The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-01-25

before long in the progress of events. In the
meantime our legislators could not do better
than to thoroughly overhaul all these financial
institutions.
cution, Not PersecutIon. Wanted.
During the long reaches of this great poi
son trial we have from time to time COM
mented on the progress of the case. The cir
cumstances as noted at the time of the death
of General Ketchum, the suspicious attach
ing to Mrs. Wharton, the post-mor-
tenn analysis and the trial at last
have absorbed large share Of public
attention. But that which at once lifted this
trial above the range of ordinary capital cases
was the great combination of circumstantial
evidence which seemed to bind the weight Of
guilt round the neck of the prisoner. It
was sworn that General Ketchum died under
suspicious circumstances that the prisoner
was near him at the time of his
death that she had purchased tartar emetic
that the symptoms he exhibited before death
we're those of antimonial poisoning, and that
anthony or tartar emetic had been discovered
in his stomach after death. The crush
ing rebuttal brought forward by the
defence on the last two propositions was
something which not only convinced
the jury of her innocence, but startled the
public In the fact which it laid bare that even
in trial of life and death State prosecuting
officer could bring forward as convincing evil
dence the exploded fallacies of an old-time
system of chemical analysis and medi-
cal diagnosis. The mass of testimony
brought forward on this matter by the defence
we need not follow. 1t was in every respect
a fat contradiction of the so-called facts and
theories Of the prosecution. 1t is possible
that the counsel on either side did not COM
evidence advanced on one side or the
other; but the jury showed their sound
common sense in setting aside the
evidence for the prosecution, because its ex-
perts had failed to produce that which they
averred to have found-namely, anthony.
Without this they rightly concluded the prose-
cution had proved nothing, and the question
as to whether General Ketchum died Of
cerebro-spinal meningitis or any other disease
they left to the recording angel. In the
verdict of acquittal, therefore, we sim
cerely rejoice, and congratulate the
unfortunate lady on her narrow escape from
an affrighting doom. A matter of deep regret
1t must always remain that from the manner
in which the counsel for the people Numbered
the case, her innocence cannot be as triumph
antly Enthusiastically as well as legally.
The first lesson from the Wharton trial, then,
is that medical experts, with their TECHNICAL
ties and positive statements, are only reliable
in proportion as they near the very head of
their profession, and that all those in the
lower grades are simply charlatans, who speak
absolutely of things with which none but the
very heads Of their profession are conversant.
A point in this tedious trial which has forced
itself on numberless observers is the over
zeal, to say the least, of the law officers of the
people An opportunity was given them to
unravel the knot of circumstances which
enshrouded the case and see that
justice was done to that poor lone woman
as well as to the bowling mob Of Baltimore
which clamored for her blood. We find instead
a pertinacity, not to say malgnity, in the
conduct of these officers holding on to and
supporting points in their indictment
which had been defnitively controverted.
The indecency and injustice of this proceed
ing would be difficult to qualify in proper
terms of condemnation. There has grown up
in the breasts of lawyers an idea, founded on
bad tradition, that the prosecuting officer
for the people is bound to adopt all
the false assumptions of fact and inference
which signalize the trickery of petty lawyers
at a police court. It is made matter of pro-
fessional pride that case should be won by
the officer as lawyer, while the sublime
interests of the justice which he is paid to
Of presence, the flourish of rhetoric and the
faculty of distorting facts to gain a verdict for
the people, are things unfortunately too well
known in our courts. and if ever a needed re-
buke was given it was that conveyed in the
verdict of mot guilty" which liberated Mrs.
Wharton.
1t seems, too, pushing Of this over-zeal to
contemplate extreme that this injured
woman should be forced to stand another
'rlai' the points ofwhich are dependent on those
80 Amply refuted in the late case. A nolle
proSequs would be graceful though tardy
recognition OF the rebuke they have received
at the hands Of their fellow citizens; but let
lawyers everywhere remember that when they
are called on to conduct trial for the sove-
reign people 1t is fair, honest, truth-search-
ing prosecution which is called for, not