River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1875-04-02


relieve the Plymouth Society of the i'm.
putation which Beecher's Indictment and
Shearman' S unscrupulousness have put
upon 1t. We should have said "There
is good, humble old man, whose un.
affected piety must guide his story" In.
stead, we saw an uncandid, ambitious,
arrogant old parasite arguing with the
Judge, refusing to answer questions
without paraphrases, lodging the truth
and still neither wise nor witty. Shear
man completed the picture of Halliday's
hypocrisy by asking protection of him as
clergyman. Considering who Shear.
man is-the most unprmciplcd and
unmsnnerly person around the
New York bar, dwarf
boar IN appearance, and the notorious
legal attendant of the late Jim Fisk-the
app al for the clergy was complete. Mr..
Shea rman is singular object to be the
Official clerk Of a great orthodox congre.
cation. He is an Englishman by birth or
extraction, about forty-hve years of age.
and par Ueaue in every gesture and act.
He has decidedly llebraic features and
complexion, is slight, low and wiry, and
one of HE brothers is said to be a Nor.
mon at Salt Lake. and one Of the Godby
faction of spirtualistc apostates there.
Shcarman's ruling qualities are rapacity
and desire of prominence. lie went into
rich and democratic religious society
like Plymouth church for the latter pur.
pose, and as its clerk has managed this
case, as an investigation and as trial,
with the same intrigue and sinister
practice that he has instanoed in
Fisk cases. The church records
were fixed, and garbled papers
published from them, and at this mo,
ment they are held inviolatc by subpo.
nae. Showing into the case as its attor-
ney proper, Sherman has guided the de-
tense solely TO acquit in form, without
any consideration for such am acquital in
honor as Beeeher 5 age, fame and calling
should require. 1t is for this reason that
worldly.eyed men look with suspicion up
on his witnesses, and observe that he is
ever conspiring to prove conspiracy; IN
short, that what Tilton and Moulton are
charged with the clerk Of Plymouth
Church is doing saving Beecher by
plot as they were said to have plotted to
destroy him.
As attorney in charge, Sherman put
out such evidence as he pleased from the
Church investigation, suppressing other
evidence. As attorney, he led that hru.
tai newspaper crusade against Titon last
July, the injustice Of which, whatever
the facts, inspired many a fair-spirited
man to leap in the dark to the other side.
If three-fourths of the American press is
against Beecher to-day he owes it to
Sherman, who cast sinister and tyr
annous character over all the initial pro.
eeedings, and has repeated in this trial
the very tactics he used in the suits he
defended for Fisk. There, also, he &C.
cused Stokes of blackmail, which cost
| Fisk his life, and he demanded bill of
particulars there, which was the only
Anne .ican precedent for asking for bill
Of particulars in the present case.
There are persons of good Judgment
who do think this course of Tilton was
begun in conspiracy for money, but they
are staggered when they know that Shear
man made the suggestion.
II Judge Nelson entered upon the case
with particle of bias, it may have been
because Shearman had indicted his judi
cial purity by seeking for two days TO
take the case from his hands and have il
tried by one McCue, the same who had
granted the bill Of particulars. And If
Beecher is acquitted by the jury and
still not acquitted by the great majority
of his countrymen, it will be because this
man Sherman is incapable Of under
standing a moral verdict and of thinking
it worth while obtaining. There is
gipsey and impecunious style about his
witnesses, which always suggests subordi-
nation. The other day preacher named
Gay testified for Shearman, all the way
from Indiana, and swore that he had not
received a cent. After he had sworn this,
and the court had adjourned and the
room had been cleared, Mr.. Barry,
a reporter, told me that he saw one Of
Shearmans colleagues take out roll
of bills and hand money to this witness.
lf this be true, it shows that the spirit Of
the oath was broken. Take this man
have delined--a natural brutalizer of his
cases, and most frequently employed to
make litigation terrible to the other lti-
gant-and conceive him prompting the
assistant pastor ofPlymouth while under
Judge Fullerton's acute cross-examina-
ton. Observe the preacher-witness
avoiding cardor all day, and the clerk
pettifogger interrupting the cross-cxami-
nation. Then, | say, as began, that you
will come home and disbelieve as mucn
as ever in Mr.. Beecher's agents Of vindi-
cation, if not in the vindication itself.
There is an Irishman employed by Mr..
Beecher's counsel as the ferret Of their
side-Patrick Keedy, an unlearned man,
who runs down witnesses from every point
Of the compass on Shcarman's errands.
Even this man, who is without assump-
ton and naturally the servitor Of his legal
employers, said TO me to-day: 81 don't
see the wisdom or right Of abusing every.
body who don't agree with us. That was
our mistake at the outset. II was bad
advice; and there is too much of that
spirit still" GAru.