the moment l was there all
my motives to virtue perished. 1 was
occupied with an inward feeling-call
it what you please-that absorbed my
whole being. Wife, children, reputa-
ton, and life were nothing to it. Had
your gallows then presented itself in
perspective, with myself hanging upon
1t, as a consequence of drinking, it
would not have deferred me. That was
the beginning of my insanity; that is,
the beginning of my insanity in every
case. - -i-i - ."
In reference to the crimes on which
you are now to adjudicate, your
Honors and gentlemen of the Jury, it is
due to myself and family. yea, to JUS
tice and the public, to say that 1 had
for months kept down my great enemy,
till new acquaintance, from a good
motive, brought into my field, from our
town groggery bottle of brandy
That produced the madness which fired
our destructive confagration, which led
to the death of our worthy pastor, and
which struck my own dear son through
a fathers hand" Here again his tears
fell, and his utterance was slightly OBJ
structed; but he soon gained his wonted
composure. "On my return felt that
l was pursued by dreadful creature,
which led me to arm myself with the
leaver, and, as approached my door /
thought l saw cluster of poisonous
serpents all intermingled, writhing, his
sing and darting at me, when l dealt
them a blow. A huge monster then
seemed to be coming at me of the croco-
die genus, covered with great scales,
with fiery eyes and open mouth, to |
swallow me up. "A dreadful terror
came over me, and to protect myself, /
struck my lever at it with all nv might.
I was then seized BY gants-I give my