The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1874-10-24
Scandal and Scandal MOngers,

The great scandal, which has occupied such an
inordinate share of the public attention for the
past two months, is not buried, though we trust
1t is practically dead. Unlike some other repuls-
i've objects, it's infection of the air was at the
worst when it had most life; and we have been
breathing moral contagion so long that it is to be
feared that it win take some time to recover our
purity of tone and healthfulness of sentiment.
Mr.. Beecher's ringing statement, however, has
cleared the atmosphere wonderfully, and possibly
there may be a strong reaction, as people look
back upon the subject with more soberness than
they have been able to maintain during the ex-
element, continually, if not ingeniously, fed
from day to day with new developments and
all the gossip and surmisings that have flown
about like foul birds over {" the carcasses of I'M
buried men,
There ought to be a general feeling of disgust
in the public mind, when people consider the
eager readiness with which vile accusations against
a man conspicuous for purity and probity have
been caught up; how readily they have been
believed on very slight and specious evidence,
and before any eounter-evidence or explanation
had been given how greedily every scrap of
filthy gossip and every vile insinuation and con-
lecture was seized upon, as If it were a sweet and
palatable morsel, and how constantly the talk OF
respectable people in the social circle and at public
places has turned to this all-absorbing topic.
Few people have been able to preserve a calm
and judicial state of mind, judging as they would
be judged, and weighing evidence as evidence,
instead Oh entertaining SldnueE duU ROSclp as
something to be cherished and magni6ed, and
sustained if possible. 1t is a sad reflection on
one of the most prominent peculiarities OF human
nature, and yet we must consider that people
have feelings as well as minds and that when
startled and excited they do not stop to reflect.
In time they come to their eenses and do justice
to themselves and to others.
Although it may not be quite time yet to preach
the funeral sermon of the great scandal, 1t Is not
too soon to consider some of its lessons. Perhaps
u g hot farPIhln
injustice is done by too lightly entertaining and
disseminating scandalous reports. We have seen
newspapers exerting themselves to the utmost,
not only to get at facts from authentic sources
bearing on q case which naturally enough excited
great interest, but to put IN form Heating rumors
and give them a semblance of credibility, to
obtain the surmises and opinions of all manner of
people who had no right to pass judgment in the
premises, and to gather up and embarrass the
case with q huge mass of irrelevant gossip, merely
to feed the morbid appetite for it which had been
awakened. We have seen people not only willing
but apparently anxious to contribute to the swell
ing stream of pollution which has flooded the
public prints, and, when it could lind no vent
through them, has spread throughout society ina
thousand private channels. The effect of all this
has been to overwhelm the actual merits OF the
case, and to so infect the minds of men as to
make them incapable of forming q fair Judgment.
The issue was q simple one. A specific act OF
wrong had been charged in q very specious but
most suspicious way. IL naU DeSn supporter W
very insufficient though plausible and bewildering
evidence. 1t was positively and explicitly denied,
and the counter-evidence and needed explanations
were waited for and finally received in a form and
manner that annihilated the accusation and the
character of the accuser. This should have been
the whole of it, and the people should have con-
cerned themselves with nothing more.
Another lesson, we trust, will be learned from
this deplorable history and deeply impressed on
the public mind, and that is the utter and un-
- ~ -hn ~
90 free love doctrines" They seem to have ruined
one of the brightest and most promising lives in
this country. But for tampering with them and
way to their insidious and damning in
1uence, Theodore Tilton might, to-day, have been
happy in his family and in the best of society,
eminent and admired in literature and prosperous
in all worldly advantages and prospects. They
have shipwrecked his morals, his intellect and
hopes of high place in the worlds regard.
and he will be left blighted and miserable, if not
They seem TO have infected MIR.
and compromised his character and
for on no other supposition can his
course be explained; and Mr.. Beecher, by not
setting his face against them and resisting and
lenouncing the approach OF anything IN their
suise or in any way connected with them, found
himself wound about by the Shiny meshes of their
webs. When they take possession of
he mind, all moral principle seems to leave it,
md no one can have anything to do with those
% possessed, or allow them to have anything
TO do with him, with safety to his
and reputation. This lesson should be
specially taken home by those who call them
elves the advocates of reform for the benefit of
he social and political standing of women. All
here is that is honest and honorable in their pur-
roses has been sadly compromised by association
these iniquitous doctrines, and the revela-
of this famous case will do them an injury
which they can hardly recover. These are
My a few of the multitudinous considerations
ising out of this case which show the deplorable
fleets of dealing with scandal and scandal mon
ers.-BoSt0n Globe.