The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1879-08-19
(DNkLING- SPRAGCE.

III =" W. hNSS I"il"IoCIJ IC1IhIlICu
from making any comment OH this most UNI
fortunate affair, feeling confident that more
light than was afforded by the earlier des-
patches would get be thrown upon it. There
are always two s:les to Il question; every case
has its prosecutions, its defense. In this par
ticular case, inas,nucl as, previous to the re-
ceipt Of to-dav's dispatches. we had heard
only one side, common love Of fair play, to
say nothing Of c!,ivalric regard for a fair lady's
good name, should have induced a general
suspension Of Judgment until the other side
had olealed. To-day, in the dispatches
given in another column, we are favored with
a portion of the defense, il small portion, per-
haps, but sufficient We think to admit of all
intelligent verdict being rendered by any
juror unbiased by partisan feeling.
What a picture is briefly sketclied in that
dispatch. 1t was known before that Sprasle
was a man of coarse tastes and feelings and
without even the merit of that veneerine
Of refinement which comes from education
to establish any bond of sympathy between
him and the refined, intellectual woman,
who, in u omen of g~irlish i~ntatuation, had
linked her fortunes with his. Pegasus and
his yoke-tellow were not a more ill-lnated
pair. This much was known long ago, and
of course it was recognized as only natural
that the mlsm&ted wife should look else " here
for the appreciation she failed to find at
home. Unless she was to remain i'm intel
lectual isolation throughout her whole life
she was compelled to look abroad for the
intellectual cotnpanionsllip which she had
failed to find in her husband. She did thus
look abroad and it soon become known first.
that a sympathetic friend had been found in
the person Of Senator Conkling whose bril-
liant intellect could not fail to recommend
to the regard of such a woman, and,
secondly, that %Sprague's coarse nature had
placed the lowest possible interpretation
upon the relation which, as he perceived,
was existing between his wife and the New
York Senator.
Was he right? Were his suspiqions we'll
founded? These questions we consider fair
ly answered in the negative bv Sprague's own
~o SoS u III Vo-uAy . CClCNCdnlSs
When we learn that Sprague, in addition to
his natural coarseness, is e drunkard; when
we read Of his holding a trembling, covering
woman under range Of a loaded pistol, AID
that woman his wife !; when we hear lis loud
mouthed rrating about Il dishonor which a
manly man would have punished with the
silence Of death, VIC canno but consider the
whole story of his "wpongs' as the fabrica-
tions Of & liquor-craZed brain, akin to his
absurd charge that his wife had poisoned the
mind ofker boy against the father through,
the agency ct the boys tutor. We have 4
picture Of a high-minded and hish-spi,ited
woman united to an ignorant, vulgar drunk.
ard, conditions in which the absence of zeal
ousy on his part wol,ld be little short of the
so to Jealousy we way credit the
entire story. This decision is confirmed, il il
needs confirmation, by the action of Mrs.
TO set out after n%isl,ttall to-
ward the home in which she feared for he,
life, to do this ratherfthan to separate from her
children was not the tinu of Il faith!ess
wife.
For the sake of our own good opinion Of the
race we very much regret to see that politics
have had 4 great deal to do with the opinions
formed I" the matter. Conkling is IL pulni-
Republican. Toe a,iany Democrats, We
Tear have had only that one fact in mind in
TO themselves y verdict. But we
shouad he MEN first, then Democrats or Re
DllblicaoS afterwards Whom th. .h,,,.t,,, 80
1 wife. a mother is at stake, political ~.listinc-
ions may we'll be left out Of view.