Trial and conviction of Dr. Stephen T. Beale : with the letters of Chief Justice Lewis, and Judges Black and Woodward, on his case : interesting ether cases, and letters of Prof. Gibson, Prof. Wiltbank, Wm. Badger, Esq., W.L. Hirst, Esq., Rev. Albert Barnes, Dr. Henry A. Boardman, &c.

Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Trial and conviction of Dr. Stephen T. Beale : with the letters of Chief Justice Lewis, and Judges Black and Woodward, on his case : interesting ether cases, and letters of Prof. Gibson, Prof. Wiltbank, Wm. Badger, Esq., W.L. Hirst, Esq., Rev. Albert Barnes, Dr. Henry A. Boardman, &c. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    could have a menagerie exhibition, some of them braying like an ass, and roar- ing like a lion, singing the song of the 'Landlady of France,' with the 'Good Brandy, oh!' and other bacchanalian songs equally indecorous and unbecoming. But it is said there was no undue excitement from liquor in all this. ''Those who urge this in behalf of this jury, do them great unkindness. It is infinitely better for their reputation to admit that they were disguised with liquor, than to allow that they had such unfeeling, savage natures, as to frolic, and play the jackass and the lion, in the very hour that they were to render a verdict, which was to consign a father to a prison, and to blight and blast the happiness of an innocent wife and eight children, and hurry his aged parents in sorrow to the grave. Deeply as I have been wronged by the verdict of the jury, I must say to their credit, if credit it is, that I do not believe that they could so grossly outrage propriety and common decency, if it had not been for accursed rum. Bat there are facts in my possession which the technicality of the law would not allow to be made public. They are such as these: besides the four bottles of wine used at dinner on Friday, an hour or two before the verdict was rendered, this jury had a brandy bottle in their room filled up three or four times. Besides this they rung their bell on several occasions, and called the landlord to their door, opened it to him, and ordered glasses of brandy, and also of ale. If I am shut up in a cell, there are those in this community who can and will substantiate these facts if they are denied. Even the offer of my able and learned counsel—who had the most perfect con- fidence iu his case, as well as in my innocence—after a speech of more than two hours had been made against me—to submit the case without argument, in view of an afflictive providence by whjch a brother of one of the jurors was suddenly and in a moment struck down by death—I say even the offer to submit the case without argument, was used to my disadvantage, and hastened my conviction. Ajuror, immediately after the rendering of the verdict, said, in the hear- ing of numbers, 'Davy' (alluding to Mr. Brown) 'was like the boy that wet the bed, he had nothing to say.' Another juror, beforehe hadheard a word of my defence, said of me—'D—n him, he is a guilty fellow, we'll sweeten him.' If the forms of law made it improper for the Court to hear these facts, an enlightened community shall hear them, and judge wliat sort of a jury rendered a verdict against me. One thing more I have to say, and I know they will heartily join me in this, to wit, if any one of them shall ever be accused of crime, I hope they will have a fairer, more sober, and more moral set of men to judge of their case than I had. I speak not of them all; there were two or three honorable exceptions, and my only regret is, that they had not the firmness to stand by their convictions in spite uf ribald songs and all the other appliances to hasten my doom. And how were my clerical witnesses, who kindly rallied round me in my extremity, spoken of by one or more of the jurors? In this profane and aw- ful manner: 'G—d d—n the divines! they are as bad as he is.' This fact is derived from one of the jury. The District Attorney will pardon me in a passing allusion to the course he has seen fit to pursue. Was it altogether necessary to press upon me, witii all the weight of his character and influence, to exert himself to the utmost to prevent the Court from granting me a new trial? Was there any danger that I should escape. I have one request to make of the District Attorney. It is this : that when he lies down at night, surrounded by his family and all thecomforts of home, he will remember there is one husband and father lying in a cell on a pal- let of straw, torn from the wife of his bosom and the children of his love. heaving bitter sighs, starting from his unquiet slumbers by the fancied call of his loved ones, and that husband and father is as innocent of the crime for which he is incarcerated as Mr. Reed himself. And when he comes around his well spread board, and greets the smiling, happy faces of his wife and children, I want him to remember that there is one husband and father taking his coarse and scanty fare on the wooden trencher of