The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1896-06-27
JUNE q. 1886.
THIS paper Is Democratic IN principles
and Is Independent IN its uiescs on all local
questions.



her mother, after the verdict of %acquittal
brought in by the jury might verge on
libel; but it may at least be said thai
the defence in no way amounted to an ex-
plicit ~vindication. She stands before the
public in about the same position that
she did at the time of her arrest.
One feature of her case, however, has
tended to create public sympathy in her
behalf, and this is the methods adopted
by the prosecution. Whether the woman
was guilty or innocent she was entitled
to a fair trial. and assuredly she was
not given one. The efforts to force upon
the notice of the jury the dying sus-
picions of Mrs. Bliss were of the most
outrageous character. The permission ac-
corded to Mr.. Bliss to repeat the random
accusation which he leveled at Mrs.
Fleming the day of the funeral was a
defiance of every principle of law. One
of the Jurors is authority for the state
I06ut IHdl L4lLl16 C11C0 III = =
was rejected because the jurors be-
fieved she was told what to say. This
may or may not be the case; but assured
ly the evidence given by the child did
not bear the construction which the Dis
trict Attorney attempted to put on it
and any judge of ordinary fairness and
capacity would have rebuked the prose-
cution and corrected any false impress
sion that might have been made on the
Jurors minds.
Then there was the Scheele episode.
The employment of his man as expert
for the State seems to have been a dread
full error, but the error might be over
looked were it not for the threats of
Mr.. Mcintyre tina he would cause the
arrest for perjury of any witnesses who
might be called to xpose Scheele's UNI
fitness. For these threats, if there were
any real public spirit in New York, Mr..
Mcintyre would be kicked out of Office
and sent to coventry for the rest of his
career. A final outrage was the exclusion
Of the witnesses for the defence, includ-
ing Miss Bliss from the our room. No
such thing had been don with the very
suspicious witnesses for the State. The
unusual character of the proceeding was
designed obviously to affect the minds of
the jurymen-to make them ~ultra-sus-
pieious of the evidence for the defence
as being a c~ollusfve fabric which might
fall to pieces If the witnesses forgot their
parts. This was. to put it mildly, a black
guardiy attempt to discredit testimony
which should have been beneath the
the Counsel for the People.
In recent trials there has been a pain
full tendency to this style Of malignant
prosecution. The Borden case in Fall
River was a conspicuous example, and
like the present one, its victim went free,
although the defence was able to adj
vance no evidence to counteract general
public suspicion The various cases in
which Recorder Golf has recently been
reversed belong to the same category,
and some of the evidence in the Gentry
case in Philadelphia shows the same
ferocious desire to convict without regard
to the traditions of the Common Law.
Something like a back track is needed
for public prosecutors to take. They
should be brought back to a more con-
scientious regard for justice. The theory
OF our jurisprudence is hat it is better
a hundred guilty people escaped than that
one innocent person should suffer. Trials
are seldom conducted in this spirit now.
nowhere so seldom as in New York State
where the learned Judge too often be-
comes leading counsel for the State and in
nts rulings and his charge urges con-
yiction. Reform is needed, and needed
speedily. or else the rights of accused
persons as laid down in the Common Law
win become a lead letter.
Mr.. Mcintyre fails to see that his own
curse had much to do with the acquitted
of Mrs Fleming, much more thar the de-
fence, and he attributes the verdict to
the reluctance of the jury to put a
woman to death. This is not borne out
by the statements of the jurymen. and
1t ignores the fact that the Recorder In
them that a lower degree of
murder than the capital one might be
But Mr.. Mcintyre is not alone in his
view Of the case. Several papers have
inclined to it, and one actually printed
editorial holding that this alleged re-
to execute a woman was a
proof of greater refinement and respect
for women in the present age. To such
q view. we take emphatic exception. We
think It is the effect, rather, of a depraved
view Of ~womanhood. 1t shows, if there is
any truth in the idea at all. that we have
ceased to direct our regard to what is
pure and beautiful and good in women,
and concentrated it upon a mere ply
siological condition. For what Mr.. Nc
Intyre indicates Is not that the jury be-
lieved Mrs. Fleming innocent because she
was q woman, but that believing her gull
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