New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1876-03-03
MP R0KEN At TIE BAR.


inc his head and muttering unintelligible
things over the Beecher scandal so long that
mystery has become second nature to him,
and the probability is that nothing short of the
rack and thumbscrew will ever make HIM tell
how much or how little he knows. He is mis-
cradle unless somebody is clamoring for his
secret. and he would be doubly miserable II
he ever got rid of it. In every partial or pre-
tended disclosure that he has thus far made
he has kept back the essential facts, and
he declared the other night at Plymouth
Church that nothing should ever. induce
him to tell enough of what he knew to enable
the persons compromised by his statements to
put the truth of his story to the test. MIR.
Bowen stands now in false position Tech
nIcally he is on his defense at the bar OF the
church, charged with slandering his pastor.
Really, he is the acCuser, denouncing Henry
Ward Beecher at the bar Of public opinion.
II ls unfortunate that he should appear in two
characters, for he is enabled to claim the priv
ileges of both without accepting the RESPONSE
bilities of either. He offers to show the church
that he had reasons for believing MIR. Beecher
guilty, but he refuses to put them in such
form that Mr. Beecher or the church can meet
disprove them.
Mr. Bowen declares that lie received at va
rious times the confessions Of various women
that they had been criminally intimate with
Mr.. Beecher These confessions he received
of course under the most solemn obligation OF
secrecy which a gentleman can incur. But,
said he, will violate that ObGgation-just
little. will give their names to committee
of three. II does not seem to have oc-
CURED to any of the persons concerned
in the negotiations that it would be an
unpardonable baseness to give them even
TO a committee of one. When a gentleman
accepts confidence such as Mr. Bowen tells
us was repOsed in him he guards it with his life.
He can never betray it,, either for his own
vindicatiOn or the condemnation OF another.
He is eternally disgraced if he so much as
whispers the secret in the privacy of his own
family.
But his willingness to give up tho names to
a committee of the church-provided the deed
can be done behind the DOORS not the most
extraordinary part of his proposal. de insists
that no woman whom he duplicates shall
have the privilege of confronting and con-
tradicting him. He will destroy them; but he
must do it in the dark he will not face the
victims of the outrage. The church required
that any woman whom he might accuse of sin
should be allowed to come before the COM
mittee, either in person or by representative,
and show if she could that the accusation was
unjust and when Mr.. Bowen refused this con-
dition the church rejected his proposition
altogether 1t could not decently have done
otherwise. No civilized tribunal condemns I'M
heard.
The example of Plymouth Church in dealing
with Mr.. BOwen's plan for dishOnoring himself
ought to be followed by the public in consid-
ering his published statement. 1t will not be
followed, because charges such as he repeats
always make an impression upon some Of
those who hear them but the more the SEN
sible and decorOus portion of the community
reflect upon the ease the more indignant will
they be at this giving forth of an accusation
which there is no means of testing, this publi-
cation of an indictment which is never to be
| tried,