The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-01-15
The uel0drama Of the Wharton Case
Who Is the Criminalt


From the resume of the alleged murder Of
General Ketchrm and the circumstances sur
rounding that interesting case-many ofwbich
have not before appeared in print-published
in the HERALD to-day, 1t is evident that
great crime has been committed. Either Mrs.
Wharton is the most guilty and the most mex
cusable of murderers nor she has suffered from
wrongs which human laws cannot adequately
punish. IF she did not murder General
Ketchum she has herself been murdered in
her reputation and every emotion of her wo-
manly instincts. The case is 80 full of melo-
drama that the deeper and profounder tragedy
which Is behind it is in danger of being en-
tirely overlooked and forgotten. This is not
one of those cases where the demands of pub
lie justice can be satisfied with the simple YER
dict of jury. Could Mrs. Wharton be con-
victed under the forms of the law and the just
rulings Of the Court the certainty of her guilt
would be fifty followed by the certainty of her
execution. But acquittal must be made only
the beginning of investigation or our whole
social fabric, loose aud disjointed at best, will
be in danger of topping over, and crime, in
the name of Justice, become as common as
have been crimes in the name of humanity.
The sickness and death of a man whose loose
habits were strangely mixed with regular
life are not only made to point suspicious
finger at the woman who had befriended him
in life and nursed him to the verge of the dark
river, but the ingenuity Of dabolsm is called
upon to aid in painting her blacker than ever
demon was painted. Wild rumor, with it's
thousand tongues, fresh from sounding her
praises, takes up the catalogues of her
crimes, and shows her worse than
Brinvllliers, or more unfortunate than the ten
der Scottish Queen Her dearest affections did
not escape, and mothers love for her son
was rudely thrust aside in the impatient
search after the evidence Of her crimes. From
her high position in society she sunk almost in
an hour to the lowest and, guilty or innocent,
she will 60 down to her grave broken, dis
pirited, tainted woman. She has been the
victim of foul suspicious and incautous and
inexpert scientists or she is the most unreal
sonable and acute of criminals Public and
private security are considerations too i'm
portant to allow men and women of unim-
peachable lives to be made the sport of
awkward scientists, and the punishment Of
the guilty is trust too sacred to be rudely
employed by incapable or self-constituted
ministers of justice. Without judging either
Mrs. Wharton or those who have followed her
to avenge her alleged enormities, we cannot
fail to recognize that here is case where
somebody must suffer, for punishment is the
only safeguard against the artful poisoning of
men and the inartful poisoning of regulations.
The story which we tell to-day is an un-
usually interesting one, and in view Of the
circumstances attending the trial at Annapolis
it is as important as if no part of it had ever
been told 1t is at once the framework of
domestic picture and domestic tragedy. We
get a glimpse Of a once happy home and of
the demons which Turk on every threshold.
Within are peace and quiet and happiness
which was married only by the death of the
father and son of the household. Who could
tell that the opening of hospitable doors was
the precursor of humiliation and despair?
When General Ketchum entered he cast
dark shadow on that household, for his coming
was the first step toward suspicion, surveil-
lance and arrest. When he went out of Mrs.
Wharton's house he went out dead, and then
begun the melodrama of the Wharton case. 1t
is unnecessary to repeat it here, for our cor
respondent has told it all, though there are
some conclusions which his letter seems to
force upon us that we cannot disregard. They
are these IF there was any reason to suppose
that General Ketchum came to his death by
foul means, why was not the examination
the management of the Wharton case was
singular and exceptional. Suspicion seems to
have been unjustly excited and persistently
followed, without authority of law or the
knowledge of the officers whose duty it was to
see justice executed. More than this was the
remarkable manner in which the widest and
most improbable stories were caught up and
circulated throughout the country-this simple
woman, who had been highly and widely
esteemed, being made the minister of thou
sand crimes. There were allegations that she
had poisoned her husband, her son and the
whole list of her relatives, till the number at
last reached almost score. Many persons
were discovered who had suffered strange
symptoms as the price of ungrateful bread.
The decisions of the supposed, not the actual,
victims of the Salem witchcraft were not more
wonderful than the discoveries Of these peo-
ple's sufferings from this poor woman's bounty.
There was something In these stories so shock
ing to every sense of decency and propriety
that they all fell to the ground before the day
of her trial She was condemned in advance
as Borgia in the number of her victims and
q Catharine de Medic In the ferocity Of her