Honorably Acquitted.
--The
Mayor yesterday resumed the examination of the complaint made by
Edward Turner against
Mr. Job Adkins, of knocking him down and taking from his person two watches, on the 1st of June, 1861. Some additional testimony was adduced, but none that could be deemed specially relevant to the question at issue.--
Turner, at the conclusion of the evidence, read from notes the heads of an argument he had prepared against
Mr. A., which the
Mayor listened to with exemplary patience, remarking on its termination that he believed it was the first time a witness had appeared before him in the shape also of a prosecuting attorney.
The evidence was summed up by the presiding magistrate, who said that while
Turner was no doubt honest in his belief that
Mr. A. had despoiled him of his watches, yet the testimony of a disinterested witness on the other side had proved positively that he neither did nor could have taken any property from
Turner on the occasion of the interview between them, and that
Turner was in that state which renders men liable to see double.
The
Mayor observed that while he knew some men were rogues because they could not help it, and some were rendered so from want, yet in this case Mr. A.'s position as a gentleman, and his resources, independent of the positive testimony that he did not commit the offence alleged against him, made it his duty to acquit him honorably of the implication sought to be cast on him. He did not question that T. lost his watches, but there was no proof that the party accused took them.
With those who have known
Mr. Adkins long and intimately, no enology of that gentleman is needed; and with those who do not, if they have read the proceedings in this case, his reputation as an honorable man can suffer no detriment.
The whole affair proves that the best of men are liable to be wrongfully accused and placed in a false position before their fellow- citizens.
