The Tipton advertiser. [volume] (Tipton, Cedar Co., Iowa) 1856-1962, 1870-12-22

This SANDER suit, which occupied TIL
attention of the District Court durin.
all OF last week, was, perhaps, the mos
interesting, important, and closely con
tested case that was ever tried in &c
dar county court. Some Of the features
OF the case were given last week ane
need not &c repeated. The petition o
plaintiff claimed $4,000 damages from
defendant on account of certain Sian
derous utteranccs in which it was
claimed he had in substance charged
plaintiff with the murder of a messmate
in California, the death of his first wife,
adultery with Anna Mccormick, Me
Gums step-daughter) completely in the
death, by poison, of Anna Mccormick s
husband, Edwin +. Hodges, and en-
bezzlement from the county treasury
These charges Of slanderous utterances
were made in. tWD counts, the embez-
element SANDER alone forming the Sec
ond count. On the part of the defend
ant, it was answered, first, a general
den ial Of each and ali the charges; and
second, admitting the charges and set.
ting up a justiflcation-the counsel for
defendant claiming that the statements,
as alleged. that McQuin's former mes
mate and wife died i'm sudden aud
mysterious manner were not actionabIe
and proposing 70 prove the truth of the
assertion regarding adultery, poisoning
and embezziement. The burden of
proof being thus thrown upon the de-
PENDANT, a vast amount of evidence was
pro and con, occupying in |
its presentation from Tuesday morning
until Saturday. The theory of the de-
fence in regard to the poisoning of !
Hodges. which was the central and alb
sorbing point Of the case, was some
hing like this: That plaintiff, Me
2uin) having unlawful intimacy with
he girl Anna, sought to prevent her
marriage with Hodges by writing anon.
'mous letters to various parties interest
"a; that, failing in this, after the
marriage and while the young couple
we're living in his house, as they intend
q doing for some months, plaintiff ad.
strychnia poison to Hodges,
lrst through patent medicine he was
aking nightly, and when on account :
t spasnis or queer spells Oh two sue
essive nights, Hodges refused to take |
he medicine longer, that the final ,
ose was administered in powder
'hich plaintiff brought from tho doctor
Dr. the deceased. In opposition to this, {
laintiff attempted to prove that the . =
letters Were not written by
i'm, for which purpose the testimony
experts in chirograply was introduce
! that he was not averse to the mar I
age; and generally, that, admitting q
lat Hodges diel from poison. the cir. o
instances pointed to his having killed ;,
imself by attempting to take strych- 81
Ia incidentally. The latter was expected
derive support principally from the
stmony of Anna Hodges that her Y
lsband was impotent, and of one Ii
eeves, a druggists clerk, who swue c
at he sold Hodges strychnia on the -
lturday before his death, aud that lie :
ade some remark relative to the .
king of it for the weakness intimated.
Almost the whole Of Saturday and +,
It'll 10 o'clock in the evening was occu &
ed by the argument in the case, Z
,dge Hubbard, who was associated
it'll Col. Shane and Rush Clark in the
opening. He was followed 81
Col Preston aud G Boal for the deft.,
ID the argument was closed by Rush 5.
ark. The legal gentlemen all made h
lie and earnest efforts, commensurate
it'll the gravity Of the case and the
re and minute attention with s
hich its every step had been conduc- v
Oh both sides. The Judge instructed D
e jury concisely and plainly ~ to G.
atute provisions in regard to Islander, D
d their application to this case, telling G
EN- that the evidence necessary to q
tablish justification for defendant ii
,uld be just the same as would be ii