Bozeman avant courier. [volume] (Bozeman, Mont.) 1872-1882, 1877-11-08
tom. PhINES LIFE AND DEATH.
IN Y. Observer, Sept. 9th, ls77. ]


We lave received copy of a printed
letter. addressed 'To the editor of tht
few York Obserrcr." 81 gned Il. G.. Inger
soil, Colonel Robert G. Ingcrsoll. we pre-
sumc). referring to paragraph published
some weeks since in the Observer. in whic!
we offered to produce the evidence that
Tom Paine died drunken. cowardly and
bPastly death" THIS letter. after COM
plaining in an exaggerated manner that
Paine and Voltaire have been grossly SIAN
dered, and that ''for many years religious
journals and ministers have been circulat-
ing certain pretended accounts Of the
frightful agonies endured by Paine and
Voltairc when dying" etc., proposes TO
establish Court Of Arbitration to con-
slider certain proposition in regard to the
deaths OF Paine and Voltaire. The letter
further proposes that we shall have ninety
days in which to collect and present the
testimony in the affirmative of these pro-
positions: the respondent to have ninety
days to present the evidence on the other
side; the affirmative then to have thirty days
more for producing further testimony ::
the case then to be argued before this
Court, whose decision shall be final as to
us.
As not one of the afIirmations. in the
form stated in this letter. was confirmed in
the oder that we made. we have no Occa-
sion TO substantiate them. But we are
prepared to produce the evidence of the
truth of our own statement, and even to
60 farther; to show not only THAT Tom
Paine died drunken, cowardly and beastly
death" but that for many years previous,
and up to that event, he lived drunken
and beastly life.
And we are the more impelled to do this
because we have received, within the last
few months, numerous letters asking infor-
nation and facts in regard to the character
and habits of Paine. These letters have
come chiefly from the West, where infidels
appear to be making a desperate effort to
rescue the name from the infamy into
which it had sunk long before he died.
The word beastly. SO often applied to
Paine. though far from being elegant, most
fifty expresses his real character. So de-
bauched, degraded and filthy had he be-
come before his death, that he was tit
companion only for 1.-The beasts that per-
lsh, and he Was, in consequence, absolute
ly excluded from all decent society. even
from that of respectable infidels.
We have in Our possession abundant tes-
timony to the facts in the case, and chiefly
from our own correspondents. The direct
tes,imony we preface v tn an extract from
i sketch of the lite OF Paine, in volume
entitled, Our Country 4len," by b. J. Los
sing, Esq. ire well-hnown historian. A
portion OF iilis s.letc.. we published in the
Observer of June Il, IS55, in which Mr..
LOSING says:
'.In ls02 he (Paine) returned to America
and resided a part of the time upon farm
at New Rochelle, presented to him BY the
State of New York for his Revolutionary
services. Paine became very intemperate,
and fell low in the social scale, not only on
account of his beastly habits, but because
OF his blasphemous TRADE against Chris
tianity."
In the year 1851 Grant Thornburn, of
this city. who was personally and well &C
uuainted with the man of whom he wrote,
furnished for the New York Observer two
articles "Reminiscences of Tom Paine,"
rom which We make some extracts. Grant
who was the reputed hero of
Galt's '.Lawrie Todd, was personally and
we'll known to hundreds Of persons still !