Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 June 1894 — Erastus Wimam. [ARTICLE]

Erastus Wimam.

New York Reeorfler. -, The news ofthe conviction of Erastus Wiman on the charges preferred against him will be read with keen regret by the entire commercial corn unity of the city, of the country. and, in fact, of the continefil, for the name and fame of the man who has been so sorely stricken were more than local and national. Technically he was, perhaps, guilty of a violation of the forgery statutes of the State, but. the great and upright lawyer, Benjamin F. Tracy, who conducted his defense, maintains that he was not so guilty under the wide latitude of commercial law and the peculiar articles of partnership that existed between him and the firm whose business he so marvelousls developed, and which he raised to such a splendid World wide prestige. The contention of Gen. Tracy, who conducted this case without pay or favor, was that, evenlf the technical offense had been committed, the element of criminal intent was absent, and that his client should have been acquitted.” It has been decided otherwise. Mr. Wiman has been convicted; but to the credit of human nature must it be said that in this the hour of his supreme affliction he can count ten friends for the one that he had in the days of his highest prosperity, This fact is full of significance. Humanity in the mass is nearly always right; and the overwhelming majority of the men among whom Erastus Wiman has lived during so many years, who have witnessed the development of his. forceful character, admired his splendid energy and lofty conceptions on all the lines ol material progress, look upon the calamity that has overtaken him as if it were in a certain sense personal to each and every one of them. If there ever was a case in the court wherein Mr. Wiman has been found guilty in which justice should be tempered with mercy it is that of this most unhappy man, who but a short time ago was so great a factor in the industrial life of the metropolis.