Washington telegraph., 1854-06-21
Celebrated Trials in Kentucky.

Celebrated Trials in Kentucky.
The determination of the Ward trial in
Kentucky will pardon, if it should not i'm
part interest, to the account which follows
of some of the more remarkable cases of
murder and street, assassination, which have
occurred in that Commonwealth within the
memory of the present generation.
The killing of Benning the editor of the
kentucky Gazette, in his own office, by
Young Charles WicklifTe, in 1928, was one
of the unhappy results of the violent politi-
cal excitement of the period between the
respective adberents of Mr.. Clay and Gen.
jackson This excitement about Lexington,
as about the Hermitage, ran into bitter per-
sonal anmosities The Wicklif1e family
were then divided in politics. Rob; Wick
life, senr, whose son was embroled IN the
difficulty, was professedly friend of Mr.
Clay, which led to very personal phillip
pic against his family in the Gazette, the
jackson organ over the signature of Den
1atus. The editor, although he had every
reason to know that the author would be
held to responsibility, refused, ON the de-
mand of young Charles Wicklitie, to surren-
der his name; an alteration ensued, and
Renning, the editor, was shot dead. The
greatest possible excitement both Of per-
sonal and party nature, followed, and the
trial of Wickliffe was not permitted to take
place until many months after, when the
Adams Administration had given place to
General jackson. and Mr.. Clay had return
ed to his profession at Lexington That
gentleman, in whose cause Wicklife had, in
measure, become involved in the charge of
murder, appeared at the bar in his defense.
His speech on the occasion was one OF re-
markable fire and eloquence--appealing less
to the sympathies Of the jury on behalf of
the prisoner, than exciting their prejudices
against and contempt for the men who had
left Benning on the post of real danger,
which they had not the manliness to occupy
themselves, though willing to use, through
his columns, the weapon of the skuIkng
bravo These men were Mr.. Clay's bitter
prosecutors, in the canvass of 1923, and he
had little reason to respect and less to spare
them on a capital trial, involving the life
of bis friend and which their work had
brought about The result was the acquit-
tai of Wicklife.
In 1883 desperate fight took place at
the Gait House, in Louisville. Excitement
ran very high in that city, change of ven
ue was prayed for, and the hearing of the
cause set at Harrodsburg, where they were
tried on two counts, murder and man.
slaughter, and defended with great ability by
S. S. Prentiss, of Mississippi, OF which
State the prisoners were citizens and ac
quilted on the plea of self-defense.
Another unfortunate affair took place in
Louisville, few years after this, with the
circumstances of which our memory is not
particularly charged 1t resulted in the
death by shooting of Mr.. Leonard Bliss,
young gentleman of literary pursuits from
one Of the Northern States, the friend and
assistant of Mr.. Prentice, Of the Journal,
at the hands of Mr. Godfrey Pope, connect
ed with rival paper. The provocation
was slight and the fate of poor Bliss uni
versally regretted although, Pope, on a
change of venue to Shelby county, We be-
leve, was acquitted on his trial.
The last case of this character, to which
We propose to refer, was the unprovoked
murder oil young drug salesman In tue
Phoenix Hotel at Lexington, by member
of the Shelby family There was no previ-
Gus acquaintance or alteration between
Shelby and his unofending victim. They
met at the dinner table-Shelby intoxicated
or laboring under the effects of intoxication.
The fancied insult which promoted him to
use the fire arms, was that the salesman took
the liberty of eyeing him across the table
from which he was commanded to desist,
and on making some quiet, or, perhaps, dig
ni6ed or Indifferent reply he was shot
through the heart. The occurrence was
sudden, uncalled for, and daStardly in the
highest degree, but it was the act of "a mad
dened inebriate, whose wealthy and infiuen-
tial family employed the ablest counsel-Mr,
Clay of the number much to the regret to
many of his friends-to defend him on this
plea and they did so, successfully.
The murder of Baker by Desha, in 1925,
we have already referred to, but without al
ludlng to the attempted suicide of the MUIR
derer while in jail, which led to surgical