Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1880-04-10
JUDGE PEARRE-A POST MORTE.M
TALK.

peuleuVJ has bdFeu ulu lrou cIohn-
ing disaster. He hasnot lost position,
but prestige sgone. The public con-
science has been stunned, and justice,
the enthroned majesty of law, looks
wistfully around for some plausible
excuse for this last compromise with
policy. The prodigious effort to stop
this side of the high court of impeach-
ment, the Senate-the only proper
tribunal-was successful; hence, the
result is in no sense the expression of
final adjudisature, though such has
been palmed off on public supposed
to be gullible.
In pursuing this autopsy we have
chiefly at heart the well-being Of liv-
ing society, of which our subject is an
honored member, and of whose morals
he has been both custodian and censor.
We find a repetition of history, for
there is nothing new under the sun, "
and it is our care and duty, if we can,
to seize and master the lessons dis
closed. We are to remember that
our subject fell by his own hand, and
the breath of his own lips slew him.
1t is futile to ascribe all the antago-
nisms which lately beset him to the
malignity of enemies, without admit
ting, as implied by his own confession,
that he did much to provoke it. But
truly good and great men are wholly
beyond the reach and harm of little
people, for little people never yet de-
stroysd a truly great man. The pub
lie closes in around its chosen ones
like Spartan guard in this case it
seemed to pass by largely on the other
side.
Time was, however, when sincerity
and, later on, penitence and humility
would have stayed the scandal and
spared the grief of gentle and innocent
ones. He might have faded out of
sight into sorrowful but not ignoble
obscurity, and waited with the pa
thence of hope the gentlsr judgm snt of
coming generations. But he was pit
iless toward himself, and in the frenzy
of his nameless transgressions dared
the mortal peril of an inadequate trial.
Whatever the value of the verdict,
the people know and feel that great
presence has gone out from them, and
that little remains beyond a Swallowed
name. To them the posthumous ut
terances of desecrated bench will be
CHASTITY "reminiscences of days when
profanity and pollution were topics of
current gossip and issues in trial
involving Judicial integrity.
Far.seeing artists in the temperate
analysis of this subject and his cause
will not fail to discover an ungainly
satyr leering over his ermined shout
ders, and the furry ears of a Donatello
peeping from under his venerable
locks. So marked was this in life that
his monotones upon the bench were
smeared with proclamation, and his
private conduct stained through and
through with the unconscious crimson
of sheer animalism.
We grieve to write thus. But Ma
caulay once warned the intellectual
world that while he lived impure lit
erature should not go unohallenged,
and, fearless Of power, place and
money, he kept his word to the last.
Were he here in the place of the press
of this county, in full view of this
bedraggled ermine-far more deplo-
rable than prostituted literature
who will say that his invincible rhet-
ORIG would not blaze with indignation
at the hideous spectacle of a mutilated
torso of justice dealing judgment to
the people {?
But men are found who, blinded by
the glamour of his position, awed by
his great ability, or diseased with
funkeyism, seem unconscious Of the
profound tragedy which entombs him.
They appear not to "know where he
was laid" They go to the extremity
of darkly prophesying that huge
Ophiuchus will yet upon his exalted
place shake from his horrid hair ter
ror and desolation upon his enemies !
How vainl Of all men least able
to vsngefully reward his friends or
punish his foes, this man is among the
foremost. No evangel's shield pro-
tects, or mailed armor encases his ju-
dicial character. The same quivering
lances which have pierced him
through are still poised, and the gilt
tering steel may penetrate again his