Press and daily Dakotaian. (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1880-1889, 1880-09-13
Deadwood Pioneer.

SO"HoA D"hah NeDukcs HIS Newspaper
Brethren in Words Which Should Reach
Their Obdurate Hearts.
Deadwood Pioneer.
We cannot understand the almost say
age glOating OF some of our contempora-
ries over the case of r. o. Adams. To
us there is something sad in the fall of
any man or woman that ever wore Gods
image. and there is something positively
tiendish in n disposition to rejoice over
it.
The Adams case is peculiarly pitiable.
A young man of more than ordinary nat
ural abilities and graceful address. I'm
pulsive, generous and free handed to a
fault. Appointed by the government to
one OF the most responsible and lucrative
positions in our territory. Backed by
devoted friends, and furnished with
money to carry out all his enterprises.
With prospects as fair and bright, but
two short years ago, as any young man
who ever came, or ever will come, to Da-
kota. - y
To-day, fallen, disgraced, blasted in
fortune and fame, fugitive from the
officers of the law-with reward set
upon his head, and advertised in his own
paper, flying to the oblivion of foreign
land to escape the ignominy of peniten-
tiary stripes and lashes and of dungeon
cells. Ht
lfiAnd there is sadder side to the pic
ture. In his darkcned and desolate lit
tie home on one of our lovliest mountain
sides, his beautiful and devoted young
wife, maddened with grief and anxiety,
waits in agonizing suspense, clutches her
heart to stay its wild throbbings, as she
listens for tidings of him to whom, in all
his depth of ruin,she still clings with the
yearning, quenchless devotion of a true,
loving woman.
/ Are these things to rejoice at, to exult
over? Can anything in the shape of a
man glory over such downfall, over a
ruin SO piteous? Is it not enough to
move even the most stolid and brutal to
sympathy and regret?
God knows the writer of this article
has as little reason as any one to think
or speak we'll of Dick Adams, to champi-
on or defend him, for in proportion to
his ability to lose no one has lost more
BY his acquaintance and association with
him: but it does not seem christian, it
does not seem manly, it does not seem
human, to stand by and witness all the
thoughtlessness-not to characterize it
more strongly-all the needless chuck.
ling and iubilating over this sadest o1
all cases that have ever occurred in our
Golden Hills, without uttering word OF
protest.
Besides, we think there is plea to be
made for him that will go far to palliate
his otfenses, far to mitigate the severity
OF the popular judgment upon him. We
seriously doubt his sanity, and the ex-
preston is not a new one. Hi. career
last winter was utterly inconsistent with
sound reason. We need not enter into
details; all the community knows the
history of those months of mad and
shameful debaucheries, of which, among
many others who spoke of them, SETH
Bullock once said: "There is no way to
account for his conduct except on the
ground that he is temporarily insane
Hon. Barney Caulfeld, his council
tells that he has often been compelled Il
doubt his sanity by the wild and inco
herent character of his statements tc
him on matters of the gravcst import
ance to himself.
And, not to mention a score of othc,
circumstances all pointing in the direc
ton, his course since his escape from Gus
tody has been that Of a hopeless mad
man. That man, fleeing Tor his life
with the clang of the penitentiarv doors
IN his ears, should have taken the mosi
travelled road in the territory, wherfi
every man he meets knows him, and
should saunter along on fine horse
eighteen or twenty miles day, stopping
ut the stage stations at night, tetline
cooks, hostlers, stage drivers and every:
body else he encounters who he is. what
he is doing and what route he is going
literally blazing his track and ''shinino
his own eyes" for two hundred miles-is
certainly the very height of madness. NJ
sane man could act in 80 insane a man.
ner. None but u lunatic could play the
lunatic to such perfection. We honestly
believe Dick Adamsis insane.