Show EXSECfiETATiy BELKNAP And so poor General BELKNAP has taken hisfarewell of earth and its joys and sorrows sor-rows and gone to his final account A dispatch dis-patch says he was found dead in his room Washington on Monday morning W W BELKNAP was an able man and a brilliant bril-liant one but he came to the front at the wrong period in his life at a time when official corruption was in the air and was so overpowering in its influence that it took stronger men than he to resist it Ho was not dishonestbut was unfortunately weak and did not draw the line between strict integrity and official loseness as closely as he should have done and the result was the awful disaster which befell him a few years ago and cast such a gloomy shadow over theiater year of what promised to be a prominent and honorable career We have always thought that BELKNAP was more to be pitied than condemned con-demned and that the atmosphere with whi i he was surrounded rather than an S j inherently bad disposition was responsible responsi-ble for his fall in other words that the times caused him to do things which were wrong without knowing they were wrong Since the impeachment proceedings which were so long ago that they scarcely seem of this generation so fast do we live the public ias known comparatively littlq of Genoral BELKNAP He seemingly went into retirement retire-ment with the view to inducing forgetfulness forgetful-ness of the past and never attempted to crowd to the front though possessing the ability and genius and qualifications which would have made him prominent and given him a leadership He quietly built up a big and highly renumer tive law business and in the courts and in society was esteemed as a learned and successful lawyer and a genial gentleman |