Gold Hill daily news. [volume] (Gold Hill, N.T. [Nev.]) 1863-1882, 1866-09-05
,1rE-MoRE IMPRESSIVE
nG THAN ROMANCE.

bride and groom, TO all appearances
seemed possessed of everything conducive
to earthly happiness-health, youth good
looks, innocent hearts, and plenty OF this
worlds wealth. Yet the moment that
little party, with a future of apparently
boundless happiness before them' sci 1901
in the Quaker metropolis, they were
thrown into the deepest CONSERVATION ana
distress by the arrest OF the youthtui
groom for a disgraceful crime. Although
he had that morning led to the altar an
innocent young girl who trusted her
whole future to his good faith and honor,
he was Just fresh from the commission OF
a series of forgeries that a few years ago
in other countries would have taken him
TO the gallows, and that will almost GER
tainly consign him to many long years Of
imprisonment. That same night he spent
in Moyamensing prison, and every night
since; his poor bride, now infinitely
worse off than if she had been left a
widow, having been sent back in u
ing, and perhaps with a broken heart, to
her friends. The case has its lessons more
impressive than those of romance, and it
is more fearful in its reality than the pic
tured distresses Of a whole library Of &c
tons.
The young man is W. B. Cooper, for
merly OF Philadelphia, where he was en-
gagged as a clerk to q well-known house
on Chestnut street, but more recently Of
Washington and of the navy, where he
was employed in several capacities in the
Navy Department and on vessels Of war,
and is the same man who recently de-
frauded the Government out Of $4,000
by procuring a draft on a forged requisi-
ton. Cooper is quite young and even
more youthful in appearance than he is in
fact. He is prepossessing in person, with
out a particle of the swindler in his ap-
pearance, or of the daring forger and con-
| 6dcnce man in his manner. His aspect
in Court was such as to excite deep COM
miseration.
But in addition to his good looks he
has several qualities OF great value to an
honest business man. 1, is clear from his
success in his crimes that he has extraor-
binary tact, a gift of speech by which he
was able to persuade business men to
overlook the usual precautions Of BUSH
ness, great perseverance in pursuing his
object, considerable skill as a penman and
a strong courage that enabled him to do
things tina, were really daring considering
the risks Of detection by which he was all
the time surrounded. Had he applied his
talents and his natural qualities and ad-
vantsges to some honest business with the
same spirit, energy, tact and zeal with
which he employed them in the commits
sion Of crime, he could not have failed to
be successful, and ultimately to have be-
come much weather. than he was during
the few hours when he was possessed Of
his ill-gotten fifty thousand dollars.
He chose another course, however-and
WHY Is not his crime and destruction
clearly traceable to the depraved passions
so prevalent in these days for getting rich
at a single stroke, no matter by what
means or at what cost of present charac-
ter and future welfare: He was, or had
been, in good employment; he had in
Washington a free entree to what is called
good society" he did not lack means to
maintain a respectable position /; he had
won the love of a good young girl; and
yet he swung loose from every tic that
should have bound him to a life of hon.
esty and honor-and whys Not from
necessity, but from a morbid desire to in
dulge in fashionable dissipation, to luxu-
rate among the expensive follies that can
only be purchased by money. Therefore,
he must be rich, and rich at once, even by
crime and, throwing for that stake, he
has lost all-character, liberty, friends,
home-everythIng. A mountain Of gold
could not purchase back what he has
thrown away. His poor wife may still
cling to him, but what words can paint
the abyss of agony into which he has
plunged that trusting but now heart
stricken woman, or the long years Of
shame and anguish that lie before her, to
be ended only by the grave! Hers is one
of the wounds that even time cannot eff
fectually heal. And this is n of the
mournful but inevitable results Of all such
crimes-that it is not alone the convicted
and sentenced criminal who suffers, but
the wives, mothers, fathers and children
of the culpri,s who suffer in mind and
soul more-intensely more-than can be
inflicted by any human punishment.