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| Macbeth Seeing Banquo's Ghost--T. Chasseriau |
The Cortland News, Friday, January 7, 1887.
IS ANY ONE SCARED?
A New Chapter in the Libel Suit of Hayes vs.
Strowbridge.
About
dark the day before our last general election, Lewis S. Hayes commenced an action
in the Supreme Court of this State against the editor of the NEWS for libel, and thinking it was too late for the defendant to get bail
that night and hoping to have said editor spend the night in jail, he procured
an order of arrest from Judge Knox, who fixed the bond to be given by said
editor, to obtain his liberty, at the modest sum of five thousand dollars. But
the said editor got loose just the same by giving the bond required.
One of the chief libels
complained of in the complaint by the editor of the Monitor (Lewis S. Hayes) was the following charge
made in the NEWS:—
"There is a little transaction in Smithville Flats
involving the attempt to hypothecate a railroad, in which Mr. Hayes is unenviably concerned."
To this
the defendant [Mr. Strowbridge] answered as follows:
For further answer of said
complaint and in full justification thereof, the defendant alleges:—That the
articles mentioned and set forth in the complaint were published without malice
during a heated political contest. That the plaintiff is and at the time
mentioned in the complaint was one of the editors and proprietors of a newspaper
published in the village of Cortland called the Monitor, the chief purpose of which as
declared in its columns, is and was to pull down and destroy the Republican
party.
That the defendant is and at
the times mentioned in the complaint was the editor and publisher of the
Cortland NEWS, the organ of the Republican party in Cortland county, and
published at Cortland village, in said county. That Caleb B. Hitchcock, another
of the owners and publishers of said Monitor was at the time of the publication of the articles set forth in
the complaint, in nomination for the office of Member of Assembly, on a ticket
nominated by a self-styled temperance or prohibition party and his election was
earnestly advocated by said Monitor, so owned and run by him and said plaintiff. That said Cortland NEWS
was then and there seeking
to defeat said Hitchcock's election, and promote the election of Wayland D.
Tisdale, the nominee of the Republican party. That for that purpose and no
other the articles set forth in the complaint were published by this defendant
in his said paper, and the defendant alleges that at the time of such publication
it was true as charged in said articles, that said Hitchcock was (1st) the confidential
friend and associate of Lewis S. Hayes, the plaintiff herein, and in daily association
and council with him. 2nd. The man who selected Lewis S. Hayes to run his
canvass and edit his mud machine, to wit, said Monitor was said Caleb B.Hitchcock who was
(3) the partner and business associate of Lewis S. Hayes, and that the said
Lewis S. Hayes had then been time and again impeached in Court and by the
findings and decisions of the Courts as a bad man and not entitled to belief
and it was not safe to vote for a man who was run by said Lewis S. Hayes.
Defendant further says that it
is and at the time of the publication of said article set forth in the
complaint, was true of the plaintiff, Lewis S. Hayes, "that there is a little
transaction in Smithville Flats involving the attempt to hypothecate a railroad
in which Mr. Hayes (meaning the plaintiff. Lewis S. Hayes) is unenviably concerned."
That about the year 1870, but the
precise time this defendant is unable to state more definitely, the plaintiff Lewis
S. Hayes, with one Morris Birdsall, and the other good citizens of the town of
Greene, in the county of Chenango, were engaged in the business enterprise of
building a railroad from said village of
Greene to the village of Chenango Forks, to connect with the Syracuse,
Binghamton & New York Railroad and thus build up the said village of Greene
by drawing trade and business interest thereto.
That to that end a company was formed
of which said Morris Birdsall was President, and Lewis S. Hayes was Treasurer.
