Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 September 1874 — Mr. Tilton Makes a Second Statement. [ARTICLE]

Mr. Tilton Makes a Second Statement.

The second statement of Theodore Tilton was published in the- New York Graphic, and in the Chicago Trttaae, artra, on the 18th. The following is a brief summary of this very lengthy document, which extends over twenty-eight columns in the Tritans.* Mr. Tilton commences by answering the two statements of Mrs. Tilton that he had been for ten years jealous of Mr. Beecher’s reputation, and was determined to ruin him, and that he had been maltreating her for the same period of time. This he attempts to do by producing various friendly and affectionate letters that passed between himself and Mr. Beecher down to July 8, 1870, the date at which he says he first became aware of the criminal intimacy between Mr. Beecher and Mrs. Tilton, and by giving extracts from his correspondence with Mrs. Tilton down to the same period of time. He supplements this with the emphatic statement that never until that date, July 8, 1870, did he entertain an unkind thought, or utter an unkind word, to either Mr. Beecher or his wife. He then gives a succinct narrative of the time, place and manner of Mrs. Tilton's confession of her alleged corruption by Mr. Beecher, and fixes the date of its consummation, Oct. 10, 1868, by an entry in Mrs. Tilton’s diary, “A Day Memorable.” which words she said she had used to mark it in her own recollection. Then follows a letter from Susan B. Anthony toMrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker, fttll of indignation against Mr. Beecher, both for his crime and for his want of veracity concerning it. The supposed significance of this letter is that Mrs. 'niton had confessed the crime to Miss Anthony, and that Miss Anthony and Mrs. Hooker were in correspondence concerning it as a thing about which there could be no dispute. He next seeks to defend Mrs. Tilton against the charge made against her by Mr. Beecher that she made the first advances. For this charge, says Mr. Tilton, “I brand him as a coward of uncommon baseness.” Elsewhere Mr. Tifton sarcastically descants on the groveling character of one who will accept the last extreme favor of a woman, and ften appoint a committee of six to publicly investigate her conduct. A series of letters of Mrs. Morse (Mrs. Tilton’s mother) are given, which contain frequent allusions to the relations existing between Mr. Beecher and Mrs. Tilton. Mr. Tilton accuses Mrs. Morse of at one time seiring her own husband by the cravat and choking him till he was black in the face, after which he (Mr. Morse) summoned the family together and legally and formally separated from ner—the separation continuing to this day. A letter not previously published is given from Mrs. Tilton to her mother (inclosing one to Mr. Tifton), written at Marietta, 0., a few months after her alleged confession. It contains repeated allusions to some offense committed by her, and speaks of a confession she had made to her mother, known to her daughter Florence, which was likely to be a death-blow to the latter. After giving a statement of Henry C. Bowen’s accusations against Beecher substantially as given by Moulton, Mr. Tifton gives an account or his interview with Beecher at Moulton’s house, where Mrs. Tilton’s confession was disclosed to him, and attempts to show by a comparison of dates that at that time he had not lost his position on the Independent and the Brooklyn union and was not in an impoverished condition, but was in the receipt of an Income of $14,00u per year. Consequently, he asserts that Mr. Beecher’s statement that he (Tifton) was exasperated with him for having caused him to lose his situaation and salary is an afterthought and a falsehood. Mr. Tifton next labors to show that Mr. Beecher’s allegation that his despair of mind, so poignantly expressed in his letters to Moulton, was caused by his having advised Mrs. Tifton to separate from her husband is likewise an afterthought and a falsehood, because he never did so advise her, but, on the contrary, when Mrs. Morse was trying to bring about such a separation, advised thecontrary. He points out that Mr. Beecher’s second and long statement before the Brooklyn Committee admits that he never gave such advice in person, although his first statement makes that the sole ground of his difficulty with the Tifton family. The second statement of Mr. Beecher reduces this supposed offense to a few words written on a scrap of paper to Mrs. Beecher. Moreover, says Mr. Tifton, supposing that he wrote those words to his own wife, he knew that they had done no harm; no separation took place, and there was nothing to be sorry for. An extract from the records of Plymouth Church, the original of which Mr. Tifton says he has in his possession, is introduced to convict the Plymouth Church Committee of prevarication. The committee alleged that Tifton’s sole and only charge against Mr. Beecher down to a late period was for improper advances to his wife, from which they argued that his latest charge was a new thing trumped up for the occasion, whereas the church record shows that he was cited on the 17th of October, 1873, to appear and answer to a charge of slander—the slander being a statement by him that Mr. Beecher had been guilty of adultery with Mrs. Tilton. The dates of the utterance of the alleged slander are given, and the names of the wnnesses to whom the same was utteredMr. Tilton’s association with Mrs. Woodhull Is stated to have begun with the concurrence and advice of Mr. Beecher, for the sole purpose of suppressing the dreadful secret and protecting Mrs. Tilton’s reputation. Mr. Tifton affirms that it had no other object than this, and that, right or wrong, Mr. Beecher shared in it personally, and that it involved no criminal intimacy. The charge of blackmail is considered and emphatically denied. Mr. Beecher’s letters are then taken up and subjected to an analysis to show that his agonized expressions are all consistent with one thing—the crime of adultery—and are not consistent with any other fact or pretended fact in the case. Mr. Tifton concludes with a reflection upon the remorse which must forever assail Mr. Beecher, in view of the desolation he is charged with having wrought. “I have, in times past,” he says, “ seen him suffer from his own selfinflicted tortures in contemplation of the very crime for which he has now been exposed to the scorn and pity of the world. I know well enough how his own thoughts have bowed him in agony to the dust; and this is enough. Wherefore, in contemplating my empty house, my scattered children and my broken home, I thank Heaven that I am spared the pang of this man’s remorse for having wrought a ruin which not even Almighty God can repair!”