The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1880-04-16
WASHINGTON LETTER.
Washington. D c. April 18th, 1850.
DISTINGUISHED DEFENDANTS. LAWYER
BELNA 4. LOCKWOOD As a PROS
ECUTOR.

DISTINGUISHED DEFENDANTS, LAWYER
BELvA A. LOCKWOOD As a PROS
ECUToR.
The sensations of the past week have been
legal rather than legislative. Two very dis
tinguished gentlemen, the Admiral of the
Navy and Senator Hill, of Georgia, have
appeared before the L. 5. Distrc, court as
defendants. Admiral Porter was charged
with diverting money due from the Govern
ment to clerk in his employ, or rather COM
pelling this clerk, through threats OF dis
charging him, to pay the money to the clerks
divorced wife. The plaintiff was non-,ui.-
ed, and will renew his claim in the courts of
New York.
The suit against Senator Hill has al
ready become Il celebrated case. The plain
tiff is Il woman sueing for seduction and the
support Of her child. Her lawyer is a woman
whom neither the polished paragraphs Of the
New York NatiOH nor the studied contempt
of the distinguished counsel who advocated
the cause of Mr.. Tiden before the Elec oral
Commission. can suppress. Mrs. Belva A
Lockwood is perhaps the most irrepressible
respectable woman of this wicked genera
ton, Mary WalNer and Susan b. Anthony
not excepted. She is Il very thorn in the
flesh, and lioness in the paths of masculine
trailty. She has no tears for an erring broth
er's shame. Great Ceasar what will become
of us i'll this phenomenal civilization? With
IL /, ,i,, a.,
of creation will be no more respectable than
the ladies of creation with whom they sin.
The tendency is to drive them arm in arm
into the demimonde. The stronger vessel
will be judged by the same code, moral, le-
gal and social, as the weaker vessel that he
tOws into troubled, muddy waters. This
is confession. But is it not justice?
The heavy, polished, and judicial Nation
criticized Mrs. Lockwood because she did
not abandon her client when she found there
was no money in the case, and when her
weak client was disposed to abandon herself,
IS, the Nation said male lawyer woulD
have done. And the Nation moraizes and
piques itself on the strength Of prophecy
that it had made This is realization of
the condition of things it had predicted
woman would bring into politics and into
the professions. Alas for the moral, alas
for the Nation!
| am not assuming the guilt of Senator
Hill; that is a question for the courts to de
eide, but neither the ability nor respectable
ity of the defendant and his counsel entitle
him to a favorable prejudgment by the press
before the evidence is all in. If Senator
Hill is innocent, it is deplorable that he has
been made to suffer- if he is guilty he
should meet the consequence like any other
man. Meanwhile Washington political So
| ciety viii be prodded into improved circum-
| spection by such suits as this, and political
| society here can carry Il good deal more cir
cumspection without the reproach OF auster-
| ity and Pdritanism.
After the nomination at Cincinnati there
will be, to far greater extent even than is
now the case, a squandering of money by
Democrats on trumpery political documents.
The mails from this city, New York and
other places will 90 loaded down with
speeches, statistics, prophecies and denun-
Citations, all of which will be expected to at
feet voters. They won't do it, Between
June when the nomination will be made
and November, there is no doubt that elo
'quent speakers will have their influence by
appeals from the stump, bat the speeches o
those same gentlemen put in the cold typ
of a pamphlet, will only kindle the morn
ing fire or be made useful for other non-po.
htical purposes in and around the voters
houses. They will not be read They vii
be sent by hundreds Of tons, but will hardl,
influence vote. The Democratic party, t
its shame be it said, is far behind the othe
great party in supporting the only thorough
~ effective medium of winning over votes
the newspaper. Yet the newspaper, goin
daily or weekly throughout the year to tn
voters home-not only during the immedi
ate excitement of the campaign, but also i
the intervening times when mems minds ar
2 undetermined-are left with half support
and money enough squaudered in other way
e to give Us better Democratic newspapt
e than is now in possession of either party
| do not advocate the payment of money
: political papers for any but Legitimate worI
but that kind of work, in the course of
, year, amounts in most cases to a sum whic
e would astonish any one but a newspap
, man.
IS OF the Presidential probabilities it may
said that in the past week Hancock has mac
n steady gains in the South and Pennsylvani
n and that both Governor Seymour and Pres
dent Tilden have by last apparently well al
e thenticated reports intimated that thev wou
not under any circumstances accept non
, nation Messrs. Thurman and Hendricks, al
v their friends, are maintaining, as they
u from the first, what suppose may be called
dgnihed reticence. OF the prominent Repu
. lican candidates there seems to he bat one
! Grant--who has any prospect of the nomin
ton, The actual strength of Senator Blai
is that IL, strength that can be made avail
BILE in the Chicago Convention seems to
confined to very few States. sherman, e
u cept by the withdrawal of one OF the othel
{ seems to be as much out of the fight as
man never thought of in connection with
HILToN.