Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1872-03-07
DICKS ESCAPE.


| =
OF February to the 9th day of May, inclu
sive This money was all drawn upon
vouchers sworn to, approved and passed
by the accounting officers of the State.
Awaiting ourselves of the aid of practical
PRIMERS, and having procured a statement
from the officers Of State of all the books
; and pamphlets printed by Mr.. Bright, we
| discovered that while he had received pay
for $50 13S 59worth of paper, he had used
less than $4,000 worth, or, not to put too
fine a point upon it, he had unlawfully alb
stracted from the treasury in less than
three months over $27, 900 Of the peoples
money. We gave publicity to these facts
on the 11th of July Mr.. Bright respond
ed in the Sentinel the next day, by saying
that he intended to make all he could out
of his office, and hoped it would produce
enough Ito satisfy our (his) modest de-
sires and leave handsome balance to
spend, if necessary, to aid in continuing
Indiana Democratic In the same article
he quoted the couplet which will hand
| him down to posterity as the Cat skin
ncr'' of Indiana
Here was defiant threat of further
peculation. We made up our minds to
put an end to it. He also said he would
explain "at the proper time" To hasten
dH CA pIbuttilOn VIC HuDllSUcI Jul OllHt'ilt
of Mr.. Bright'S official conduct in lam
guage easily understood We finally pro-
cared his arrest on charge of perjury in
swearing to false accounts He declared
his Willingness to trv the case before the
magistrate, but when the time came gave
bail for his appearance before the Grimm
: al Court The Grand Jury indicted him
! for perjury upon the testimony of Colonel
5 Norman Eddy Secretary of State, j. G..
J Shoemaker, Auditor of State, as. b. Ryan
: Treasurer of State l.. q Hay the Notary
g who administered the oath, and John u.
e Doughty and Mr. Cameron, two practical
printers. MIR. Bright now had an oppor-
tunity to explain. To assist him in his
eXplanation he called t. his aid the fol-
lowing eminent criminal lawyers: j +.
: Mcdonald, A. W Hendricks, John K.
, Coilroth, James Hughes, Jonathan W.
Gordon, w w Leathcrs The connec-
ton of some of these gentlemen with the
case was brief and brilliant. Judge
/: Hughes having said in court that the edi-
tor of this paper had lied in his teeth,
throat, stomach and bowels and from his
lips down 70 the bottom of his perjured
heart took II drink of whisky and left
town. Mr. Coffroth came from Lafayette
and made IA ranting speech, in which he
d compared us to Il remarkable toad, which
he described as perpetually 'chawing his
own NAV" Mr.. Cotfroth also dropped
+ out of the case after this remarkable de
/ liNerence. The heavy work of the de
tense devoived upon the broad shoulders
ot Mr. Mcdonald, and the shoulders, not
quite 81 broad, OF Major Hendricks, Ma
ior Gordon and General Leathefs. We
should do Judge Hughes The Justice tC
4l,. ~.tIx
u drawing from the case was the qnibbllgg
and disingcnuous defense decided upoT
by the other counsel in opposition to hi.
wishes.
a First came a motion to quash for the
a following reasons: 1st That the notary
\ public had no authority to administer tn,
n oath. I'd. That when Bright swore to the
accounts his oath had no reference to tho
q book paper mentioned in them, but sWor,
: to the smaller items only. sd. That tht
: oath simply meant that he intended to ust
= the money 10 buy paper 4th. That i
was no oath at all, but simply contrac
for the future delivery of the paper. 9Th
r That it was in the nature of Il military re
Is QUESTION by Col. Bright upon Col. Edd,
t, Tor money to be used in buying paper
n The attorneys with military titles are IL
be credited With this point, as Mr. Nc
Donald's military career had not beel
: extensive enough to enable him to see it
By dint of hard hammering with thi
ponderous logic, the Indictment was re
duced to single count. The next poin
OF attack was upon Shoemakers memory
1t having been ruled that the State mus
prove that Shoemaker req Tired Bright
oath to the voucher, the defense hinged
,, on Bright's ability to persuade Shoemake
on several occasions out Of court that h
le did require affidavits to printing vouchers
We believe he sw ore upon the trial tha
he did not. If he swore the truth he Iiet
q out Of court, and if he told the truth gu
of court he swore lie. We have ou
doubts as to which of these two position
ce is correct. Having perforated Shoe
makers rotten memory until you coul'
see daylight through it in as many place
as YOU can through the celebrated vouch
er, Mr. Bright concluded that he had bel
ter go to work buying book paper Ill
delayed this, however, until after he ha'
been tried once for perjury, and has bee
sued by the Attorney General for th
money he had drawn upon the falls
Z vouchers. In November or Decembe
Mr. Bright built an iron clad warehous
at the back of the Sentinel building on tn
on alley, and several of his political friend
n. informed US that he was buying and shiI
ping large quantities of paper. Th
freight books of the Jeffersonville, juno
~ tion and Cincinnati Railroads show tina
he received more paper during the month
of November and December, than he eli
!, 4 during the entire year previous thereto
|. When the drays had deposited these fires
invoices of paper in the iron-clad ware
house, Bright announced his willingness
to deliver it to the Secretary of State
the Attorney General would dismiss th
suit. This offer was accepted, mainly bt
'y cause be had given currency to the STATE
ment made by another paper, that he wa
execution proof, and had no unencun
bered property. Considering half los
better than none, the Attorney Geners
D. promptly and properly accepted the O
tered surrender, and thus secured som
eight thousand dollars which otherwis
would have gone where the woodbin
twineth" :"
Meanwhile by the aid of double +,
fracting microscope of great power, th
able council for the defence had discove
ed that the impression of the notary
S seal on the voucher was almost, if nc
quite, imperceptable, and that the letter Il
in the word subscribe to the jurat h0
no dot Ogef 1t A fter these imnOrtant di