New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-05-12

of or parte insinuations and absurd conjecturcsf
What is to be thought of an advocate who
does this, and who, upon being properly re-
buked for it, can make no better apology than
Mr.. Spencer made IAN apology which pleased
the public not at all, and the gentleman's ASSOC
ciates just as little AN apology which can
satisfy neither the honorable, because it is
immoral, nor the dshonorable, because their
eyes see in it only the evidence of cowardice
What is to be thought Of that professional en-
thusiasm which leads lawyer, for the sake of
his client in jeopardy, to make complete sac
Iiiice of his own reputation, and to fling away
in an hour that standing in court which it may
have taken years to securel To be sure, Mr..
Spencer might ask, with tears in his eyes, why
he should be made the scape-gOat, and why
Mr.. John Graham should have piled upon the
shoulders of his junior the responsibility OF
leading in the work of defamation, and insult,
and abuse, to be judicously employed in the
future management Of the defense Does Mr..
Spencer remember certain fable OF a monkey
who wanted his chestnuts roasted, and of
cat who was compelled to roast them9
If any reader thinks that we are speaking
too harshly of Mr.. Spencer's opening speech,
we commend him to the second perusal OF the
speech itself-an Grafton which piously began
with an appeal to that Divine Creator who
"holds us all in the hollow of His hand "-the
same Divine Creator alluded to by Mr.. John
Graham in these energetic remarks OF I'D
"d-n you," which he subsequently addressed
TO Judge Davis, and of Cd d-n 1t"
which he flung in the face of the astonished
Recorder. Are we right in supposing that Mr..
Spencer's Divine Creator" and Mr.. Graham's
"G-dn are one and the same Belngf
Between these two lawyers the trial OF the
cause most certainly assumed highly theo-
logical aspect 1t is hardly to be supposed,
however, that a God of Truth would smile
upon Mr.. Spencer's farrago OF falseh0Ods
direct and insinuated and that lie has not
smiled, we may reasonably assume from the
forlorn and morally ragged condition in which
Mr.. Spencer to-day finds himself. He has dis
covered by this time that inconsiderate appeals
to Heaven may sometimes be followed by an
uncomfortable and unwelcome response; for
the objects of Mr. Spencers indiscriminate and
unchristian wrath can now look with pity
upon their reckless and merciless traducer.
The wife, first driven to seek separa-
ton from one who had promised
to cherish and protect her, and who then con-
signed her by his murderOus hand to second
widowhood, is held up, in her great sorrow
by this INSCRIPTIONS advocate, to the jury, as
"rioting on the proceeds of Mr.. Richardson's
"lfe- insurance"-ye even she, this morning,
can afford to pity her slanderer. The excellent
lady whose friendly heart would not permit
her to measure the words of sympathy which
she sent to solace an injured wife, is denounced
by Mr.. Spencer as ga plOtter, con-
spirator, panderer, and "procuress
- epithets flung at her with criminal
rccklessness, as they would have been flung
at any sister who also called Mrs. Richard
son her friend. Yet, if the gentlewoman thus
maligned can permit herself to be soaced by
the discontinue and disgrace of her traducer,
her satisfaction to-day may well be unstinted.
The clergyman sneeringly spoken of as ."
"man named rockingham" - would he now
change places with man named Spencer
Nay, the Fourerites, the Agrarianites, the
Mormons, the Spiritualists, the Free Lovers,
above whom, in the consciousness of his own
purity and that of Mr. John Graham, Mr.
Spencer domineered at the commencement of
this trials there one of them now so poor
that. even in the estimation of the world, it
becomes him or her to do reverence to the
lawyer flying from the cause which culprlt
in peril of life committed to his hands