New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-06-04
LETTER FROM NEW YORK.

Especial Correspondence of the Republican,
New YORK, May D.
Senator Kellogg arrived at the Fifth Ave
nue. Hotel from Washington, on Friday,
where he will remain for a week. Yester
day he was elected president of the New
Orleans. Baton Rouge and Vicksburg rail
road. He will spend the week fnessing on
Wall street for the success of the Southern
Pacific railroad, which is already looked
upon with a good deal of favor by Mr..
Greeley. 1t is certain that Mr. Greeley will
return to New York, not only in favor of
the Southern Pacific railroad, but also in
favor of a project to give substantial
national aid for the rebuilding of all the
Mississippi levees. The whole policy of the
Tribune will soon be on the side of concila-
ton and leniency toward the South. Mr..
Greeley has been very conservative for a
long time, and the present managing editor,
whom Senator Carpenter called "a top and
pretender," was once Democratic enough
to come ON from Washington to get Chief
Justice Chase nominated on the Tammany
ticket in 1868. A very conservative man
write milk and-water accounts of ku-klux-
ism in South Carolina.
FOSTERS TRIAL AND SENTENCE HUMBUG.
The jury in the case of Foster, who killed
Mr. Putnam with the car hook for defend
ing Mrs. Duvall from insult on the street
cars, brought him in guilty of murder in
the first degree. Yesterday Judge Cardozo
sentenced Foster to be hanged on the four
tenth of July. This sentence is all farce.
Foster will not be hung The verdict was
not according to the charges of the jadge,
and motion will be made and granted for
a new trial, when public opinion will be
satisfied with a verdict of murder in the
second degree. and sentence of life i'm
prisonment. Fosters father is worth $780,
600, and he intends to buy his sons pardon.
and the result of the whole judicial farce
will be that the rascal will go scot free.
So much for justice in New York, when
Tammany rules it otherwise.
THE TRIAL BY JURY FARCE.
In the Foster trial over hundred jury
men were challenged before twelve idiots
could be gotten together who had not read
the papers and who had not formed an
opinion. Now, what kind of verdict could
be expected from these twelve IDIOTS I! Had
Fosters counsel selected the first twelve in
telligent men who were subpGnaed, YER
dict would have been given according to
the charges. Our American system of
challenging away every intelligent man
from jury is stupid and dangerous. In
this case Foster, drunk, struck Mr.. Putnam
on the head with car hook, not an instru-
ment of death, and which only once in a
hundred times would have caused death
In the mind of any legal man in the coun-
try the killing was manslaughter. Judge
Cardozo charged these idiotic jurymen thus:
Before the jury can convict the prisoner
of murder in the first degree, they must
| find from the evidence that the prisoner
had specific premeditated design to effect
| the death of the deceased, or of some
human being; that they must be able to
say, beyond a reasonable doubt, that such
was his specific design. Fifth, if the jury
! find that the prisoner, when he struck the
| deceased, intended to intlict serious bodily
harm upon the deceased only, the death re-
sulting from such an assault does not
! amount, in law, to murder in the first de-
| gree. Sixth, if the jury have reasonable
| doubt, derived from all the evidence, as to
what intent the prisoner had in assaulting
! the deceased, they are bound to give the
! prisoner the benefit of that doubt, and find
| the lesser intent.
Now, Foster is mean, low, villainous
! fellow, but any intelligent juryman would
know that when the drunken wretch struck
Mr.. Putnam in the dark with the car hook
his intention was not to kill him. But a
| jury of culled out idiots land so are any
twelve jurymen culled out of a hundred)
can not appreciate nice shades of meaning.
They can only see the naked fact in com
mon law that one man killed another, and
that the killer ought to die. If two men
have an alteration, and one strikes with
his cane, and the blow chances to kill, is it
not plainly manslaughter? Ignorant jury
men can understand common law, but
statute law is beyond their comprehension.
We are glad Foster is to be punished. The
good of society demands his life; but what
we protest against is the dreadful folly of
challenging every smart man out of a jury,
and leave a set of idiots, who can not APP
preciate statute law, nor anything but the
most general common law platitudes; to
divide all killing-even first second and
third class-into murder in the first degree.
Twenty smart men, challenged by Fosters
own counsel, would have hung till dooms-
day on manslaughter, for conscience sake.
INFLUENCE OF DR.. SEARS.
In the case of DR.. Sears, of the National
| Quarterly ReUie,c, accused OF taking lber-
ties with one Margaret - somebody, the
evidence is most damaging, but the rever-
end doctors friends have been to all the
newspaper offices, and the whole affair is
kept out of the public prints. So much for
influence in New York.
CHANCE AND FAME.
There is no use Disgusting it; we are retro
grading in literary taste. 1t was only few
years ago that the poems of Willis and
Bryant were read as the perfection of itera-
ture, while the beautiful hexameter of
Longfellow's "Evangeline," and "ATiles
Standish" only found rival in the sweeter
strains of Tennyson's Maud" These
poems were TRUTH beauty and virtue in
verses. But few years pass by, and the
profane offerings of John Hay and w. NJ.
Carleton, with their skepticisms and vul-
garity, become the passion of the hour.
Lord Kames taught us that the poet or artist
could never succeed unless he wrote or
painted about some virtue; that no inspira-