New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1856-02-07
TRIAL OF COBURN AND DALTON.

1t has been said that there is no absurdty how
ever great which, under the of religion, men
will not be induced to submit to and to practice.
In our opinion, law, and what has been called
sometimes iacetiously enough-the administration
of Justice have been and daily are made the occa-
sion of even greater absurdities.
Take, for instance, the late Boston trial of
Coburn and Dalton for manslaughter. One of the
most essential things toward coming to an intelli
gent opinion in that case was the motive and inten-
ton Of Tie defendants in inducing young Sumner to
come to the house Of one of them, at which place
the assault was made, resulting as the indictment
alleged in Summers death. 1t also became, in the
course of the trial, a most important question
whether the conduct of Sumner had been such as
might naturally be supposed to produce great
depression of mind, such as, independently of the
beating he had received, might have given occasion
to The disease of which he died. The theory of the
prosecution was, that, having always been healthy
and athletic Young man, and being in vigorous
health up to the day of the beating, il was that
beating and that beating alone, that was the origin
al cause of the disease Of which be died. or that
if atmospherical changes had anything to do with
IT, as was alleged by the defense, the debility re-
sulting from the injuries he had received, and the
depression of mind naturally incident to being
made the subject of such Notifying treatment and
so much nOtoriety, were such as to predspose hun
to be fatally affected by causes which otherwise
would have been entirely powerless over him-a
fatal result occasoned by the action Of the defend
ants, ard for which the law should hold them
arsWeraLe.
The defense set up that Sumner was not enticed
into the house with any design to beat him, but
merely for an explanation; that circumstances
occurred there to excite the parties, in cOnse-
querce of which they turned him out Of the house
the back way, giving him slight beating which
did not harm him in the least; and that his subse-
quent death was either the result of spontaneous
disease, OF atmospheric changes, or those causes
operating upon a mind depressed by the conscious
nj of having acted very upjustifably aud having
been properly punished for it.
To decide how much weight ought to be given to
this defense il was essential to know the history of
the intercourse Of Sumner with Dalton's wife;
ard yet all evidence bearing upon this point was
most strictly ruled out Thus the Jury as to a
most essential point, remained in the dark or
rather, they were delivered over to their own
imaginatiOns, always sufficiently active on such
occasions, and left to conjecture a great many
things derogatory TO young Sumner, which very
possibly were unfounded in fact. Thus in add.
ton TO the beating which he got from the defend
ants, their counsel had the liberty to murder his
reputation by gross inuendoes which il was
possible TO push to any extent, AID very safe to
offer, and to seem very urgent to prove, because
they knew perfectly well that no such evidence
would be admitted.
Again, the wives could not be examined as to
what passed in order 10 get Sumner to the house
and after he got there, because il is rule of law
that wives being or being supposed to be-though
in this particular case the suppOsitiOn was rathe
strained-one with their husbands, they are not 10
be allowed 10 testify in a case where they are con-
ceIned any more than the parties themselves. who.
by another rule of law, are excluded from being
heard in their own case. And so the four persons
WHO knew all about the affair being thus thrust
aside, such scraps Of evidence as could be had
were picked up from shrewd observers without
aid drawing-roOm visitants and stupid servant
maids within leaving the Jury in delightful state
Of uncertainty, which examination of the de-
PENDANTS and their wives would hardly have failed
to entirely dissipate.
1t is, as everybody knows, a iayori:e maxim of
the common law that nobody shall be compelled to
give evidence against himself-a ridiculous maxim.
more loIored in the breach than in the observance
favorable to nobody but rOgues, and which in
practice it is impossible to adhere to. Chancery
dispensed with it long ago in civil suits, compelling
the defendant to answer; and in common law pro-
ceedings, both civil and criminal, the evidence
most usually relied upOn-as in this very case of !