Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1852-1859, 1859-04-18

respondent says that Oranan speech u Ie6a'u'
ed as San eloquent and powerful production"
but in Boston (where they better judges,
perhaps they think otherwise, as We infer from
the following editorial critique of the Boston
Courier:
'"The world has had Mr.. John Graham by
telegraph for the last twenty-four hours we
shall not consider ourselves rash, II we venture
to say that stranger opening argument mas
never been made even by New York criminal
LAWYER than that Of Mr.. John Graham, IN the
Sickles trial which at present fills the newspa.
pers of the country with its verbose and iarclcal
solemnity Mr.. Graham seems to be one ot
those fluent speakers of whom Campbell re.
marks, that they have not SO much command oil
their language as their language as their IAN
guage has command of them. No matter how
simple or automatic statement Is to be made,
ne yyreathes around it so many artificial flowers
of rhetoric; he overlays it with so much tawdry
characterization, that the wearied mind refuses to
search for the hidden point His argument
seems only adapted to a Justices court oil the
time of Methusalch, when the life OF man was
nine hundred years. for it is quite out Of proper
ton to the present allotted age of three score and
ten Passing, without comment, over the absurd
and impious argument drawn from the Bible
passing over his statement to the jury, that they
were to pronounce the estimate of an American
iury on the value of the marriage bed'-passng
over his comparison of the killing of Key to the
execution of the condemned Baltimore murderers
passing over his unchristian remark, that to
an injured husband there remains only suicide
or murder-we must protest in the name Of the
women of America against the insulting estimate
put upon female chastity and strength of virtue
by the argument of Mr.. Graham. He com
menced 10y telling the jury that had Key not
been slain, their own wives and daughters would
not have been safe that they might have been
marked 70. seduction, and that they would have
been called upon to satisfy the insatiate appe-
tite of the deceased He then told the twelve
intelligent men before him that if an action for
damages be the only redress against the adulterer
their wives lived in very perilous atmosphere,
and they might well let the infamy come, at
once; he next stated that woman was the weak
er vessel, that her name was frailty, and that
the strong of her husband needed to
restrain her within the paths of rectitude; and
so on, through his entire address, he was con-
stantly implying that the general character of
woman was such that libertine had only to
beckon to her and she would follow him with
eager wantOnness to her own destruction. 1t
is impossible for US to know from whom Mr.
Graham has gained his ideas of female virtue;
but either his associations have been most I'M
fortunate, or else his own nature is deploraby
incapable of approaching the character of wo-
man. There is no fortress imprcgnable as
the citadel of n virtuous woman's heart; there
is power in the silent influence OF female chas-
hty TO make strong man quail and become as
an infant Are we to be told that the only pro-
lection we have against the adulterer in heart is
the fear he has of the husbands aVenging arm!
That our wives and sisters have no safeguard in
the purity of their own souls, but that il our
physical protection is removed they will fall ut
once into the palpable snare! The remarks of
the counsel referred to are insulting to the dig
nifty of every virtuous woman in the land
Shame on that man who dares to judge of le.
NAL honor i,-ti, a pnnfuef nF hat Nyifl and
mother who would 20 from her husbands house
at the wave of handkerchief to place of deli
beratc assignaton and there give herself TO the
embraces of paramour! As compensation
for weakness of body there is given to woman
strength Of soul more mighty than the strength
of armies, aud in the defence of her purity she
will awe by her moral power the bolIest liber-
tine that ever defied the laws of God or man.
Yet Mr.. Graham seems to think that bolts and
bars alone can keep her from the degradation of
lust. We pity him upon whom no better APP
probation of the nobility of woman has ever
dawned"