Knoxville Whig and chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1875-1882, 1875-05-12

LIE URDh lhlAD.
Mrs. Tilton is Said to Have Written
Letter to Judge Nelson.
BRooKLYS, n. Y, May Sd, 1876.
To Judge Nelson!
| ask the privilege from you for few
words in my own behalf. feel very deep
ly the injustice Of my position in the law,
and before the Court now sitting, and
while have understood and expected from
the beginning Mr.. Evsrts' principle in the
matter, yet, since your last decision /
have been so sensible of the power of my
enemies that my soul cries out before you
and the gentlemen Of the jury that they
beware how by divided verdict they con-
sign to my children false and irrevocable
stain upon their mother for five years past.
| have been the victim of circumstances
most cruel and unfortunate struggling from
time to time only for a place TO live hon
orably and truthfully-released for some
months from the will by whose power un-
consciously eliminated myself again and
again. ] declare solemnly before you
without fear of man and by faith in God
that am innocent Of the crimes charged
against me.
| would like TO tell my whole sad story
truthfully-to acknowledge the frequent
falseboods wrung from me by compulsion,
though at the same time unwilling to re-
veal the secret of my married life, which
only the vital Importance of my position
makes necessary. l assume the entire re-
sponsibility of this request, unknown to
either friend or counsel of either side, and
await your Honor honorable decision.
With great respect,
ELIZABETH r. TILTON.
THE JUDGES REPLY.
COURT OF BROOKLYN,
May 4, 1875
Mrs. TILToN: / am directed by Chief
Judge Nelson to return your letter, as it
can not be read in court; also to state that
in civil cases the counsel has the right to
refrain from calling particular witnesses,
however competent, and that neither the
Court nor the client can interfere with the
exercise Of that right. The Judge also in
| structs me to say that the question whether
you could be witness stands on quite
another ground from that considered.
When your husband was called and sworn
he was q competent witness to testify in his
own behalf against a third person, de-
fendent, and while the policy of the law
was to some extent involved, there was no
express statute in the way. But the statute
of May 10th, 1867, expressly declares the
wife TO be incompetent as witness for or
against the husband.
Yours respectfully,
(Signed), GEO. w. KURcHEL,
Clerk City Court.
Especial Telegram to the Cincinnati Commercial
BROOKLYN, n. Y, May 6.-Mr.
Rowen has got through with the whole
of his testimony on the direct and on
the cross, sitter passing the day on the
witness stand. He has been nearly all
the time under cross-eXamination by
| Evarts. The evidence he gave yester-
| day was sensational, and some parts of
that he offered to-day were astonish-
| ing, but as n whole Bowen has not
reached or approached the popular ex-
pectauon. He has told none of those
BLOoD-CURDLING STORIES
With which his own name has been
associated. He has not been asked to
| tell the nature of the accusations
against Beecher, which were referred
| to in his Woodstock letter to Triton, of
| 1863 and which Tilton brOoded over
for seven years. He has been rigor-
ously confined by the rules of evidence
to the few points of this case with
which he himself was connected, or
which came within his own knowledge.
| When soaring ambition is placed on
the witness stand its flights are apt to
be curbed by the application of legal
methods, and hence we have had to go
without many things which were ex-
pected from Bow, ., and which Bowen,
| perhaps, expected To get in. AT the
/ o. in, / = "a 90, oh
much desire to ~ beyond the line or
scope OF the legal questions, and his
| answers, AS whole, were brief and
Aplicit, except in regard to the count
9 = matters about which he was in q
/ s.a,e of utter fUrgetfulness. His evi-
deuce related to the events Of Deem
| Der 26,
THE DEMAND FOR BEECHER's REsIG-
NATION,
His moneyed transactions with Tilton,
and the connection between the tripar-
tite treaty and the pecuniary arbitra-
ton. The most exciting part of his
| evidence was his direct and positive
contradiction of the main feature of
the testimony already given by the
three arbitrator.
We next went into the
! PEClNlAkN TRANSACTIONS bEIWEEN
BOWEN AND TILTON
At the time of their separation and at
periods subsequent thereto down to
the arbitration, getting out quite a
number of new facts.
Bowen next redescribed much more
fully than he had previously done
THE BEECHER INTERVIEW AND DIA~
LOGUE
| OF December 26th. He then men,
toned again his interview with Beech
er's wife, by direction of Beecher, on
the morning after the foregoing inter-
view with Beecher. The Beecher party
had great satisfaction in the evidence
extracted under this head. They were
happy to have 1t brought out that when
the first sign of any kind Of accusation
reached Beecher, he turned the whole
matter over to the care of his wife.
After him we had but few minutes
to spend, and we occupied them with
witness who knocked over the testi-
. | mOuV Of the negro a. pitalist WOOdlpy