That said Lewis S. Hayes was loud in his pretensions and apparently earnest and
honest in his efforts in behalf of said project and active in causing said town
and village of Greene to bond for the purpose of carrying out of said project
and advised and aided in making surveys and establishing the route of said road
between said points and ostensibly assisted one Hurley, the engineer employed
by said company, in making the surveys and maps of said road, and in all things
appeared to be actively and earnestly aiding said enterprise and said village
of Greene, until on his proposing to get control of the buying of material for
said road and letting the contracts thereon whereby he proposed to make money for himself at the expense of said town he was met by opposition, when said
Lewis S. Hayes and said Engineer Hurley in violation of their duties as such
treasurer and engineer and to the destruction of said enterprise and company and
in fraud of said town and village of Greene and the taxpayers thereof, who had
bonded said town for said enterprise had they, said Hurley and said Hayes,
succeeded in said nefarious scheme, clandestinely went to the town of
Smithville and the village of Smithville Flats, lying within said town, and but
a few miles westerly from said village of Greene, and being in active competition
with said village of Greene, and proposed to the inhabitants thereof that it
they would bond the town therefor, in about the sum of $69,000 they would build
a railroad from Smithville Flats to said Chenango Forks to connect with the
Syracuse, Binghamton and New York Rail Road, striking said line so surveyed for the
Greene and Chenango Forks Rail Road at a point about two miles or more below the
village of Greene and toward Chenango Forks and that they would destroy the
surveys and maps so made by said engineer for the Greene and Chenango Forks
Company, and which had not been filed in the Clerk's office of Chenango county,
in which said proposed roads were located, and would make and file
surveys and maps of said Smithville Flats and Chenango Forks Rail Road, including such road as theretofore
surveyed and mapped for the Greene and Chenango Forks road, from a point about
two miles southerly from said village of Greene to the Syracuse, Binghamton and
New York Railroad at Chenango Forks.
That to accomplish such
nefarious scheme and deprive the people of the village of Greene, where said
Hayes then resided, of the benefits which he had promised them, and knew they
had been promised to induce them to form said company and elect him, said
Hayes, as director and treasurer, and to bond said town for said enterprise,
said Hayes (meaning said Lewis S. Hayes) and said Hurley, having such surveys
and maps of said Greene and Chenango Forks Company in their possession unfilled,
did willfully, unlawfully, and wickedly mutilate and destroy the same, so that
they could not be filed, and did pull up and remove the stakes that had been
driven under the direction of said Greene and Chenango Forks Company to mark
and designate the line of their said road, and did make a survey and maps of
the proposed route from said Smithville Flats to said Chenango Forks, including
the survey and route of said Greene and Chenango Forks Company, of which said
Hayes was then the treasurer, from a point about two miles from the village of
Greene in the direction of Chenango Forks, to the Syracuse, Binghamton &
New York Railroad at Chenango Forks, well knowing that there was not room for
another railroad by the side of the route or road, thus confiscated, hypothecated
or stolen, and that the building of such Smithville Flats and Chenango road
would entirely defeat the Greene project and company of which he was. treasurer
as aforesaid.
That said Hurley and said Hayes
and the people of Smithville, with whom they were clandestinely acting, made
and caused such survey and maps of the Smithville and Chenango Forks Railroad
to be filed in the office of the Clerk of Chenango county after the maps of the
Greene and Chenango Forks Company were destroyed as aforesaid.
That after inducing said town
of Smithville to bond for a large sum for said Smithville & Chenango Forks
project, and create an obligation upon the part of said town to pay about the
sum of $69,000, said latter project was abandoned also, and no road was built from
Smithville Flats to Chenango Forks, so that while said town is bonded and
obliged to pay said large sum and interest for said railroad, they have no rail
road at all.
That said Hayes and said Hurley
never intended to have any railroad built to Smithville Flats; but simply got
up said project to induce the people of said town to bond said town therefor,
and get said bonds into their hands and under the control of said Hayes and
Hurley, and that in that attempt Mr. Hayes (meaning the plaintiff Lewis S.
Hayes) was unenviably concerned and that was what was meant by defendant and
understood by the readers thereof, to be meant by "the attempt to
hypothecate a railroad" in said article set forth in the complaint.
Wherefore, defendant insists
that he was fully justified by the facts in publishing said articles mentioned
and set forth in said complaint.
The answer to the complaint was
served something over three weeks ago, and after twenty days had nearly
elapsed, and after having had ample time to learn that the editor of the NEWS
had sent to Smithville, Greene and Binghamton and had possessed himself of the
facts justifying said answer.
