St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-07-12
AN ALTERED VIEW.

scene Oh intense QrdfndIlc power IS
reported from New York, in which one
DR.. FULLER, a local physician, and
Judge LEICESTER HOLMES, formerly
private secretary to Mayor GRANT
figured as the characters III the play
Some months ago DR.. FULLER began
proceedings for divorce against his
wife. claiming that she had violated her
marriage VOWS. and named Judge
HOLMES as the partner of her guilt.
He failed to prove his case to the salts
faction of the referee, but has deter
mined to appeal to higher court. The
other day he met the man who he
declares has wronged him on a
North river ferry boat, and, carried
away by the strength of his feel
ings and the sense of outrage done
HIM. spat III his face, thraShed him with
terrible violence, and perhaps would
have taken his life had he not been sep
arated from his worsted victim by the
Intervention of his fellow passengers.
When he had recovered his seIf-pOSSeS-
sion, he took off his hat, apolOgized to
the women who were in the cabin for
venting his anger in their presence, but
said that the wretch on whom all eyes
were turned had seduced his wife, brOk-
en- up his home and ruined his life.
Then he went out on deck amid the
murmured applause of the people about
him and waited to renew the encounter
in the open air when the boat reached
its landing place. But the report says
that Judge HOLMES made his escape
by some obscure and unknown route.
The GLOBE does not know, of course,
whether DR.. FULLER had any real justI-
fication for such violent conduct, or
whether Judge HoLME had really done
the things with which he is charged.
But the whole episode suggests how
completely, in this day of the worlds
history, the sympathies of ordinary
people are with the husband or the
wife who is wrOnged. DR.. FULLER's
fellow passengers enjoyed seeing him
assault his enemy, and everybody who
reads the account, if they believe that
Judge HoLME is guilty, is gratiied that
he has paid this price for his sin. Had
DR.. FULLER killed him, no jury in the
country would have found any other
verdict against him except one of ac-
quittal, and instead of staining his
hands with the faint of a crime, he
would have gone through life honOred
by the deed.
Popular sentiment did not always
view matters in this light, and there
was a time when the Lovelace who
plotted against the peace of families
secured social prominence from his rep
utation for success. This is true even
now to a certain extent in some places,
and especially so in England, where
leaders in society very often base their
claims to consideration on their skill
and adroitness as seducers. In America
a happier state of affairs prevails. Men
do such things. but they do them Sc
cretly, and when they are detected and
published their subsequent careers are
not helped by the achievement. Lust,
or even love, in the opinion of honest
people in this land. may not run riot
any more than any other passion. The
thirst for gold, for food and drink, for
influence and power, may all be graft
fed, but only in the proper channel and
to the proper degree. Along with these
things at last is also classed the graft
ficatiOn of the other senses, and men
| can no more cOvet their neighbors' wives
without outraging public opinion than
they can seize and carry off with i'm
punity the other things which are theirs