Year: 1875

Trtal-Let Us Punish the PeT1urers.


Our readers must not be surprised at any
! development in the Brooklyn trial. If 1t were
merely an issue between two men, one claim-
ing that he had been wronged by another, an
issue TO be decided by the jury and the courts,
there would be no difficulty in coming to
result Oddly enough, this question has
assumed every phase of importance-social'
political, personal and moral Brooklyn is
divided city upon the question of the inno-
cence or the guilt of Mr.. Beecher. Through
out the country every community has become
partisan, and there is scarcely conversation
in the street car, in the parlor or at the din
ing table that does not DRIFT surely upon this
univ wholesome theme. We have never known
a question where Judgment was so little con-
sidered and where everything was controlled
by feeling. In some respects it has q singu-
lar resemblance to the Tichborne trial, the
great case which was tried in England some
eighteen months ago. and which, from
being a simple issue of perjury has
become one of the political issues
of that country. In the Tichborne case
we had the government on ono side
and an adventurer who claimed the estates of
baron on the other. The Court before
which it was tried was composed of the Lord
Chief Justice of England and two dis
tinguished colleagues. The counsel on each
side were permitted to address the jury for
weeks. The Lord Chief Justice unlike our
Chief Justice in Brooklyn, gave twenty-two
days to delivering his charge. The verdict
of the jury was returned in less than half an
hour, and upon that verdict the claimant was
sent to prison for fourteen years.


The Beecher trial, like the Tichborne case,
has had its extraordinary incidents, and
none more so than the attempt of Loader and
Price to destroy Mr.. Beecher by perjury.
During the progress of the Tichborne trial
Swedish sailor, who took the name of Jean
Luie, made his appearance before the counsel
of the claimant and told them how he had
been at sea when the ship in which the real
Tichborne had embarked was a floating
wreck, how he had taken Tichborne on board
his vessel and attended him, and
how he had seen him afterward
in Australia. AS the claim of
the prosecution of Tichborne was that the
real heir to TIE baronetcy had been drowned
at sea, the story of Luie if uncontradicted,
would have given the verdict to the plaintiff.
The Swede, impertectly acquainted with the
English language, went upon the witness
stand and told his story. He so impressed
the friends of the claimant that as respecta-
BILE gentleman as Mr.. Whalley, NJ. p. and
friend of the claimant took the trouble to
visit New York to ascertain if his story could
be corroborated. The distinguished counsel
for the government, headed by Mr.. Hawkins,
cross-examined Luie at great length, but they
failed to shake his stoEy. He went from the
stand apparently credtable witness The
Lord Chief Justice did not ask bail for his
temperance. 1t happened that in the ex-
element of the trial photographs of Luie
were sold at the stores. A stranger passing
window one day happened to see one of these
pictures, and remarked to a friend that he
had known that face under another name in
another city. This idle remark, dropped in
hasty conversation, was conveyed to the
counsel for the government. This stranger
visited the court next morning and recognized
Luie as a Swede who had formerly been
known as Lundgren and who had been sent to
prison for felony. Investigation proved the
truth of this story; that Luie was really Lund-
gren; that he was ticket-of-leave man; that
his whole story was an outrageous perjury


fabricated without motive, from a prurent
desire for notoriety or the lust for lying
which is in many disease. He was COM
mitted to prison by the Lord Chief Justice
on the charge of perjury, and O few weeks
afterward was found guilty of the crime and
sentenced to prison, where he now remains.


The intrusion of Luie into the Tichborne
case was a phenomenon. Its moral effect
upon the jury was fatally detrimental to the
claimant In the Beecher case Price and
Loader make their appearance after the evil
dence has been submitted to the jury The
story they told was not as some of our con-
temporaries would have us believe, on its
face ON improbable story 1t had as much
the semblance of truth as the statements of
Tilton or the evidence of Moulton. The
counsel for Mr.. Tllton seemed to have taken
all possible pains to investigate the credibility
of their witnesses Mr.. Beach in Offering their
evidence certainly believed it to be true. On
any other assumption their action would
have been criminal folly. Judge Norris


the attorney of record visited the homes
OF these witnesses, made inquiry as to their
credibility. and seems to have taken all the
pains that an honest lawyer could adopt to
satisfy himself of their veracity. Mr.. Pryor,
his colleague, when the witnesses came before
him to give their evidence solemnly warned
them of the responsibility they assumed; ex-
plicitly told them that if their evidence was
not true it would be perjury; that they were
not asked to 60 into the case, and that if they
signed the aflidavits they must do so at the
peril of indictment for perjury Mr. Beach
in presenting the evidence showed that he
WAS satisfied that his cnllennnes had done