New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-05-13
OF 4 LIBEL ON THE BAR.
service.

Mr. John Graham has for the last few weeks
stood forth with such stereOscOpic rotundity,
and manifested Ills many graces, personal, for
ensic and moral, so legibly, that it may seem
superlluOus to seek to enliven or subdue the
tints of the picture which he has left of him
self 1t is an Office which we would gladly
forego. We would willingly leave him, decor
ated with the plumes and braveries which he
has won, TO the peaceful enjoyment of his own
admiration, and to the caresses of the women
who, at the conclusion of the trial, left APP
proving and enthusiastic traces of their saliva
upon his cOuntenance. But he deserves atten-
ton, and he shall have it. He has for some
time honOred THE TRIBUNE by pouring upon
it the choicest Installations of his rancOr and
it would seem churlish in us to receive this I'M
pleasant but happily not destructive baptism
with merely the contempt of silence. He mer-
its words. We will bestOw few upon him.
We shall not emulate his temper, and we leave
to him monopoly of falsehOOd; nor could any
extremity of prOvocatiOn impel us to follow his
example and load with insult and obloquy innO-
cent persons who may happen to be connected
with him. Such weapons are his, not ours.
He Yields them with the dexterity of long
practice, and it would be as frlIitless to COM
pete with him in their employment as it would
be to compete with an OrinOcO savage in the
shooting of poisoned arrows.
The eminent place which Mr.. Graham Oc-
cupied in the recent trial was one which he
had power to make either pedestal or pill
lOry. No one could have desired more con-
spicuous arena in which to display the highest
qualities of the advocate and the just and hon
.I..Xo e T..
Graham has given no indication of the possess
sion of that sensibity to shame which i'm
PEELED his brother advocate sOiled with his
own base words, to withdraw from the case in
bitter humiliation and unavailing penitence
and it is possible that he may be entirely salts
fled with the image of himself which he has
impressed upon the public mind. If so, we do
not desire to disturb the appreciation in which
he has no competitor, and in which he finds
his repose After such gigantic and sustained
effort, in which alone he bore the burden of
the bully, which should have been shared by
his humbled and fugitive colleague, and before
a covering Judge and an awed jury, and ter
ried and brOw-beaten witnesses, and auditors
hushed to silence by his menaces and impre-
cations, beat the air as if it had truth in it
ness that the worse was the better
reason, he perhaps needs to be medcined
to his rest by more potent sedative
than a fee 1t would be an evil case if he bore
with him from the courtroom IN which he had
uiumphed, the consciousness that the reproba-
ton of all just and we'll minded people accom-
panied him; that throughout he had over
stepped the prescribed and recognized re-
straints of the advocate that in rescuing an
assassin from justice he had heaped unmeas-
ured Obloquy and SANDER upon persons who
have every claim to respect and appreciation
which honorable character can give. We
shall not undertake to define the estima-
ton in which Mr.. Grahams professional
procedures are held by the decent and dis
eliminating portion of the public, because it is
superfluOus. When the accamatiOns of tho
courtroom rabble shall have ceased to echo in
his ears, and the kisses of the hysteric women
which fell upon him in the moment of his
triumph M he stood. moist with effort and
flushed with exultatiOn. under tho shadow of