The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1882-01-25

praying in behalf of the prisoner, Porter
said Imagine what sort of scenes these
are that the counsel brings. Imagine the
aged mother of the President coming before
you draped in black. Imagine, according
to the old custom of the English laws, this
trial taking place in the presence of the
corpse of Garfield, mutilated by the muir
derer, wrapped in white linen through
which it was supposed that the mere ap-
proach of the murderer would start the
blood TO flow. Imagine Garfield lying
there cold in death, with the death sweat
not even yet dry, his brow with an express
sion of agony which this prisoner put
there, and with the covering assassin yon-
der shrinking from the approach of the
body, which was required by the old pro-
cess of bier rite Imagine the aged mother,
who had looked to that son to close her
eyes in death,
BowING WITH GRIEF AT THE COFFIN,
held with Mrs. Garfield whose lips were
the last that touched the cold lips of the
President, sitting at his feet in the dust
and ashes. If in such scene Mr.. Charles
FL. Reed stood up and said the woman who
seems to US to be kneeling only to God in
her sorrow is kneeling to God lin prayer
that this murderer shall be dealt with len
iently, what would you think of it?
1T is well for us all, gentlemen, that the
law does not call upon the jurors to leave
the immortal part of their nature-there
moral nature-outside of the court house
when they come to administer justice.
Although Garfield is dead the prisoner
speaks and has spoken on the witness
stand these words, which prove him to be
not only an assassin, but meditating the
deliberate, sane and responsible assassin
alton of the President. This man
SLAUGHTERED GARFIELD
as he would have slaughtered calf that
he wanted to eat, and having disposed of
him in that way, In comes his counsel and
charges with crime those who occupy too
lofty q position to notice the viper that
said it, and who would have degraded the
dignity of their Office by noticing it. This
man told you in his speech last Saturday
that Garfield might have died from any
other cause; that he might have trod upon
an orange peel and received an injury
which might have caused his death; or
that he might have trod upon a rattlesnake
whose fangs might have pierced his heel.
Was it an orange peel or rattlesnake that
made Arthur PRESIDENT"
sNeither," /" said the prisoner
Both, because the prisoner has shown
himself all his life to be as slippery as an
| orange peel and
| AS yENosIoUs AS RATTLE SNAKE,
| but in one respect meaner than rattle
snake, for this was q rattle snake without
rattle, but not without the fangs. and
| then he tells you he made Arthur Presi
dent He made him President in just the
same sense in which rattle snake might
have done it-by introducing into Presi
| dent Garfield's veins that venom which IN
eighty days would bring him down to the
grave.
''Mr Reed, as counsel for the prisoner
| has chosen pose here. As friend o1
| Garfield, take it for granted he has reae
! those
FIELD,
simple as childhood, guileless frank, sin
cere-hls dying utterances between Gul
teau's bullet and Garfields death. In ons
| of his waking hours on the 18th of July
/ the President asked Mrs. Edison where
Gulteau was. This was while he expected
to recover He then remarked he suppos
| ed the people would come to him somt
1 day with petition to pardon the man
and wondered what he should do in per
senal matter of life and death. Mrs. Edisol
| told him she should think he would dt
nothing at all, that he surely could not par
| don such q man and the President said
mo, I do not suppose can, and yet MIR
| Charles Reed, to whom the American ba
| is indebted for an introduction to its ranks
undertook to say the President regarded
him (Guiteau) as an irresponsible man
.sWas this man sane on the I'd of July
/ aver (what this proof indisputably estah
lished) that he never was insane, and Gel
tainly not on the I'd of July. On tina
point the principal claim OF the pflsone
and counsel is the strocity of this partlcu
liar act. I do not deny his claim of bein
THE MOST COLD FLOODED AND sAvAa
MURDERER
of the last 5000 years But he is nc
alone, as he will find when he comes
those realms where murderers are conslgt
ed.
MIR. Porter went on to review the prison
er's life of crime i'm which he include
! adultery.
!, Prisoner-"How many times have yo
been guilty of that? Look up your record
old man guess you are about as bad
Corkhill-'
Mr.. Porter referred to the prisoner
life In Washington, and asked: IVA
this temporary mania or diseased bral
which resulted in the murder for the bel
ent or the SIdfWafbS "a Shc ACPao4tSo
party?"
prisoner-"For the benefit of the Anne
| lean people; the removal was not mu
der. They are very well satisfied with
too"
Mr.. Porter Gentlemen, If / went \
| further, do you believe that this man
ri brain was diseased. deal with nothir
eIse now. Was his brain diseased, an
aid the disease come and 60 according
whether President Garfield went out aloI
or went out with his wife, or Went o.
with his children, or went out to the &c
d;er,s Home, or went to the railroad depo
Do ycu believe that the right remedy 7
II 4 diseased brain 10 to make six weeks pf
marathon for assassination, and that snoe
ing another man through the spine Ii
; cure for the disease? That is the case,
the prisoner makes it out !,
Prisoner-s.f I were Preslaent %
United States and ruled the Repupllc'
of party as Garfield had, ought to De sne
N That is my opinion about that ana II
= the opinion of great many people.
Porter went on criticizing the testlmoi
'e of Reed and North He said: 1t won
t. take thousands of Norths to make hl
, believe that Luther W Guiteau, that cali
quiet, religious man. ever said: Take
> knife and slay him like Abraham q
! Isaac"
a. tl,;e staono of parto,,. a ,-rv,,,,, ..v,t 4