The Press., 1890-03-20

THERE is work being done for the pardon of MT. Hicks. The present theory is that his acts were in part, 1t is claimed in whole, the result of an abnormal condition of mind It is known to MT. Hicks friends that from the start he has been apparently unconscious of the extent of his misdoings. He has in- variably spoken of s'his misfortunes," and never regarded himself US criminal. This has excited feeling against him, but his coun- sel and many medical men and friends regard it as rather evidence of an unbalanced mind which has come from years of anxiety and straining after 8 method of egress from a labyrinth of financial complications which in- volved him almost at the outset of manhood. He became cashier of the Stafford National Bank in his 21st year actually @ minor at the time, and quickly after assumed as his own 8 quantity of doubtful paper, for the possession of which by the bank he felt re, sponsible. He ought not to have been per. mitted to have thus relieved the bank from what would have been comparatively trivial loss. The rest of the story is easily seen. Those people who were best acquainted there. with are the most inclined to sympathy with the prisoner. Senator Platt, in behalf oi friends, has made to the president a statement in which he narrates the history of Mir. Hicks career, beginning with the affairs of the Yer. mont lumber company in it's connection with the bank, and endeavoring to show that all oi MT. Hicks speculative ventures were made, not to enrich himself, but to extricate the bank from the dificultities for which he was not responsible, at the same time preserving his own reputation as bank official and man of business. "It is this belief," says the sen. tor, (which is now making the community not only lenient but desirous of having his sentence remitted." Senator Platt, before summing up the case, does not fail to make the point, on such testimony as is indicated above, that during the last year or 10 months of his stewardship MT. Hicks had ''reached a condition of mind which can be expressed ID no other way than that he was demented. ' ''There is not 8 man in Connecticut who be- ieves that he ever for a moment had an idea of enriching himself by these unlawful trans. actions
 Senator Platt then submits that the case has no parallel in the record of bank defalca- ions. "He had no vices he was married : lived simply; without show. His wife did the household work. He was economical - almost penurious in his personal expenditures. Mir. DoOley, the bank examiner, expresses the real situation when he says that when he gained by speculation the bank had the ben eft" Furthermore, MT. Hicks was always frank and open and never ''showed disposi- ton to conceal anything" from the bank ex- aminer or special agents. He resisted the importunities of friends to flee to Canada and proposed to meet his fate. The cause of his failure to appreciate the fact that he had committed a crime was, first, that his mind had become abnormal; and second, that his speculations had not been for his own benefit. Again, there was never any agreement that no pardon should be asked by him and his friends.
 Senator Platt thus concludes: "I have had a good deal of experience in my life in the prosecution and punishment of crime. be- ieve there are cases where clemency and pardon are as essential to the ends of justice as punishment is and I want to assert as emphatically as I know how, that believe this to be one of those cases"
 The petitioners ask that the sentence i'm posed be terminated as if it were the three years sentence expected by his friends, with the allowance for good behavior while in prison subtracted.