River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1875-04-09
A Result of Dom Piltrs Visit TO the
Brooklyn Court Room.


The judge was listening to legal alter.
cation carried on by the lawyers, and his
honor did not impress us as a luminary
whose ends had been shaped by divinity
for judicial purposes. lie has the reputa.
ton of being able and impartial.
He looked to us very like the
sort Of material out of which
the people make magistrates and police
judges. His head looks as hard as ma
hogany, of about the same color, and
handsome as the figure.head of mud
scow. The hair, from lack Of soil and
top.dresSing, seems to have fallen off, and
Is replaced by one of those wigs that re-.
semble plaster. His eyes have all the
intensity Of expression observable in a
deceased mackerel, while his mouth, cut
square across, indicates, with prominent
chin for base, the frmness of BULLDOG.
The decision he rendered at the end of
the dispute did not suggest to us the
presence of Marshal.
Bessie Turner, the young lady who per-
sistently left her door unlocked. and had
experienced a transportation from one
room to another in such profound sleep
that her awaking came when the motion
ceased, an experience one has frequently
on cars and steamers Just left the
stand, and we heard about us expressions
of delight--for we were in the Beecher
Growd--at the admirable way in which
she had testified.
Bessie docs not pretty much, " as bad
little boys say, and her nearest approach
to attractiveness comes through the beau.
ty of the devil, found in health and youth.
We looked over the crowd in vain for
that dangerous element which makes men
leopard their immortal souls. Mrs. Til
ton is small, unattractive, and insignifi-
cant. And do you know, oh reader !
that this makes the whole affair
ugly and repulsive. One beau
tiful, fascinating, dangerous woman would
lift the whole affair into acceptable pub
lie recognition, The glamour of beauty
gives such tinge of romance and so ex-
cuses infidelity that the shock is lost in
the interest and admiration. As it stands,
the affair is simply "nawsty," to borrow
Sir Edward Thornton's pronunciation.
The easy grace and complacent noncha-
lance with which Bessie dealt out her
heightened fiction was entertaining.
With some truth for base, she builds
just such a romance as the crude, unim-
sginative intellect of a girl would create.
She is the central figure; about her re-
volve the other characters.
Eliminate her experiences, her
adventures, her observations,
and all that is left is not worth recording.
And the story she tells, if true, makes her
an idiot or something worse. Girls of
twenty-three, VINO, leaving their doors
unlocked, admit gentlemen to their rooms
! and have atrociOus liberties taken with
them without shocking their maidenly
, sensibiltes, indeed do not know what
was meant until told by an old lady after.
ward, leave but one impression upon
] the mind of the impartial spectator. But
when people saw Bessie on the stand be.
/ fore that crowded courtroom, taking in.
| tense delight in her own performance
cool, pert and funny, disconcerting old
lawyers and drawing laughter and APP
plause, We thought, with Joe Howard
! that the comic stage had lost an ornament
and the bar saloon pretty waiter.girl.
We sought out Mrs. Tilton with our
eyes and found her with some difficulty.
he word ''insignifcant" covers the lady.
We do not wonder that our sublime egot.
ist, Tilton, shrunk from the little wife.
who, although "white souled, is without
| presence. Tilton's home, that ideal home,
was temple built TO his vanity, and
everything in it that did not contribute
to his inordinate, selfish pride was often
slye. Common humanity, not troubled
with genius, would have loved the little
wife all the dearer for such defects, but
Theodore is not Of the sort.
Beecher has changed dismally since
this affair broke on him. The ruddy
tinge of health and high living has given
place to a pale, flabby appearance, far
from prepossessing. Henry Ward, as we
have said before, with all his genius. has
not face that could safely be made pro.
| feTf of in a case of this sort. Ii is the
pulpit counteDance that popular belief
has associated with good living. jolly
roast beef nantes its blood in his rosy
| cheeks, cheeks that indicate the round
stomach with good eapon lined If this
eminent divine is a sincere, true man, his
mouth is a libel on him.
But by far the most pitiable sight in
the court room is poor Mrs. Beecher.
Old enough in appearance to be her hus-
bands mother, She sits by his side with
her gray head, careworn face, striving in
vain to keep awake. The face is not a
kind one, not motherly nor sweet in its
expression, but stern and pure. No hus-
band would enter her house with mud on
his boots, prayers are AS regular as the
clock, and the children, sitting on high
seats with no backs 10 them, singing Old
Hundred or repeating the catechsm,
would get loretaste of heaven, such as
the little girl felt who said to her mother.
III ! am a real good little girl in heaven,
won't God sometimes let me 10 TO hell
and play with the bad boys o.
We saw the "old man" grasp his wife 5
knee, as he half closed his eyes with an
expression Of WEAKNESS and disgust no
words can express. What sort Of a
heart can man have to sit days and
weeks by his wife pilloried as he is
Tilton, too, has grown aged since we
saw him las. He resembles Christ, as
done by artists, more than ever. And TO