The New York herald., 1874-08-05
Mrs. Tflton's Testimony-A Revival of
the ''Catherfne Gaunt'' Theory.

print this morning. She starts out by
alluding to her husbands indifference
toward her as thing which she expected
from him because of his genius and
his ambition, but declares that even in her
sickness he never gave her any sympathy at all.
Following her own story the logical deduction
would be that in spite of his genius and
his ambition the cause of this neglect
was that he was absorbed in chess
and had mother-in-law to chide
him. Even her nurse berated him as
'thoughtless and heartless." This is not a
very pretty picture of domestic felicity even at
the outset-this picture which she draws
of herself longing for sympathy and
never getting it, apd the hint she gives that
there was too long in the house a mother
er-in-law, who was very much in the way.
Yet these were Mrs. Tllton's happiest years,
and their lesson is lesson too seldom
learned in many households The home of
the Tiltons was, evidently, home
where sentiment usurped the place of
sense, and where romance was mistaken
for reality. 1t was foolishness and impatence
keeping house together, and these two are
insufficient materials out of which to build
SUNSHINE house" The wife was hungry for
sympathy, the husband cold, Indifferent and
often unreasonable. Then the wife became a
little jealous. This the husband soon repaid
with interest. He invited guests to his house.
and if his wife happened to be alone with
them he questioned her in regard to her
conduct. For three years she kept memoranda
of all her conversations with visitors, that she
might be able to undergo her cross-exalnina-
ton. With regard to Mr.. Beecher's visits the
questionings were particularly severe and
sometimes brutal Griffith Gaunt never did
anything half as vicious, and if Mrs. Tilton had
been anything like her ideal she would have
boxed his ears After this followed the charge
of criminal intimacy which now horrifes and
disgusts society, and if the woman is TO be
believed the man then became ghoul 1t is
terrible story, view it as we may, but how
ever it may affect Mr.. Tton it sadly fails to put
the case of Mr.. Beecher in any better
light than it was before. 1t is story
of domestic sorrow such as was never told
before, but it appeals with force to the
public conscience that will compel Mr..
Beecher, willingly OF unwillingly, to ex-
plain all his relations to this family and to
let the world know the part he played in the
tragedy of this household.
If we cared to argue the testimony of this
unhappy woman from on untriendly or even
an unsympathetic standpoint it would not be
difficult to turn her story terribly against
her and against Mr.. Beecher. In her
details of the conduct of Mr.. Tilton
toward her we might see only woman's cum
ming to turn the current of popular synpa-
thy in her favor. Her explanations of the
extorted confessions, which are in her own
handwriting, we might reject altogether. Her
latest admissions with regard to her feelings
for her pastor point in the opinions of many
persons to guilty love. And yet this is not
a case to be tried by the ordinary standards.
These are extraordinary people, imbued
with extraordinary ideas, and it is, per-
haps, unfair to weigh their testimony by the
ordinary methods. Evidently this was a
woman sorely tried. Perhaps Mr.. Tilton' s
idiosyncrasies and especially his treatment
of his wife during the first ten years Of their
ing the quality of his wife's fault and
| Mr. Beechers sim 1t would not be
! remarkable that such woman should turn
away from her husband and feel for another
the love she owed to him to whom her vows
were made. This much indeed she has
! and oUaip 10 not
q necessary sequence, however, that
she should fall from virtue though
all this be true. That she loved but sinned
not is the theory of her defence, and this
theory is supported by her Catherine Gaunt'
letter. Her story is marvellous, heartrending,
we'll nigh impossible but it is, after all, the
first CLEAN of light which has yet fallen
on this tangled web of sorrow and suffering.
1t may be the beginning of the end and if il
should prove SO it would bring joy to men and
women who neither know nor care fol
either Beecher or Tilton, and teach
anew to all the world how important
it is to cling to the old-tashioned notions OF
virtue and morality.
After all Elizabeth Tilton is not surrounded
by greater perils than encompassed her idea
when Catherine Gaunt was on trial for her life
In the one case all the doubts were cleared
away, and so they may be in the other. Mr.
Beecher must explain; but above all, Mr.
Moulton must testify The clergyman's ex
planation, should it embrace the theory Of Mrs
TiltoD, would be generally accepted but no
by all This is what makes Mouton'
testimony so essential. What did he under
stand as the sin about which all these negotia
tions were had in which he was the mutna
confdant? As Mrs. Tilton puts it the atttud,
of Mr.. Beecher toward this famil,
was sufficient to call for all tn,
words of contrition he has uttered. Was th
his offence or was it the crime which Theo