Year: 1859

to see the difficulty cleared up. Accordingly,
this morning, we are furnished with what may
be termed an authoritative determination Of
the question. We copy the paragraph in full:


''PERsONAL.-One of our contemporaries has
been at the trouble of sending to Washington
for intelligence Of the reconciliation of Mr. Sic
kles with his wife, and has ascertained, what
we believe to be the truth that the most reso-
lutte OF avengers has proved himself also the
most relenting Of husbands, and is now living
once more with the victim of the late Philip
Barton Key. This, of course, is purely per-
sOnal and private matter, with which the pub
lie have nothing to do. But it is due to the
leading personal and political friends Of Mr.
Sickles, who honestly believed him to be
man msddened by intOlerable wrong, and in
that belief interposed their influence between
himself and the hasty rage of public feeling at
the time Of his trial at Washington, that they
should not be made responsible, as by the
journal in question they are, for a step taken
entirely on the impulse of Mr. Sickles himself,
without their knowledge, and in the face of
their positive remonstrance and disapproval."


This is conclusive; the friends of Sickles, who
sfood between him and the gallOws, which the
Times euphoniously describes as ''the hasty
rage of public feeling" were highly delighted
with the vengeance, but not with the forgive
ness; they shouted bravo and flung up their
csps when 1.-the most resolute of avengers
shot Key in cold blood; but they turn their
idCce lIOm lnc uOst Oh
These personal and political friends, u we pre-
sumo, are the chivaric ButterwOrth, who said
''there was but one course for a man of honor"
bachelor Brady, who was so solicitous about
the sanctity of the domestic altar, the Scrip
tural Graham, who so grandiloquently demon
strated that the pistol was the only protection
to female virtue, the pathetic Meagher, whose
picture Of tie desolated and heart-b broke en- hus-
band brought tears to a thousand eyes, the
editor of the Times, responsible or irrespon-
sible, who poured such a vomit of vituperation
upon everybody that CHANGED to think that
Sickles was not the model husband of the
Nineteenth Century, and some others, includ-
ing the Judge and Jury of the Court at Wash
ington. They shielded Sckles when he acted
upon his brutal and savage instincts, and they
abandon him when, with an equal want of
principle, and in utter disregard of all true
and delicate feeling, he yields to his more ten
der instincts


1t is easy to see, however, why these gentle
men are dissatisfied with the course of their
crony and client. A good many of them,
doubtless, were long since disgusted with the
part they had played, and with the unenviable
fame 1T had procured them; but they were en-
abled to keep on tolerable face by asserting
that Sickles had been "maddened by an intoi.
cradle wrong" driven to desperation by his
sense OF wounded honor and the consciousness
of home made desolate forever. Now that
he shows that his wrongs were not irreparable.
their only excuse is removed, and they see the
late events in the light in which they were
seen, at the time, by the more discerning part
of mankind. The inquiry everywhere now is,
why hey was killed at all, or having been
killed, why such extraordinary efforts were
made to screen the slayer! 1t is for those who
were instrumental in the result to answer the
question.