Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1859 — The English Press on the Sick les Case. [ARTICLE]

The English Press on the Sick les Case.

[From the London .‘-aturday Review, March 18.

We notice the “Washington Tragedy,’’ as the newspasers call it, rather for the way in which it has been commented upon and described, than for any other peculiarity attending it.. An “injured husband’’ killing an adulterer is no great novelty, unhappily, in the annals of human nature, and there is nothing in the conduct of the guilty intrigue which deserved especial comment. It will be generally felt that the seducer deserves, if not his fate, but little commiseration. * * $ If Mr. Sickles really did and said all the curious things which tire reported of him, we must say that he must have keenly relished the dramatic opportunities which the case presented for some fine stage effects. No novel or tragedy was ever more replete with startling hits. The grouping, with all its happy incidents, and coincidencies and the catastrophe, adjust, themselves into a most telling tableau. Had the whole thing been arranged for the French theatre it could not more ably or completely have fulfilled the accredited stage proprieties. The anonymous letter delivered to the husband in the full splendor of his Congressional triumph, actually at the moment he was entertaining thePr sidentof the United States at dinner—•-the gull y wife, all beauty and hypocrisy, at one end of her gorgeous board, and her husband concealing his agonies under the conventional mask of courteous hospitality, at the other—was, or is conceived, in the very spirit of M. Alexandre Dutttas. The extorted confession and the demand for the wedding-ring by frenzied husband from guilt-stricken wife, is finely conceived, or, it true, is in the letter as well as in the spirit of the story-books. So is the incident of the lover making his signals to his mistress in the very sight of the too well-informed husband. Si non e vero e ben trovato. Mr. Bu’terworth—Mr. Sickles’ friend and confidant—evidently dwells on the whole affair with an historiographer's minute love of his subject and a patient elaboration of particulars which shows that this artistic taste was satisfied with his share of the affair. Mr. Sickles’ first communication to Mr. Butterworth is graphic, and we dare say true to facts—“ Dear B , come to me right away ” Mr. Butterworth is equally idiomatic and concise. At first he judiciously takes to reasoning, and councels prudence in happy and metaphorical language—“ Mr. Sickles, you must be calm, and look this matter square in the face.” But the spirit of the friend and American citizen soon prevails. Mr. Sickles says: “It is already the town talk.” “I then said.” deposes Mr. Butterworth. “‘lf that be so, there is but one course left for yoU, as a man of honor; you need no advice.’” Mr. Sickles accordingly arms himself with pistols and revolvers; and Mr. Butterworth engages in conversation on the weather with the doomed victim, and is thus the instrument of handing Ulr. lv y over t< the furious husband. Now comes the climax, in that fine burst which we have, we think, heard oti the Adel-

phi boards: ‘'You have dishonored my bed and family, you scoundrel—you must die.” then followed three balls delivered in rapid succession into Key’s body, with two other barrels actually snapped at the dead, or at least dying man’s brain. Enter guards—the curtain falls on the groupe. * * * * I Nor is the conclusion of the tragedy by any means out of keeping with themelodra’m.itic who.eness. Mrs. ickles is reported as “conceding that her husband had done right.” She is reported as very anxious to get back her wedding-ring and utterly careless of her lover’s fate. Mr. Sickles observes that the transaction was “unavoidable,” or. as he expresses it in finer language. “Satisfied as I was of his guilt, we could not ■ live on the same planet.” All the family triends concur in sympathies. Mr.' Sickles I is remitted to the jail, the comforts of which i hardly come up to his expectations; though, with a fine touch of professional irony, the jailer is made to observe, “This is the best place you members of Congress have afforded us”—with a pretty classical allusion, we suppose, to Perillus and his bull; whereupon we are informed. “Mr. Sickles caved’’—a : verb neuter of the American 1 .uguage, the exact meaning, of which we profess our in j ability to discover.