The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-12-02
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From Our Oacn Correspondent

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The Married NIOribund.
On Tuesday afternoon Mr.. Albert d. Richard
son was married to Mrs. Mcfarland, the Rev.
Henry Ward Beecher performing the ceremony.
Mr.. Beecher is a man OF original ideas. His
enemies are fond of saying that he is indus
trious in keeping himself before the people, and
TO do this he must sometimes do eccentric
things. What would be condemned in other
men is smiled at in him. He is a Beecher.
He can afford, as no other divine
can, TO be funny in the pulpit. and
he writes novels that well paid for, for moral
weeklies. Perhaps it was natural that he
should have been asked TO make Mr.. Richardson
and Mrs. Mcfarland man and wife. Some
clergymen might have demurred; some might
have remarked that a divorce obtained in
Indiana was not binding in the State of New
York. But Mr.. Beecher threw this considera-
ton to the winds. What glorious martyr he
would make if this indifference to public opinion
were maintained, though coupled with the loss
of public esteem, notoriety, reputation, social
position, or some other comfortable little con-
sderation Of that kind In this connecticut it only
seems right to add that good deal of misplaced
sympathy has been evoked. The Tribune, in its
overweening anxiety TO screen one of its favor
ite employees, has given its own version of the
affair, to the exclusion of any other, and has
sought not only 10 paint the unfortunate Mr..
Richardson as an innocent man, but to uphold
him as martyr. The conduct of Mcfarland
cannot be termed otherwise than cowardly and
murderous. 1t was not an act of hasty impulse
but of long and secretly-nurturcd revenge; and
how much the act and the spirit that led to it
were the results of a diseased brain and organ
ism is a matter for future consideration. The
fo,t hat In
became his victim affords him no claims to be
apotheosized. In no case can he be regarded as
an innocent man. The degree of his culpability
may be a matter of question, but the fact of it
never. Nor amidst all the sickly and ill-judged
sympathy are there wanting those who give
their fullest support to Mr.. Mcfarland, and
claim that he only did what almost any man
would have done under similar circumstances.
Ii is not pleasing or grateful task to appear to
speak uncharitably of one who, like Mr.. Rich
ardson, mingled so much that was admirable
with his faults, or who eXpiated those foihles in
so dreadful a manner, but the fond injustice of
his friends provokes dspassionate view of the
case.
Lord and Lady AinsIey
have given their first dinner since their mar
rlage Both bride and bridegroom appear salts
fed. More, society has not snubbed them, and
since they have not fallen under its incontro-
vertible ban, it is prosumable that its reasons
are indeed excellent. j admire successful cheek
| i reverence the idea of power which it pre-
sents to me. The man who hath cheek laughs
at impossibilities. 1t is more than money to
him; 1t is credit 1t gives him much that genius,
talent, palms, labor, time, influence often do not
| give to other people He dresses on 1t, dimes off
| 1t, and rises through ii. Give the fairy's choice
between being born of poor and humble but re-
| spectacle parents, and being born disreputable,
butwith cheek, and would dunhesitatingly choose
the latter. Worth rises slow, whether depressed
by poverty or impeled by riches; but cheek
mounts like az everlasting sky-roekeI With no