The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1877-10-24
A Sad Story.

II was a sad but dramatic scene that
was enacted, on Friday last, when
VIM. c. Gilman walked into the Court
of General Sessions in New York and
plead guilty to the crime of forgery.
The dispatches say that the officers of
the court were affected unto tears at
the melancholy recital of the prisoners
confession, in which he described the
gradual process of his temptation and
final ruin. 1t is not at all surprising
that they were, for judges and minis
tiers of justice have no exemption from
the human feelings of pity and COM
miseration, and the story of Gilman's
fall, as told By himself, was most
woful one.
Here was an aged man who had,
through a long life, enjoyed the repute
of an honest and upright man. He
was neither prohigate nor a debau-
chez, gambler nor a parasite, but a
worker and toiler, living by his own
industry and thrift, and contributing
his share to the aggregate of human
labor and endeavor about him. He
made bad investments by which he lost
all the honest earnings of years of
thrift and prudence. There we're lying
in his hands, idle and unemployed,
funds belonging to other parties, and
he sought to save himself and recover
from his misfortunes by betraying a
trust and using these moneys that had
been entrusted to him. This was the
critical moment in his life, the hour of
his first temptation and concession.
Here it was that the evil spirit made
its subtlest appeals and brought into
play it's most seductive arts. It is not
hard to imagine the alluring hopes, the
paltry Qualifications this Mephistophe-
les whispered in bis ear, Turing him by
degrees from his honest purposes,
pleading all manner of excavations
and appealing to every weakness of
his poor human nature, till at last the
small still voice of conscience was
hushed in his heart. These trust
funds were to him that costlier casket
of "ebony, brimful of pretty things
which Margaret found in her press.
When he overcame lis scruples and
yielded to the temptation their misap-
preparation held out to him, he took
the first step in that downward course
that leads by such broad ways and
easy stages to Avernus. The en-.
croachments upon the funds entrusted
to him, he says, began years ago, and
grew gradually and insensibly to such
magnitude that he lost all hope of ever
meeting his deficiencies. Times grew
worse instead of better, and he grad
ually drifted into a sea of troubles, un-
til at length, under the pressure of ad-
versity, he was driven to forgery.
Bliudly hoping that the next step
would extricate him he plunged deep
er and deeper, until the deepest
depths were reached on Friday in his
sentence to the penitentiary as a COM
mon thief.
We might 60 on with the parallel
we have instituted between his temp
tation and undoing and that of Mar
garet, for his confession, freely given,
proves bis downfall to have been the
result of weakness rather than of
positive depravity, while it holds out
the assurance that "sAvEDw may be
written at last opposite the record of
his life.
We might show the gradual process
of his ruin, how he went on from his
first venial sin to crime, as the poor
girl yielded to the temptations that
beset her, till that sad night when she
laid her head upon the shoulder of
her lover and exclaimed:
"Would that I slept alone, and unob-
served,
I'd leave the bolt unsbut tonight"
This is not necessary, however, to
The impressing of the moral this story |
Of temptation and weakness teaches.
We scarcely think, either, that it can
be made more impressive than it is in
the simple way in which it is told,
even in the few short sentences of
the dispatch, which we have given
almost word for word. The story is
indeed a sad one, hut the moral must
not be overlooked in a sympathy that
IAN hardly be refused to the unhappy
nan whose downfall it tells. Let all
men read it and realize the danger of
The slightest deviation from strict hon.
'sty, the smallest violation of integ-
'ity, in their business affairs. Let it
IMPRESS upon them anew that the only
afety is in stern and reselute integ-
ity and honor, which temptation can
lot even approach. Verify, the de-