[_From the N. Y. Express._]
THE BRANCH LIBEL CASE.—Stephen H. Branch has been convicted of a gross
and malicious libel upon Mayor Tiemann, Simeon Draper, and Isaac Bell,
and has been sentenced to be imprisoned in the penitentiary for one
year, to pay a fine of $250, and stand committed until that sum shall be
paid. The scene at the closing of the Court on Wednesday was a very
melo-dramatic one, and fully in keeping with all the previous steps in
this extraordinary case. Mr. Branch being asked what he had to say why
sentence should not be pronounced against him, made a long speech, in
which he reviewed the various events of his somewhat eccentric life; but
just as he commenced to allude to the libels, and to speak thereon and
the persons aggrieved, the court stopped him. The prisoner bore himself
with the air of a martyr to the cause of public virtue, and said it was
the happiest and proudest day of his life; but his excitement at the
close of his address was very great, and his delivery vehement and
earnest almost to weeping. The court was full of his sympathizers, who
did not scruple to say that they believed the convict to be more sinned
against than sinning.
This extraordinary case will long be remembered. The libels published
and circulated by Mr. Branch were the most outrageous ever perpetrated
in this city, and the prosecution has been in keeping with the
provocation, amounting in its virulence almost to a persecution.
Circumstances on the trial favored the presumption that the whole of the
proceedings had been decided upon in advance, even to the wording of the
recorder’s charge and sentence. His honor himself informed the counsel
for the prisoner that he had considered his possible application for a
suspension of judgment, had examined the point, and had made up his mind
that such a motion could not be allowed. Every precaution had been
taken. The whole power of the corporation—executive, legal, judicial—was
invoked to annihilate Mr. Branch, and the end was attained. The offence
was outrageous, and will admit of no palliation; but it was hardly good
taste in the powerful complainants to take every advantage of a criminal
whom many believe to be a monomaniac, and by the extreme vindicativeness
of the prosecution, give to the administration of public justice the
appearance of private revenge.
The arguments in the case were worthy of the best days of the criminal
bar of New York. Mr. Ashmead distinguished himself highly in his appeal
for the prisoner, and had the case gone to the jury before the cool and
dispassionate reasoning of Mr. McKeon had partially weakened the effect
of Mr. Ashmead’s eloquence, the result might have been different. The
charge of the Recorder was decidedly against the prisoner, and his
sentence, it will be seen, was severe in its terms to an excess that was
not called for. The punishment imposed was the extent of the law, and
was by no means disproportioned to the offence; but it was entirely
gratuitous on the part of the Recorder to drag into his remarks matters
extraneous to the issue, and not at all connected with the present
trial. The Recorder’s announcement of the rod he has in pickle for
certain other libellers who he intimates are shortly to be tried, will
probably put those prospective culprits upon their guard, and they will
at least have this advantage over Mr. Branch that they will not be taken
unawares.
We congratulate the distinguished citizens whose characters have been
cleared again by this conviction of Mr. Branch; but can assure them that
their fair fame by no means suffered so much from the attacks of the
“ALLIGATOR” as they presumed that it did.
We understand that Mr. Ashmead will to-day prepare a bill of exceptions,
and move in the Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari and stay of
proceedings. The bill will not be settled until late in the day, and the
motion in the Supreme Court cannot be made until to-morrow. In case,
therefore, that Mr. Branch should be sent to Penitentiary to-day, the
motion will not avail him. It is hardly to be presumed that when a
motion for arrest of judgment was denied without argument, the prisoner
will be allowed time to benefit by an appeal to the Supreme Court.
[_From the N. Y. Tribune._]
STEPHEN H. BRANCH was yesterday convicted of a gross libel on Mayor
Tiemann and others, and sentenced by the Recorder to the Penitentiary
for one year, and to pay a fine of $250. Considering that the libel,
however groundless essentially, appears to have had a real foundation in
statements made to Branch by persons whom he undoubtedly believed, and
whom his counsel had ready to produce (but their testimony was not
allowed), we must consider this sentence a severe one. We believe it
will excite for him a sympathy which it is unwise to provoke. Branch, we
believe, has been trying pretty hard to libel _us_ in his abusive little
sheet; but we have never considered his slanders worth any sort of
notice. It may be well to stop his career, but not to make him a martyr.
And we say most decidedly, that considering the libel for which he was
indicted was really based on information furnished him by persons whom
he had reason to believe, we deem his sentence a harsh one, and trust it
may be mitigated by pardon.
[_From the New York Times._]
The verdict and the sentence startled a great many people. BRANCH was
immediately surrounded by a troop of friends, who nearly shook his hands
off with their greetings. He was followed to the Tombs by a large crowd,
who only left him at the gates of that edifice. But though incarcerated
in prison, we have not as BRANCH says, heard the last of BRANCH.
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