The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1875-07-07
HAWAIIAN GAZETTE
AN INDEPENDENT JOURNAL,
DEVOTED TO HAWAIIAN PROGRESS.
The Brooklyn Trial.

Hafpers weekly Tor June D. Whlcn con-
tains the best review of this remarkable
trial that has yet appeared in print;
1.-TWO aspects of the case which we have
passed over in silence have occupied a
great proportion of the time of the judge,
jury, and the opposing counsel. These
are Mr.. Beecher's alleged confessions, YER
bal and written. We have passed them
by because the historian must necessarily
dismiss them in few words. Messrs
Moulton and Tilton swear to repeated con-
fessions of adultery made by Mr. Beecher
in language so grossly vulgar that we
shall not repeat it here. Mr.. Beecher ex-
plicitly and Indignantly denies the Ian
guage attributed to him. Charity can
not impute this conflict OF testimony to
misapprehension, nor all of it to even an
intentional misconstruction. Either Mr.
Beecher is liar and perurer, or Messrs.
Moulton and Tilton are. That the lat
ter were liars they now frankly confess !;
for that they both again and again assert
ed Mr. Beecher's innocence of the crime
now charged againt him is testified to by
many witnesses, and acknowledged, as in
deed it could not be denied by them
selves. That the former has ever varied
from the truth there is no evidence but
theirs except the evidence of Mrs. Moul-
ton.
She swears to confession by Mr. Beech
er not less shamelessly explicit. She fixes
the date of this interview by letter;
and it has been proved by the testimony
of several Independent and disinterested
witnesses that Mr.. Beecher was not and
could not have been with her at the time
scHich she has specified, and he denies that
the confession thus imputed to him was
ever uttered to her at any time. Denied
no less vigorously than the other COMES
sions, with them it must stand or fall.
The letters of Mr.. Beecher abound in
expressions some of them eloquent in their
pathos of remorse. The authorship of
these letters, except that penned by Mr..
Moulton on January l, 1871, is not in dis
pute. Their analysis would transcend our
limits. 1t must suffice to say that Mr..
Beecher in a protracted examination went
over them one by one, and essayed to ex-
plain every word and phrase which they
contained. The reader who, from the his
tory of the case,' believes Mr.. Beecher
guilty of the crime attributed to him will,
of course, interpret these letters in the
light of that conclusion; but he who thinks
his innocence consonant with the indispu-
table facts of the case, will find no diff
Guilty in comprehending his poignant re-
morse, when made to believe that he had
unwittingly suffered wife to transfer to
himself her affections, had unconsciously
broken up household which he loved
and in which he had found almost second
home, and had, by harboring suspicious
which he was subsequently induced to be-
lieve unjust, aided to despoil and destroy
young man of noble possibilities, whom
he regarded almost as an adopted son.
For the same reason that we have not at
tempted to analyze Mr.. Beecher's cores
pondence we have not referred to that of
Mr. Tilton and Mr.. Moulton. If the for
mer are more easily reconcilable with the
theory of Mr.. Beecher's guilt, the latter
are not easily reconcilable with any other
theory than that of his innocence.
Thus far we have endeavored simply to
tell the story of the case without inter
jecting into the narrative our own per-
sOnal sympathies, prejudices, or judg-
ment. Those sympathies are nevertheless
very strong, that judgment is very clear.
Under careful analysis the evidence
against MIR. Beecher utterly fails. 1t
would not suffice against man much less
strongly intrenched in public esteem than
he: against his pure life and noble charac-
ter it breaks in vain, as the foam of the an
CRY ocean against the cliff which it can
obscure but cannot destroy. The case is
one ofconspiracy against a good and great,
though careless, man, but conspiracy
which grew rather than was formed,
which was the natural product of the jeal-
ousy of self-conceit rather than the delib-
ate continuance of greed. On the one side
is man the greatness of whose heart and
the credulIty of whose sympathies are at
once his genius and his weakness; on the
other is man whose insane jealousy is
the natural though deadly fruit of an in
sane self-conceit, imbittered by a spirit of
personal and fell revenge He is aided
unconsciously by the idolatrous affection
and the too implicit obedience of weak,
morbid, and suffering wife, and by the
shrewd devices Of "heathen" " friends
The key to the comprehension of this
whole case is Mr.. Tilton's frank declare
ton, l resolved to smite Mr.. Beecher to
the heart" The arrow was we'll fashioned,
the bow well bent, but the destroyer has
failed of his purpose; and when posterity,
wiser than we, reads the history of this
ooua - mill bopnr 1or, 4Io, al