The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-07-24
THE LAST PREMIUM ON MURDER.


would acquit her. There were divers rea-
sons for the supposition, only one of which
was requisite to give, and that was the allow
ance by the court of such an argument as this
upon the part of the counsel for the defense,
''That those of the jury who were of the same
race as the accused should certainly not con-
vict her" Nor did they. The prisoner is a
negress. Six of the jury were negroes That
did the business. The facts of this remark
able acquittal are these The negress Gaines
found a white man owenoHgh to consort with
her This white man chose to ask a
woman of his own race to 90 to the inaugu-
ration ball with him. Whereupon the nepress
was incensed, and watching a convenient op-
portunity few days after, when her white
paramour, James O. Ingle, was lying asleep
on sofa IN her room, cut his head off with
cleayer-a meRt-axe. She was arrested,
and six of the twelve iurymen empanelled
were black men. The counsel for the muir
deress was permitted to plead the fact
of her race before the intelligent Jury;
also, to bring in her father to swear to the
| insanity of his child and of her ancestors
through and beyond him. Judge Fisher, of
whom more anon, is reported thus briefly and
perspicuously TO have charged the Jury of six
black and six white radicals (for the ron-clad
oath is eXacted of all Washington iuries). as
| follows Murder is where (sjc) homicide
Is committed by person of sane mind and
with malice prepense. The law presumes
every person innocent until he is proven (sic)
guilty, and a jury must give him the benefit
of that doubt. believe this jury will give
the accused the benefit of the doubt, as the
law has always done in other cases.
After this luminous charge squirting so
obviously in favor of the prisoner, not an
alyzing at all her crime on the himsy evidence
| of her insanity; not enlarging upon the sa-
| credness of human life, whichl is in greater
| peril in Washington than in any other city in
| the States; not going into or eXpounding
the evidence; carefully excluding all men
| ton of the positive character of the tes-
timony-the jury, virtually under the instruc-
ton of the coHrt, acquitted the negress
after an absurd ''absence Of two minutes
Now she is at liberty to cohabit with any
other man, and, if he be white can cut off
his head and be honorably and expeditously
| acquitted in Judge Fishers court, under his
instructions to his amalgamated juries. The
| negress was crazy, fOrsooth When? Not
| before the crime for then she was mistress
| of white man, which, if evidence of lunacy
leaves not one likely wench out of any dozen
| sane at the capital. She has not been crazy
| since the crime, because when triumphantly
acquitted by Judge Fishers charge and Judge
| Fishers jury, no means were instantly insti-
| tuted to put her under the care of the autho-
| rites for the treatment and protection of in
!
| of court, her black hands not red, to Judge
Fishers eyes, with the blood of white man,
and prepared to renew her lusts with any libe-
raj and low Caucasian willing and certain to
| have his head cut off if he so much as looks at
a woman of his own color
In order, however, to give a shade of JUS
tifcation to the farce of her acquittal, this
| person Fisher caused the Associated Press to
| telegraph on Thursday, that means had been
20, fha
in an asylum. In this the negress is likely to
stay just long enough for the indignation at
| her sham trial to cool down, where she will
be fed on hog and hominy at the public ex-
pense, and discharged in season for her to
begin the campaign Of her body by the time
Congress assemblies.
Therefore, it being flat blasphemy to dis
pute theverdict of this negress' ''peers, she
| must have been insane at the exact moment
when her brawny African arms welded the
axe which severed the head from the body of
her sleeping paramount. From which it fol-
lows, as the night the day, that for black
prostitute to kill a white man in Washington
is in itself proof positive of her insanity,
which entities her to legal acquittal and to a
judicial encouragement to do SO with safety
as often as she pleases.
The facts to which the press shouldspecially
invite attention, in the ventilation of this
verdict and its antecedents are:-
/. That the plea of insanity is shamefully
and frivolously urged in behalf of defendants
That it has become a patent plan for the
shielding of criminals That it should never
| be presumed but that the onus of proving it
should devolve upon those submitting it in
bar In this case, it seems to have been
thought sufficient to establish the fact upon
the testimony of the negress father. The
testimony of such an interested party should,
if not excluded, at least never be sufficient to
overturn the presumption of the law to the
contrary. Men deeply versed in mental sci
ence and mental diseases-moreover, such of
the latter as are directly acquainted with the
constitution and mind of the prisoner herself
ought to have been secured to testify to the
insanity to entitle the plea to the least Gre
dence in the mind of any sensible person.
II. The danger of negro testimony and the
propriety of mixed juries have received a
painful exhibition from these proceedings.
Any testimony that can be bought for money
and the witnesses giving which are so densely
stupid and ignorant as not to know the obli-
cation of an oath, the duty of truthfulness, OF
to be as dough in the hands of any cunning
counsellor, are testimony and witnesses
which no court, no community, can safely
tolerate. There will be found no radical,
with knowledge of the subject, who will have
the hardihood to maintain that the average
Washington negro, whether as a witness OF
juryman, is not a purchasable and 6
grossly ignorant being. We are not pre-
pared to assert that negro testimony should
be excluded. Far from it; but in a Judiciary
as corrupt and bigoted and partisan
as the District Judiciary have proved them
selves to be, negro testimony is 'dead sure
, to 90 in favor of criminals of its own race,
and AGAINST victims whose color is white, as