The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1867-05-07
LOCAL MATTERS.

not having arrived at that hour, the court
did not meet until after O'Clock Z. NJ.
| At a few moments before the specta-
tors commenced to saunter into the court
room, one or two at time, and by the
hour of the meeting of the court they
had partially filled the space reserved for
them on the west side of the courtroom.
| The space on the other side was almost
entirely empty. BY 3 o'clock number
of the members Of the bar, and those
members of the press whose business
carried them there, we're gathered in the
area reserved for them, and awaited pa
tiently the arrival of the judge and jury.
Near about a quarter-past 3 o'clock the
Jury came in irregularly, and took their
reserved seats.
After awhile the Judge came in, and
took himself to his seat with all the judi
cial dignity and ease of which he is Ca
pable.
The Marshal having called the court to
order, the Clerk read the following names
of grand jurors:
John Minor Bolts, foreman, Joseph Sc
gar, Lewis Mckenzie, j. 2. Baldwin, Ro-
zier Dulaney Beckley (colored), David
Lupton, Peter Couse, George Seaton (co-
lored), Cornelius Liggon Harris (colored)
John Hawxhurst, Thomas Davy, 7. S.
Tennis, William Bartlett, George W.
Simms (colored), Fields Cook (colored)
John Oliver (colored), Gillett F. Watson,
Michael Umbarger, Jacob NJ. Froth, John
w. Gregg, Joseph 7. Janney, John Wiss-
Ter, II. G. Bond, and William Q. Mansfield.
The following named members did not
answer to their names: Lewis Mckenzie,
J. P. Baldwin, William Bartlett, Fields
Cook, and II. G.. Bond.
After the names were called, the jurors
were sworn in, and the Judge read the
following charge to the jury:
Gentlemen of the Grand Jury,-The
circumstances surrounding us demand de-
vout thanksgiving to Almighty God that
we, the friends and representatives of the
Government of the United States, who
last wear were threatened with destruction
and hunted by assassins in this city for at
tempting to execute the laws Of our coun-
trv, can now meet in conscious security
under the wings Of the starry banner
which our patriotic Congress has raised
for our protection that we are permitted
to meet in this building of everlasting
granite, so emblematic of the power and
strength of our Government, standing
alone and unharmed amid the great con-
hagration that swept as with besom OF
destruction all around it.
And what solemn associations are sug-
eested by rejecting that in the very rooms
we now occupy dwelt the fiery soul of trea,
son, rebellion, and civil war, and hence is.
sued that fell spirit which starved, by
wholesale, prisoners for the crime of de,
Tending the flag of our common country
assassinated colored soldiers for their no.
bic and trusting labors in behalf OF a 10.
vernment that had as yet only promised
them protection, burned towns and cities
with a barbarity unknown to Christian
countries, scattered yellow fever and
smallpox among the poor and helpless
and, finally, struck down one Of earth's no.
blest martyrs to freedom and humanity.
Another subject of thanksgiving is pre-.
sented in the very constitution OF your
BODY, furnishing ocular evidence that the
age of cast and class cruelty is departed
and a new era of justice and equality
breaking through the clouds of persecu.
ton and prejudice is now dawning upon
us. And strangest Of all, that this city OF
Richmond should be the spot of earth to
furnish this gracious manifestation. Rich
mond. the beautiful and abandoned seat ol
the rebellion, looking as comely and spe-
cious as goodly apple on gilded sepul-
chre, where bloody treason flourished its
whips of scorpions Richmond, where the
slave trade so long held high carnival
where the press has found the lowest
depth of prohigacy; where licentiousness
has ruled until probably majority Of
births were illegitimate or without the
forms of law; where the fashionable and
popular pulpit had been so prostituted that
its fulfilled ministering gay Lotharios gene,
rally recommended worship of what they
most espected-pleasure, property, and
power corresponding to the Pagan and my,
biological ideas of Bacchus, Mammon, and
Mars.
Goods, brutal, passionate, partial, unjust,
Whose attributes were rage, revenge, and
lust.
1t was as if the fends prevailed
Against the seraphs they asSailed,
And fixed Oh heavenly themes should dwell
| The freed inheritors OF hell;
| So soft the scene, so formed for JOY
So cursed the causes that destroy"
But we are reminded that "where sir
abounded grace may much more abound
And in the light of recent changes, may
we not hope material and moral future
for this city of Richmond in strong con
trast with its awful and atheistic past, and
in harmony with the salubrity of its eli.
mate, the poetic beauty of its scenery, and
the magniticence of its water power.
| have sometimes feared that by
the usages of this State, which have
given the selection of juries to the
sheriffs and marshals, or, in professiona
language, have packed juries instead o
drawing them from box of names Sc
lected by other officers, as is done in mos
of the States, there was danger of getting
in different persons upon the panel but tht
care and rare judgment which our mar
shals have always shown in their selection
proye my fears unfounded, and am truly
eratified to find SO many gentlemen ofpub
Ii lie and private worth upon the presen
Jury. g ..,,
sources around us charges of cruel act
nassed by Congress since the beginning o
the war-acts which we are called upoI
to enforce-that it is well, perhaps, for ont
moment-to consider the utter falsehoot
of such charges, and to ma OF
examination the unparalleled clemen
cy and forbearance OF the veto
| rious Government, which, but for th'
cost of the rebellion, would now De lei
only in its protection and It's blessings
! While it has heretofore been the common
law Of all nations, our own included, t
punish treason by death, 1t was reserved
for the American Congress, in the midst o