Mr. Hayes, no doubt, deemed it prudent
not to charge that he had been injured by the publication of that truth, and
hoping to escape an investigation into the matter, last week caused an amended complaint
to be served upon A. P. & D. C. Smith, attorneys for Mr. Strowbridge,
substantially like the first complaint, but with the exception that all allusion to the railroad matter was very carefully omitted.
Why this sudden change of feeling
in regard to the Smithville Flats railroad business on the part of the
plaintiff? We publish the whole of it above as we intend to show it in court in
order to show to the public what kind of a man we are dealing with, and how such
men usually act when they had the facts rightly understood.
When a person is trying to
recover damages for an injury to character, there must be some way in which
that character may be shown up in its true light, even if all allusions to
certain transactions are studiously avoided, and we now, here, give Mr. Hayes
notice that though he thinks he
has made it impossible for us to fully investigate that railroad transaction,
we shall have some proofs in relation to it, and he will have a hard time to prevent
some allusion to it being made at the trial. This main issue, like Banquo's ghost,
will not down so easily.
In the original complaint on
which the order of arrest was granted, and the editor arrested, it was
complained that the plaintiff had suffered severely by reason of this part of
the article in the NEWS:
"It is a matter of record on file in the Cortland County Clerk's office that
in an action wherein Sackett L. Wright was plaintiff and Lewis S. Hayes was defendant,
that an assignment made by Mr. Hayes was set aside, by the court, as fraudulent
for the purpose of defrauding creditors, and without submitting the case to the
jury."
The answer set up the truth of this charge and in records of the Clerk's office show
that the assignment was declared fraudulent and void for the fraud of Mr. Hayes
in making it. Now see how he guards in his amended complaint against an
investigation into that matter. In the amended complaint appears this ominous
clause:—
"But
no claim or right to recover damages in this
action is based or predicated upon the caption
and first and second paragraphs of the aforesaid libel beginning with the word “a"
and ending with the word "why " and the fourth paragraph (the
one above quoted) commencing with the
word "it" and ending with the word "jury," except only so far as the same serves to
call attention to and designate the plaintiff as the person against
whom the libelous matter contained in the article above set forth are
charged by the defendant in the other portions of said libelous
article."
Can it be possible that the
plaintiff expects to guard himself in this action from an investigation into
the railroad transaction, at one end of his business career and his assignment
at the other end?
He takes great pains to guard
himself from such investigations, but he will probably learn that when a person
is sueing to recover damages for an injury to character there is some way under
the law whereby a jury can be informed as to what that character was before it
was injured, and where it stood as it was builded by himself and as it was seen
in the colors with which he himself had painted it. Only one more amendment to
the complaint is necessary to entirely cure his wounded feelings and prevent
any investigation into his character whatever.
CORPORATE
PROCEEDINGS.
At a regular meeting of the
Board of Trustees of the Village of Cortland, held at Firemen's Hall in said
village, on the 3d day of January, 1887, at 8 o'clock, p. m.
Present, G. W. Bradford,
President; F. H. Cobb, Wm. H. Newton. A. M. Schermerhorn and Theo, Stevenson, Trustees.
The report of the election of
officers of the Cortland Fire Dept. was presented to the Board as follows:
Chief Engineer, John Doud; 1st assistant, O. D. Raymond; 2d asst., John H.
Phelps; sec'y, A. M. Delevan; Treasurer, A. Sager. A vote of thanks by the Board
to the retiring Chief Engineer, R. A. Smith, was moved and adopted.
The application of the Homer
and Cortland Gas Light Co. for a renewal of their franchise for 25 years was
renewed, and on motion such franchise was granted.
The following bills were
allowed and ordered paid:
W. C. May, coal for engine house, $10.00
George Cleveland, engineer, 50.00
C. B. Strowbridge, boxes for hose carts, 2.00
Maxson & Starin, supplies for engine house,
5.40
F. S. Buckly, labor with steamer, 1.00
Maxon & Starin, supplies for highways,
4.65
Frank Harvey, labor with steamer, 1.00
Edward Blanchard, lighting street lamps, $22.00
M. J. Schults, “ “ “ 10.60
George Snyder, " " " 7.50
A. B. Springer, Street Com'r, 48.00
John Kane, labor on streets, 2.00
James O’Day, cleaning walks, 1.04
George Petrie, labor on
streets, 2.40
Andrew Stoat, " " " 7.80
Michael Garrity, "
" " 3.50
Michael Butler, “ “ “
1.00
S. Twiss, extending bridges on North Main-st.,
$599.00
S. Twiss, mason work for same, 12.00
John Ireland, lumber for sidewalks, 96.03
I. H. Palmer, service as attorney, 64.00
J. L. Wartons, use of horse and wagon, 2.00
Bills of the Homer and Cortland
Gas Light Co. were referred to the President with authority to pay it, if found
correct.
