The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1875-03-18
THE PULAsKE sCANpAL.
The Beecher-TIlton EmbrogliO
PaIes Before it.
All about Fifteen Dollar
Piano.

All about a Fifteen Dollar
Piano.
Pulaski has never suffered herself to
be eclipsed in any great undertaking,
and although anxious hearts viewed
with envy the great Brooklyn scandal
and imagined they saw Pulaski's repu-
tation on the wane, yet luck forbade tile
catastrophe and furnished material
from which she might build unto her
self structure of startling calumnia-
ton and eOncatenate YOodOoism. The
parties to this extraordinary episode
were the state VS.. Mrs. Fannie Ander-
son, nee Miss King. with Prof. B. A. J.
Nixon acting champion of the State,
to-gether with some dozen or so lady
and gentlemen witnesses. 1t may be
proper to observe just here that all the
above parties are cOlored except the
State. The facts in the case were:
Prof. Nixon loaned the widow Ander-
son his piano some time last year, and
he was to have it on call. He called for
it last week, but the widow refused to
surrender it, and to forever prevent
him from reaping the benefit, attacke
it with meat-aXe and everlastingly
split it into demnitiOn hitterbits, and
this Is why that she was arrested for
malicious mischief and held to answer
last Friday morning before his honor
w. +. Alexander, Esq, prosecuted by
Mr.. EFT. Taliaferro and defended by Mr..
n. Smithscn. A large crowd witnessed
the proceedings.
The case begun, the attorneys waived
the rule so that the witnesses could
hear each other and all tell the same
story. Nixon certified that he gave $I5
tor the piano, that he and the widow
were attending Fisk University togeth-
er, that they were rather intimate, that
he loaned her the piano at her earnest
solicitation, that he sent it to her in
letter, that he called for it the other
day and found it demolished and I'M
done. He said he made love 70 all the
maidens, that he didn't wish to marry,
that he had never asked the widow to
marry him, and that he would not mar
ry her because she was q widow and
was older than him.
All the witnesses on either side testi-
ned in matter and form thusly: Y.
The counsel then real various letters of
the parties to each other, and then af-
ter butting and rebutting a while to
prove that all the witnesses were pre-
varicators, argued the case in their pc
culiar and able styles, and submitted it
TO his honor. who before rendering
judgement submitted that the case
should be compromised; and thus it is
forever taken out of court, and the Jour
nails OF the country will not have to di-
vide space with it-and the morals of
the age a.e spared a terrible infection.
But that the world may profit by its
teachings, since it has been snatched
from public gaze just as people were
learning to love its thrilling peculiari-
ties, we append a few minor points and
differences. The letters of Nixon, the
suave lady-killer, to his fair widow
were laden with perfume of the most
delicate love, and his pen breathed an
affection which classed it among the
best brands of pens. His honor was
assured that the lass thus impaled upon
the horn of blighted affection was wont
to whisper in prosecutors ear the ten
derest epithets of devotion, and she had
frequently beseeched him to marry her.
Until recently, life had no charms for
one that sprang not from the others pres
ence, and the inOrdinate craving for ed
ucation only prevented them from in
termingling. They had, indeed, hitched
on to the car of love, and were only
waiting for Point COnnubial to heave in
sight, when they shall have learned all
the fOllies and wisdom contained in
books; but the piano was the tongue
by which they pulled the car, and when
that snapped the load of love in the car
went Off into thin air. (This latter
proposition is untrue when applied to
guns that snap, but we cannot be held
responsible for anything startling in
the strange episode we are chronicling.)
We might remark here that If we were
$50 piano and anybody was so I'M
mitigated curmudgeon as to imagine
that they could get music out of us,
NTn9n and hnraf al -
| it killed all the cattle in the country.
Besides these loving, labyrinthian, las
cerating, lambert, languishing, lassitu
dinous, Auditory libidinous, lavender
loaded letters, Prof. Nixon kept a diary,
from which he would refresh his mem
DRY ever and anon in a refreshing man
ner. The defense wondered how a
man of such susceptible sensibilities
could find it in his heart to prosecute
damsel for whom it appeared he enter
tanned such cosuming affections, but
this was met by the prosecutor with
the assertion that his affections were
suffered so long to burn that they were
now entirely communicative he felt
nothing but respect for his old flame !;
and in the case now pending between
them, stern Justice compelled him to
adopt the sage Shakesperian adage, that
che would kill anybOdy's sheep that
! tried TO bite him." We might go on in
finitely about these things, for these
letters were prolific of stirring reveal
ments in the matter of love, and that
diarree could be forced to emit a pile
of vivid, limpid learning, but we must
tear Ourself from the subject. We will
say, however, that If there is one thing
that commends person to our esteem
more than another It is that spirit
which would prompt one to utterly an
initiate and smite into smithereens all
SIS pianos that had escaped somebody
else's meat-axe. Further, If any person
ever attempts to lend us a SIS piano
we'll cram it down his throat so far
that all the love-letters and diarree's in
the country won y helm him