Litchfield enquirer., 1881-12-08
The Gfeat Trial.


 For one we are very glad that the trial of Guiteau is being conducted with extraordin- ary mildness towards the most aggravating of criminals We have nos sympathy with these who, for that cause find fauli with Inc Judge now conducting that trial. No doubt the prisoner is making himself intensely disacree- able, but people are apt to forget that his con duct is the most important indication of the Responsibility of the man for his criminal acts. His cross examination, disagreeable as the prisoner makes himself. has Ho doubt given tLe jury a better idea of his mental condition than any amount of outside evidence could have done. It demonstrates the perserseness, malignity, and egregious vanity of the man beyond question. Whether or not the relig- ious fanaticism he affects is false or genuine, no one can doubt that he thoroughly under stood that the act he planned was against the law of the land, and that it was punishable sincere in his claim of divine inspiration. That burning love of notoriety which has been the chief characteristic of his past career, is evidently the controlling feature of his pre- sent mental condition.
 That jury which has certainly not been selected for it's intelligence are now able to see the man Guiteau as he reallyis, we owe to the patience and forbearance of the judge and of the prosecuting authorities. Obviously the ordinary methods of preserving order in court would not apply to such case. Guiteau would lose nothing by being committed for contempt since the trial cannot go on in his absence, and the spectacle of a man with gag in his mouth undergoing trial for his life, is one that never was seen, and we hope never will be seen in an American court of justice In- deed few consider how necessary those appar- ently over-nioe provisions of our criminal law really are to the fair administration of justice. Gag Guiteau, and the example would be either execrated or initiated. And after the prisoner has been silenced, the next step would be to silence his counsel, for the lawyer has no sight to freedom of speech which is not c fortori the right of tue prlsouer if he chooses to exercise it. Harsh expedients are of all things most odious in a court of law, where, in theory at least, all are treated alike and we are very glad to believe that under DO provo cation will an American court resort to such expedients even against So hateful a prisoner as the muderer of President Garfield
 THE COUNTY SEAT.-We clip the following from the Winsted papers with reference to a change of county seat:
 A meeting of citizens was held in town hall on Saturday night to talk up county seat and take steps preparatory to securing the removal of the court house and jail from Litchteld Hill to Winsted, but though invitations were sent into the highways and byways only about twenty people assembled and of these twenty none had definite line of action to propose. The lawyers present were called on to say something and some of them did, but the meeting was dull and listless. and an attempt to appoint committee to have charge of the matter under consideration fell through be- cause one after another of the gentlemen nominal ed refused to act. Finally the meet ing adjourned without date. It does not ap- pear that the average man of Winsted cares continental about the county seat or the court house or even the jail, except to keep away from and out of them. Litchfield may draw on her nghtcap and settled herself to sleep se- cure in her treasures so far as the people of Winsted are concerned, but this does not alter the fact that Winchester and not Litchfield should be the shire town of Litchfield county Wi7asted Press.
 The qneston of removal of the County Seat from Litch6eld doesn't seem to awake interest to any great extent anywhere. The people of Litchteld decided it was better to have two democratic representatives in the legislature neither of them men of inauenee-than to send republican in the person of Ex.Gov. Andrews to fight the project of removal of the county seat. In Winchester, too, the place where it is most likely to come, if it is ever re- moved a call for a meeting to discuss the matter was attended but by handful of men, and of those present nobody cared enough about the matter to serve on committee to work the project through It is not unlikely that the psnple will nltimatelY wake up to the importance of movement which shall result in providing better location for county busi- ness than it at present has,-and judging from what we see there will be little opposition to a change on the part of Litchfeld people, ex- cept from a few men who dwell under the shadows of the Mansion House. - Winsted HerGld.
 We have that since the failure of the meet ing noticed above, petitions have been put in, to circulation in New Hartford and Barkham= sted for removal to Hartford county. A peti= tion is also out in Winsted for the call of a town meeting in that place to take action on the county seat matter. It is believed here, that these movements all have reference to plans that cannot oons oonstitutionaly before the legislature of 1882. A constitutional amendment adopted in 1928 provides that mo town shall be divided, nor shall the whole or part of our county be joined to the whole or part of another county. to form senatorial1 district" And it is further provided that ''said districts shall not be altered, nor the number of sepstDrs altered, except at any ses- sion of the General Assembly next after the completion Of Census of the United States, and then only aeee rding to the principles above prescribed" There was some question made in the Legislature of 1881 whether tha. was the session ''next after the completion of the censLs;" but 1t was finally determined that it was such session, and not only were the senatorial districts reapportioned but the number of senators was changed from 21 to 24. Such being the case, the legislature of 1889 canpot change the county lines except by transferring whole senatorial distrcts from one county to another. We Can hardly believe that any are so wild as to imagine that the legis- lature of '82 will transfer the whole of the
 
 The rumor that Jay Gould. Cyrus w. Field.