The Tilton-Beecher affair still absorbs public attention in the United
States, and seems likely to do so for a long time to come. The full text of Mr. Beecher's defensive statement adds nothing to the strength of his denial of the leading charges against him, but it brings very forcibly into the light the extraordinary 44
black-mailing" phase of the story. Mr. Beecher not only affirms that he paid larg,e sums in order to hush up a scandal that in his aopinion would do serious public mischief, but admits that he raised one particular sum of 5,000 dollars by a mortgage on his
house for this purpose. This is a very startling fact. It is conceivable ' that a man in Mr. Beecher's position :should, when such a demand was made on him, put his hand in his pocket and pay the money, but it is hardly credible that strong as he was, both in his consciousness of innocence and in the reverence with which he was regarded throughout the States, he should have taken deliberate legal steps to procure the means of 'compromising with the extortioners. Mr. Moulton's reply to the black-mailing charge by the publication of letters from Mr. Beecher distinctly confessing his guilt, may be taken on the one hand as conclusive, or on the other as a mere move in connection with the action for crim. con. that Mr. Tilton. has at last commenced. If the case had been tried in this form long ago, the truth, or something approaching it, would have been reached, without the contamination and cruelty of the actual quarrel
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