Year: 1872

TIE EVIDENCE AGAINST TIE JUDGES.


The revelations of the evidence implcating
Judges Barnard and Cardozo, as yesterday pub
lished, are something extraordinary. but un-
happily are not new. They bctray condition
of judicial corruption, both of Bench and Bar,
which would be appalling if it were
now for tie FIRST time suspected. To
the unfortunate people of this metropolis
who have suffered loss Of personal liberty
and of property it is not strange, and,
therefore, not startling; but to those happily
removed from the baneiul influence of such
tyranny tie story told yesterday in detail must
have read like romance of the Old corrupt
age, when fraud and force rcigned supreme.


Not merely errors OF judgment have been
provoG-thc Bar Association wisely left these
to be corrected in higher ccurts-but actual
conspiracy to secure and to pronounce wrong
judgments for pccuniary or political consider
ations have been established by irrefutable
testimony. Not merely have the old and
familiar processes OF the law been grossly cor
rupted, as we charged in this journal months
ago, but the law itself has been perverted,
and the accused Judges have indulged in qlib-
Iles more transparent and more discreditable
than any conceived by the ingenuity of the most
desperate criminal lawyer. These abuses OF
the judicial power have been to the grave
wrong and great robbery Of an immense client
ace for whom the honest members of the pro-
fession find no redress, and have Injured to
the benefit only of those litigants who were
fortunate or villainous in securing counsel
favored of the judges. And not only this, but
actual pccuniary corruption on the part OF
both the Judges implicated is limited at in the
report of the Committee upon evidence which,
If not conclusive, is so singularly circunstan-
tial and positive as TO be Iresistibly conyinc-


ing to any impartial mind


Judge Barnard has been proved by the evil
dence submitted to have been guilty, at the
solicitation of personal friend, on an cr parte
application, of ordering payment of debt
never judicially asccItained-in other words,
he lent his friend all the powers OF his Office,
including that of imprisonment, to force money
from an opponent who denied the claim. 1t is
in evidence that the safes of great corpora
ton were broken open, under Barnald's order
made on the er parte application of his init
mate, James Fisk, jr., with burglars tools and
S5,0OO,OOO of securities taken away by Re-
cciyer and lost to the Company, while the
Judge himself boasted his Illegal act in pub
lie bar-room amid the laughter of his riotous
audience. The same Judge lent his great
Office to what was nothing less than a con-
spiracy to depreciate the value of a railway
worth S320O0,0OO on suit involving an


insignificant amount, and he placed the
road in the hands of personal
friend who gave bond only in $3.50 to admin
lister on the entire property. and thereby
caused the Company direct loss OF s2;OOO,00O
Ten millions of the English stock of 'thc Eric
Road were placed by him, on the er .partc ap,
plication of plaintiff who did not own
single share, in the hands, of an irresponsible
Receiver who had first sent the Jylge checl
for $1,000; and this order resulted in tie re
teution in the Erie management Iof men wht
had previously presented him q magnificent
set of furniture. 70 obligc a professional
friend, he ordered the Receiver of thoate
involved in litigation to loase it at
loss Of S25 600 or $4,000 to the real own
ers. I'm the interest OF the Erie Ring
Of which he appears always 10 hay,