The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1857-08-19
[ From the New York Evening Post.l
The Cunningham Affair.

The late dcvelopmen ts as to Mrs. Gun
ningham will present a curious case for
the lawyers. Surprising all tho allega-
tions to be true, how far can a person
be legally criminal when the government
supplies all the means and much of the
ability for the commission of the crime?
In Europe tho question can hardly be
mooted. The police of Paris have con-
trived many a plot, aud the conspirators
and victims have supplied the guillosine
and died in the swamps of Guiana with
out any legal question being raised
In England and Ireland, too, govern
ment agents have mingled with politi-
cal conspirators, and earned blood-mou-
cy by denouucing their associates. In
the Cato-street conspiracy, when This
tlewood and his friends were seized in
an overt act of treason, a man named Ed
wards had been employed by the govern
ment to cooperate with and apparently
aid their schemes, as to which be after
wards testified III court. Tue subject
was discussed in Parliament, and the o2-
position leaders of the day, Brougham
and Ponsonhy, considered the action of
tho governments j~ustifable when afro
cious schemes of murder or treason were
Matching against the State.
III this country the question has nev-
er been raised. Can the government
convict a person, for example, ofpass-
ing counterfeit money. knowing it6to be
counterfeit, when the officers of the gov
srrlnent have supplied the press, the
paper, the ink; have put the notes in the
Lends OF the accused, and pointed out
the time and place for the fraudulent is
sue of the notes? This is something like
the case in hand. a hysician is pro-
widow is manufactured; q child is caro-
fully picked out CT the almshouse aud
given to Mrs. Cunningham. The quos-
ton now is can this woman BIO sent to
the State prison for accepting tho child,
under such circumstances, aud saying it
is her own? This is a grave question,
which we leave to the lawyers to mott
and the judge to decide.
Our remarks have their application
simply to the criminal-law BEARINGS of
the case. AS the affairs bear on their
civil aspect, the action Of the officers was
an adroit stratagem, by which an afro
OlOuS 5CuCiuC H1S NIuSHCN, u q HIOL
of light thrown on the dark and horrible
transactions of Bond street.
No one will be dis. ,cs ID to criticiso too
severely the means by which a bold,
bad woman is suddenly arrested in her
career, and, whatever may DO the legal
penalties, subjected to awful rctribu-
ton.
The law may be'iuadcquate to this pun
ishment. Its refinement and suhsleties
its snail-paco progress-its intermin
able appeals-its encouragement of soph-
istry aud technicalities-may prevent it
from dealing with this case; but there
never was a case in which a terrible
punishment moro justly awaited an IN
paralleled crime. Few doubt now of
the secret of the Bond Street tragedy;
but the fruits of that long process of
dark, cunning, and bloody villainy have
turned to dust and ashes.
We do not wonder that crowds sur
round the house in Bond street in which
such schemes of complicated guilt have
occurred. The guilty commerce of Bur
dell for the first six months of the drama;
the attempt to coerce him into marriage,
and the Intellectual struggles of the doom
ed man to break the net which cast its
Internal filaments around him; the pre-
tended marriage and it's accompan meuts;
tho CHASTITY and mysterious murder; the
bold but happily fruitless attempt to pro-
duce q fictitious heir, servo to render
the spot accurscd, while they develop a
consecutive series of subtle and daring
crime. to which We seek in vain a paral-
lei in English or American annals, and
whish resemble what history or fiction,
or both, have ascribed to The Borgias or
the later Medici.