It was moved and carried that a
notice be duly published as required by law, for the opening, laying out and
improving Elm-st. across the premises and right of way owned and occupied by
the E. C. & N. R. R. Co., requiring all persons interested therein to show
cause why the same should not be so opened and laid out, at a meeting of the
Board on the 21st inst.
A resolution was passed
directing an order to be drawn on the Treasurer of the village for $25 each in
favor of the Orris Hose Co. and the Emerald Hose Co., as the usual annual
allowance to each of those companies.
A proposition of the Cortland
Water Works Company to settle the controversy of hydrant rental was submitted
in writing.
On motion meeting adjourned to
Jan 21st, at 8 o'clock, P. M.
F. HATCH, Clerk.
Branch
of the E. C. & N. to Homer.
The Homer Republican of last week states that
correspondence has been opened with the officers of the
Elmira, Cortland and Northern railroad, with a view to inducing the company to
run a branch or switch on the
road to Homer. The rate on first class goods from Homer to New York is forty
cents, from Cortland to New York, twenty cents, and the Republican claims
that but for this difference Homer might have had the Crandall Rail and Cortland
Manufacturing Companies. The plan is to run a switch from the Elmira, Cortland
and Northern road near Mudge's mills, at the foot of the hill between Cortland
and Homer, so as to avoid the expense of bridging the river, and to follow the
hill and enter the village on the east side of the river. The railroad
officials, it is said, have promised to consider any propositions which the citizens
of Homer may make, and it is probable that if sufficient inducements are
offered they will consent to build the switch. The business men, manufacturers
and the leading citizens of the village have expressed their approval of the plan,
and say they will subscribe liberally and willingly toward carrying it out. A subscription
paper will soon be circulated, and before long a citizens' meeting is to be
called to discuss the matter.—Standard.
CORTLAND AND VICINITY.
Somebody has said that the proper study of
mankind is man. We offer the amendment that the proper study of mankind is
woman.
The graduating class at the
present term of the Normal school have decided to be photographed by Overton,
of the Evans Branch gallery.
Cortland will soon be placed
among those having the free mail delivery system,
President Cleveland having signed the bill to that effect recently
passed by both branches of the legislature.
The Keystone News, published at WilIiamsport, Pa., is a new
candidate for public favor in that city. Elmer E. Burlingame, formerly of this
county, is editor, and makes an exceedingly readable and interesting paper.
Jerome Squires, Esq., on
Saturday last, entered upon his duties as Justice of the
Peace, with rooms in Union Hall block. His honor wears the dignities of
his position gracefully.
Judge Alton B. Parker of
Kingston, who was appointed to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Judge
Westbrook, and who was elected last fall without opposition, on Saturday began
his fourteen years as Supreme Court justice.
The Knights of Pythias are
making great preparations for their second annual ball to be given at Taylor
Opera House, Thursday evening, January 20. A pubic installation of the newly
elected officers will also be held at the same time. Invitations to the number
of 500 will be issued from the NEWS office next week. Music by Muncey's
orchestra of six pieces. Bill $2.00. Supper will be served by mine host,
Arnold, at the Arnold House.
F. N. Harrington last week sold
a pair of bay mares to parties in New York, for $1,000. Horse fanciers
generally understand that Mr. Harrington deals only in fine stock and when in
need of anything of that kind naturally turn to him.
H. E. Freer, of this office, is
making a trial trip for the Morgans & Wilcox Mfg. Co., of Middletown, in
selling printer's supplies, with a view to accepting a permanent position with
them. Mr. Freer writes us that he is meeting with success.
Reference:
Banquo's Ghost: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banquo
