Brownlow's Knoxville Whig, and rebel ventilator. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1863-1866, 1866-01-17
Sentence OF Young Ketchum, the For
ger, I'm New York. on Saturday Last.
The Recorder addressed the ,

The Recorder addressed the prisoner follows
have given your case Edward b. Ketchum, most
anxious and careful consideration; not because l
doubted what the interests of society required
or duty demanded of me- but for the reason that l
we'll know that many gentlemen of high character
and excellent judgment entertained views entirely
at variance with my own. Occupying as you did,
an exalted position among the business men of this
great commercial city; commanding as you did,
unlimited confidence and credit; possessed, as you
were, of great wealth and influence you became in
volved in speculations vast they were danger
GUS and ruinous: and then, to the financial ruin
of yourself and house, which seemed imminent you
did what of inferior position credit could
have done raised immense sums of money upon pa
per which you forged, the genuineness of which no
one doubted, simply because you presented it. 1t
was the every day story, varying only from other
stories in the magnitude of the forgeries and the
greatness of your fall and you gave shock to credit
and to confidence from which the business interests
of the city did not readily recover. Your friends
and those who ask for you the mercy Of the Court
| say you were laboring under a mania. But every
man whose personal sympathies do not to some ex-
tent wrap his Judgment knows that it was no other
| mania than that which seizes on every who
commits crime in order to avert personal calam-
ity which he cannot endure to meet. If sitting here
| as judge, l should mitigate your punishment for
any of the reasons assigned because hearts are
aching and fainting or because of my own personal
sympathies with those who mourn for you, should
feel that every sentence nae passed upon hrst
offender had been wrong and that 1 was indeed a
"respecter of persons. 1t is my duty so to admin
lister the law that all men may feel and know that
none are beyond either its protection or its power
1t may be WELL as claimed by your friends, that il
you were permitted to go free, you would soon be
able to redeem your reputation and reestabsh your
position But if this court should yield to their ap
plicatoni it wouldbe an official declaration that
of influence and station could offend against the laws
without the fear of punishment Public interests
and necessities demand that the penalties of violated
law should be visitH upon the offender by way Of
example as well as of punishment. If you had been
put upon trial upon all the indictments brought
against you, the term of your imprisonment would
have extended through the greater part of your life
The District Attorney has Vndicated the law by ar
raigning you upon one to which you have pleaded
guilty, with full knowledge of the consequences
Upon that plea the extreme punishment is five year
imprisonment. The law, however, directs that th'
term of imprisonment shall not expire during tht
winter months In discharge, therefore, Of my duty
| must pronounce the sentence of the court which
is, that you be imprisoned in the State prison fol
the period of four years and six months.
Young KetChum then resumed his seat, when
number of his friends up and shook hands with
him before he was conveyed to the City prison.