New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1875-03-22
BEADING TRIALS.

trial not vet concluded. No national interest
of n similar character has been SO strong since
the British public, more than half century
ago, watched the trial OF Queen Caroline
through all its various phases and proceed
ings. though the Tichbornc case created IN
some respects a similar excitement. SettlDs
aside the disputed moralities of the matter
about which much might be Independently
said, we are not surprised to find the comDu-
nlty yielding to the novei .asc!nAIion " e"'''
reading, and finding in it not merely pasti'nf'
but little wholesome intellectual s'iu'o-
Ius. or course. the devourers of these reports
are of various and widely different character J;
but after making due allowance for prurient
curiosity and for the gregartous nature OF the
excitement, we believe that many are regu-
larly studying this mass of testimony III
philosophical spirit, and with o creditable de-
sire to strengthen their own forensic faculties.
Apart from this, even the habitual reader
of roaances has discovered, If we may use
the hackneyed words, that truth is stranger
ethan fiction" ard that in incident, ana
in tho pleasant doubt of long delayed denone-
meat judicial trial may be as absorbing
as the wonderful plots of Mr.. Wilkie Collins,
and almost as thrilling as the naturallstlc
tragedies of Miss Braddon. II the public taste
for these things should prove at all permanent
wo can assure our readers that 1t need not
anguish for want Of aliment Our own as
well as the French language is extremely rlch
in literature of this description, the result per-
haps of legal partially for precedent, for record
and for the itera scrpta of report. There are
individual trials which every one who has
been at al! fond of such researches will at
once rccall-that Of Sir Thomas Overbury,
usually called the Great Oyer of Poisoning
that of Capt. Donnean for the poisoning OF
Sir TheO. Broughton-that of Thurtell for
murder, and, IN our own day. that OF Prof
Webster for the killing of Dr. Parkman. The
English State Trials are so full OF interest, OF
mastery procedure, and of historical fact,
that clever abridSment for popular reading
might, we think, attract attention. The Con-
sistory, Arches and General Ecclesiastical Re-
ports are terribly bulky collections well known
even to American gentlemen Of the bar as
good professional study; and yet the traveller,
storm bound in country inn, would find
them a charming pastime, opening here
and there volumes which are numbered
by tho hundred. This kind of litera-
ture in popular form has been somc-
what neglected by the makers of books for
the many. There is q clever selection OF
Bavaran Trials, peculiarly interesting from
the tardy method of tribunals which never
send criminal to execution until he has con-
fessed his guilt. Mr. p. W. Chandler of Boston
has Published small collection of American
Trials, very entertaining and extremely well
edited There is an English work, in two
thick volumes, containing great number of
the most interesting criminal trials during
several of the last centuries, and there Is
smaller American edition of like character.
When we read to child the adventures of
Sailor Sindbad, or give him in diluted doses u
little CULVER, he lisps in wide Keyed wonder,
els it true2" We children of greater
growth, who never get the consciousness of a
pack of lies out of our romance reading, if,
fortunately, we can get it out of our historical
studies-we, who weary of tho conventional
construction of novels, and who feel sort of
sameness oven in great dramas-may well find
q flip to our jaded appetites in report by
living witnesses, made upon oath, of strange
events which have como under their per-
sonal observation. While they reveal the
character Of others, they give us glimpseS
of their own. What are the whole five acts
of the best comedy ever written what is
the fatal progress Of the sternest tragedy
ever mouthed 9-what even the grotesqueness
of tho frecst farce, to the disclosures, the
absurdities, the iutrgues, the plumbers, and
the miserics which this very morning are in
the mouths of millions of people7 If we are
4. IL -
enough to be rolled under our morbid tongues !;
if we are pitiful, we may well afford q tear
for all this wretchedness and ruin; if we have
a sense of humOr it was never so appealed to
before; if we like to weigh mems words and
speculate upon their veracity, here is material
fer judgment and analysis and estimate; if
we would know what may be our own watery
weakness under temptation, every day gives
us warning lesson; while in all the endless
narrative we find solemnly reiterated that most
awful of divine cautions, Let him who
"thnketh he standeth take heed lest he fall 7"
Every judicial proceeding is in some regard
a confession Of human depravity or OF human
infirmity; and even suits which are called
amicable are evidence of natural mistake with
the best intention. If jails and scaffolds, if
mercy, morally we are in hardly better case
than the defendant in the dock or the plain
tiff seeking an unrighteous advantage. There
is no violation of true equity in maintaining a
clear distinction between the offender in his
relation to his Offense and in that other rela-
ton which he holds to US of brother and fell
low-creature; and as a story Of mistake-for,
in one way or the other, it was all mistake
is recitcd; as the long procession Of wrong
doors goes by in its clanking chains, shall we
do as the Pharisee did, or shall we do as the
Publican