The Peril of Substitution.
--One of the dangers which surround the principal in all the transactions incident thereto have been most strikingly illustrated in the interesting
habeas corpus case which has recently been so elaborately argued before
Judge Halyburton in the C. S. District Court.
It seems that
Fayette Allen, of
Halifax, in March, 1862, visited
Richmond for the purpose of purchasing "a substitute for the war." For the sum of one thousand dollars he procured a substitute in the person of
the Rev. E. E. Orvis,
attorney-at-law, a clergyman of the Reformed Baptist Church, and
Allen conformed to all the requirements of the
Government, in having his substitute regularly enlisted in the company of
Captain Cropper, an artillery company then organized.
The principal in this transaction returned home, believing that the substitute whom he had paid and placed in the service for
the war would protect him from all claims whatever of the
Government on the score of military service.
The unhappy
Allen, however, was not at the end of his troubles, as the sequel will show.
The War Department, after mustering
Capt. Cropper's company into service, disbanded it, and ordered all the members of it, between the ages of 18 and 35 years, to join another artillery company.
Therefore,
the Rev. Mr. Orvis, although paid by
Allen to serve
as his substitute for the war, insists that the action of the
Government has released him from
all obligations of service, and invokes the
Court to sustain him in his position.
The disbanding of his company, he contends, released him from all his obligations to the
Government as
Allen's substitute
for the war, and his being a clergyman also exempts him, he contends, from conscription.
Should the technical pleas of the substitute prevail, despite his obligations to
Allen to serve as his substitute, for the war, the fate of poor
Allen commends itself to the attention of all unhappy principals in, similar substitute transactions.
The substitute, with
Allen's thousand dollars in his pocket, will go free, exempt from all military duty, to preach to all who may feel disposed to listen to the sacred teachings of the successful substitute clergyman and attorney, whilst
Allen, minus his money, will be at once sent to a camp of conscription, there to repent at his leisure of having expended his money most unprofitably, except to the lucky
Rev. Mr. Orvis.
Should
Judge Halyburton, on Monday next, when he renders a decision, release
Orvis, we suppose the only remedy of the luckless
Allen will be an action against
Orvis for damages, or the institution of criminal proceedings against him for obtaining money upon false pretences,
Orvis having bound himself to act as
Allen's substitute for the war.
Allen, we learn, is a poor overseer, and the father of a large and helpless family, who spent every cent which he was worth in procuring a substitute for the war in the person of
the Rev. Attorney,
Mr. Orvis.
The restitution to the poor man of the thousand dollars which he paid his substitute would, not enable him to procure another, as five thousand dollars is now paid for able bodied substitutes in the market.
His case is peculiarly hard, and common justice, if not law, demands his protection.
