Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1882-01-26
zaneaster fntfIIige1cer
Tive POpular Verdiets.

THURSDAY EVENING, JAN. 40. 1851.
TIVE Popular Verdiets.
The public generally and the news
papers, without notable exception, ap-
prove two verdicts rendered yesterday
with regard to matters that have re-
Gently occupied a very large share Of
public attention.
In the case of Guiteau the speculations
as to the likelihood Of one "cranky y
juryman holding out for the acquittal of
the defendant on the ground of insanity
we're set at rest by the promptness with
which the verdict was rendered, which
shows, too, that in all probability the
jurymen had long ago made up their
minds. if they did not go into the box
with a strong prepossession in the direc-
tion in which their verdict has been rem
dered 1t will probably now be relief
to those people who have berated Judge
Cox so much to know that the liberty he
has accorded the prisoner will make it
the more unlikely that he gets II new
trial and that the country will be sub
jected to the agony Of hearing this
dreary case again. We have always
fancied that it would he more creditable
to the country that the assassin of its
president should be adjudged mailman
than sane and it would certainly be
more gratifying to us as people, and to
our political system, that the murderer
of the chief magistrate was fanatic
fool than that his bloody deed was the re-
suit of rational calculation that his
faction Of the Republican party would
profit by the taking off of man who
had antagOniZed it and the accession Of
one who was in sympathy with it. The
jury promptly declare the prisoner to
have been of sound and reasoning mind
when he shot the late president so that
Arthur could he president and the Stall
wart faction dominant. Whatever profit
the party has from its reunion by this
means, and whatever benefit accrues to
the Conkiing-Arthur faction they owe to
the foresight of Guileau. When the
blood of Mr.. Lincoln was shed by the
murderOus hand of Booth it was Strenu-
Ously sought to arraign whole section
of the country if not an entire political
party for it. 1t soon become plain that
in the presidents melancholy death the
South lost good friend, the people who
had gone down in battle were bereft of
the hand which would have poured oil
into their wounds, and that only the re.
veEgeful feelings of a desperate
fanatic had inspired the deed. But
all that Guiteau says he aimed
at securing has come. to pass,
ani in the Stalwart revel over the distri-
button of the spoils it can hardly be for.
gotten, in the light of this verdict, whose
mind conceived this result and whose
hand realized it.
Wide-leaching, as the verdict of the
coroner's jury investigating the Spuyten
Duyvil horror is, it scarcely duplicates
any more persons in the responsibility
for that accident than the public had al
ready learned to hold accountable for it. |
The part that whisky played i'm the ac-
cident is only limited at in the con-
demnation of free passes and::free legisla-
tive excursions for even had the train
been stopped as it was and where it was
a proper care by the trainmen could have
the slaughter. They were cul-
DablV careless and they must he held |
responsible-th persons in
charge and the superior Off
GERS who let the management of their
road get into suca condition that what
happened to this train might have oc-
anrred to any other. The example of
she conviction of a railway superinten-
lent for the loss of life resulting from
his inefficiency will be salutary.