The Great Guiteau Trial: with life of the cowardly assassin : A full account! A complete history! The judge's charge to the jury. Speeches of counsel on both sides. Likenesses of all the parties concerned. Guiteau as a theologian, a politician, a tramp lawyer, a society beat, and as a member of the Oneida community.

Date:: [1882], [©1882]

Credit: The Great Guiteau Trial: with life of the cowardly assassin : A full account! A complete history! The judge's charge to the jury. Speeches of counsel on both sides. Likenesses of all the parties concerned. Guiteau as a theologian, a politician, a tramp lawyer, a society beat, and as a member of the Oneida community. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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$charge of murder would be to rave a little and tear his hair a little, and then ; kill his man. I hope you will print | your excelleut charge in pauiplvlet form ! and send it to all the judges in the land, j Very truly yours, j Jamics a. Gaufield. ! Worthy of attention also is a letter ^ dated at AVashiugton, D. C., and written by the well-known journalist, editor and publisher, Watterson, written to his own ; paper, the Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Jour- \ nal, in which he says : \ Accident rather than curiosity drew j me towards Judge Cox's court rooms, I where I spent this forenoon. The effect j upon m}' mind amounted lo a complete} reversion of opinion and feeling. I had } imagined the trial a farce; it is a tra-1 gedy. I had dismissed Guiteau from j consideration as a muddy-mettled 'knave i and fool.' He impressed me to-day as a [ man of acute understanding, and, though | a blundering, a truculent wit. I sat! close to him; could see every glance of; liis eye, every phase of his expression, ] the slightest detail of poise and gesture. The man is an excellent actor. He has a capital stage grimace and laughter. I declare there were times when he ac- tually captivated me by his well-timed interpositions aud effective by-play. I came away precisely as one who had witnessed a stirring act in an eccentric drama, wherein all the parts were well played. Guiteau, to begin with, could not have played his part better. Of course he overdid it, because the mimic world and the real world cannot be made to harmonize; but, as a mimic actor on a real stage, lie certainly cuts no mean fig- ure, and will go down to history as abso- lutely sui generis—a sort of weird and ■wizened apotheosis of dead-beatism. All descriptions of his personal appearance are at fault. He is simply brazenly and shabbily and scantily genteel. His voice, instead of being harsh and unna- tural, is both trained and taking; not resonant like the voice of Voorhees ; not cultivated to the pitch of Wendell Phil- lipB, bttt a homely, a vulgar cross be- tween the two, with a touch of Mulberry Sellers and a reminiscence of Rip Van Winkle. He is no more crazy than I ^m. He shot Garfield as the last des- perate venture in a life of moral obli- quity and personal discomfiture. All the other parts in this startling extiavaganza are well impersonated. Judge Cox certainly presides with dig- nity, and. considering ])ros and eons, I cannot see how he could have avoided this droll pageant. On the whole, I think Corkhill leads the prosecution ex- ceedingly well, and has the case thor- oughly in hand. He thinks he is sure of a verdict and I agree with him. It is impossible for anybody to see this exhi- bition and come away without being sat- isfied that, morally, legally, intellectu- ally and sentimentally Guiteau deserves to be hanged, and will meet no other fate. And now as to the trial. Our expe- rience of over forty years in the getting up books of this character proves that the readers prefer, first a concise and di- rect account of the trials, and are par- ticularly out of patience with reiterations and of a report in detail of witness after witness who but repeats the testimony of the preceding one. Therefore, we give you first a complete and connected ac- count, and follow it with the side is- sues '' of this great case, The Trial. The trial of Charles J. Guiteau for the murder of James A. Garfield, Presi- dent of the United States commenced in the District Supreme Court, Washing- ton, D. C, before Judge Cox, on Mon- day^ November 14th, 188L District Attorney Corkhill, and Messrs. Porter and Davidge, for the prosecution ; Sco- ville (Guiteau's brother-in-law) and Rob- inson for the defence (who afterwards withdrew). Afler Guiteau was brought in, the district attorney announced that the Government was ready to proceed. Mr. Robinson asked for more time—a request opposed by the other counsel for the prisoner, (Mr. Scoville,) and by Gui- teau himself, who insisted on being heard. Judge C^x directed that the case should proceed. The selection of jurors was commenced, and five were obtained. The Second Day was taken up entirely with the selection of jurors. There was so much cballeog-$

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