Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-08-21
WEDNESDAY,, AUGUST eI, 1850.
Court Scandals-Infamtes of the
Divorce Practice.

prudence was almost without a blot.
Whether the decisions of the innumer-
able legal tribunals were characterized
by more or less learning, an atmosphere
of integrity always exhaled from the
bench. The most rigid moralist can par
don lack of erudition where there is an
evident intent to do right.
1t was during the Tweed regime in
New York that the most violent de-
psrtures were taken from the traditional
character Of American judges. The
typical representatives OF the new and
corrupt era in American jurisprudence
were Barnard and Cardozo. They were
the men who made possible the infamies
perpetrated by Fiske and Gould in their
Rob Roy railway manipulations, by
which the foreign shareholders were
feeced numerically. The savor of their
judicial dishonesty and slavish subserv-
ience to capitalists has left malodor
only less infa nous than that of Jeffries
himself.
The country was long time in recov-
ering from the shock arising from the in
famous prostitution of the judicial ermi ne
in New York in 1S71-72. Since that time
there have been two grievous scandals in
courts of great national dignity, and Pres
ident Grant was instrumental in both of
them. When Chief Justice Chase, in Bron-
con vs Rodes, decided-himself the au-
thor of the greenback act-that green
backs were nconstitutional-the capi-
talists of the United States were in
great CONSERVATION. Amongst others,
the controllers of the Pennsyl-
vania railway were obliged to pay
off large quantities of their bonds and
the accrued interest. They had sold
these bonds for gold, and they wanted
to pay both bonds and interest in green
backs. which were then at discount of
about thirty per cent. Instantly Col.
Tom Scott, the President of the Pennsyl-
vania Railway Company, one of the
most powerful Republican politicians
that ever figured in this country, decided
that the Supreme Court of the United
States must be reconstructed. 1t was
decided to add two judges to the number
which had rendered the decision in
Bronson v. Rodes, law to that end was
promptly passed by a Republican Con-
gress subservient to Scott and the money
power; and, responsive to the same die.
tation which had been effectual with the
Republican Congress-, the Republi-
can President, Grant, appointed
to those positions Judge Strong,
who was the attorney of the
Pennsylvania Railway in Philadelphia,
and Judge Bradley, who was the at
torney for the same powerful corporation
in Camden, New Jersey.
1t is somewhat significant that one of
these judges. Bradley, appointed at the
dictation of corporate power, was in
cluded in the Eight to Seven who sat
on the Presidential Commission which
seated the fraudulent President Hayes
in the White House, in 1877.
OF late there have not been any very
violent Court scandals in the United
States. The most offensive develop
ments have rather been in the way
courts have been multiplied, in the in
crease of the onerous expense of all
kinds of service of process and in the in
credible rate at which the encourage of
the courts has grown. The man is now
alive who, if this thing continues, will
live to see judge aud couple of bailiffs
for every hundred of our population.
But the other day, in the city of New
York, the prime judicial scandal of the
day was consummated. One Flack,
lately County Clerk of New York City
and county, now the Sheriff of New York
City and county, and Grand Sachem of
Tammsny Hall-a man we'll up in years
and with son twenty-three or four years
of age-concluded that the wife of his |
youth and maturity and the mother of
his children was not ss good as pam.
pered harlot whom he had been main
tanning for years, and whom he desired |
to marry. He goes to one Judge Book
must be a stsving idiot as |
well as an infamous pander--and presto |
before you could say Jack Robinson,
as it were, using her own degenerate son
as an accomplice-Mrs. Flack found her.
self divorced woman, without cent
for maintenance, although her hus-
band was worth q million dollars.
The first intimation that poor Mrs. Flack |
had of the whole business, her own son
by Flack having been employed to get
her to sign the papers used in the pro-
ceedings, Of whose contents she knew
was the announcement in the
public press, that she had been formally d.
vorced and was thrown on the cold char
ity of the world.
In this case things did not work ex-
actly as it was thought by the conspira-
tors that they would. The decree of di-
vorce has been annulled. Flack has
been expelled from Tammany Hall, and
g being cut by his acquaintance, while
he compliant and corrupt Judge Book
Itaver, is looking for some hole to crawl
nto. Both the infamous Judge and his