The Rhode Island Republican

From the Lehigh Herald of July 26.

TRAGICAL AFFAIR.

It has become our painful duty to record one of the most solemn tragedies that ever affected any community. Mr. Charles A. Dale, of Livingston Manor, N. Y. married on the 30th of March last Miss Margaret T Greenleaf, of this place, committed suicide on Saturday evening last, in the county jail in this borough, by shooting himself through the head with a pistol. Our situation as a public journalist, we here confess, is an exceedingly delicate one. Alien from us is the wish to add poignancy to the agonized feelings of the relatives of the deceased, by publishing to a curious world the occurrences which have led to this melancholy end; but then again we have a duty, a solemn duty, to perform to the public. An individual in the bloom of health, in the gayety of existence—yea, at the very period when above all others, life should have been most dear to him—has precipitately, and in violation of the laws of GOD, ushered himself, perhaps unprepared, before the bar of his Supreme Judge. The powerful motives, the extraordinary causes, (for such they must have been,) which led to this revolting deed, will be demanded by a peace loving community; and we cannot, therefore, reconcile a concealment of established facts with the sacred obligations we owe to our readers and the public.

We believe public opinion will bear us out, when we declare it as our decided conviction, that this marriage was, as all such sacred ties should be, the offspring of mutual love and affection. That it was so on the part of the wife, no one acquainted with the situation of the parties before marriage will pretend to doubt; whether it was less so on the part of the husband, an impartial public must judge from his subsequent conduct. Shortly after the marriage the parties came to this place and resided with Ann P. Greenleaf, the mother of the wife. But a very short period had elapsed when, strange to tell, it became a matter of public notoriety that disaffection had reared its hideous head, and ere long Charles A. Dale was indignantly spurned from the residence of his wife—the partner of his bosom denied him, and he turned out upon the cold charity of an unfeeling world. Here the public will ask, was there sufficient, or any, cause for this? Was it at the instance and wish of his wife?

As it regards the former interrogatory public opinion is at variance and contradictory. It has been asserted that his treatment towards his wife was cold and unbecoming—that he manifested an illiberal and untoward disposition to possess himself of certain property to which he considered himself entitled by marriage—besides other stories of minor import. To establish these reports we have, however, nothing but the mere ipse dixit of interested persons. AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM is our motto, and as in this instance, the decrees of Providence have rendered it impossible to hear BOTH sides, it would be uncharitable to listen to the ONE told us, and especially so, when we have abundant reason to believe, that Mr. Dale not only loved his wife, but that blighted affection drove him to despair and death.

With respect to the latter question, we feel constrained emphatically to declare that we cannot believe that Mr. Dale was discarded at the instance of his wife. Is it consistent with the sacredness which we have always been wont to attach to female love, to suppose, that one or at most two short months would be sufficient to estrange her affections from him under whose wings she had voluntarily put herself for shelter and protection? that she should, without the intervention of a dreadful influence, lose all regard for him who had solemnly pledged himself to cherish, love and protect her—forget all respect for the transcendent ties of husband and wife. Had we no other evidence to convince us that such has not been the case, the bare idea is so revolting to reason and humanity, as to induce us to treat it with ineffable contempt. No! rather would she have said

" I know not I ask not, if guilt's in that heart,
I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art."

The immediate occurrences attending the unfortunate death of Mr. Dale are in substance as follows: After he had been discarded from his home in June last, he left this place evidently in deep distress of mind, and remained absent until several days before the awful deed was committed. On his return here, he made application for legal advice to our respective counsel, and wonderful to relate, all countenance was refused him. This without doubt heightened his mental agony. Mrs Greenleaf being absent accompanying Mrs. Dale on a visit to Washington city as far as Philadelphia, Mr. Dale obtained entrance into the dwelling, and seated himself in his wife's chamber, with two pocket pistols lying beside him, evidently in the deepest agony and distress. In this situation he remained during the whole of Friday last, and until Saturday at about 2 o'clock, P. M. He then left the dwelling and again went in search of counsel, but again failed. In the mean time arrived the Philadelphia stage, and with it Mrs. Greenleaf, who stopped at the house of her son in-law, Walter C. Livingston, a short distance below her residence. She, however, shortly after repaired to her dwelling and at a front door came into contact with her son-in-law, Mr. Dale. She attempted to prevent his entrance into the house, he mildly held her back, and in closing the door caught her arm, when the cry of murder was heard, which very soon collected around the dwelling an unusual number of persons. Mr. Dale was instantly prosecuted for an assault and battery on Mrs. Greenleaf, and on being informed from below (he being in the second story of the house) that a legal process was awaiting him, he voluntarily submitted, and accompanied the police officer of the justice of the peace, with whom the complaint had been lodged. He was eventually committed to gaol. After making all necessary arrangements to render his apartment as comfortable as was legally practicable, he then sat down and commenced writing a letter which it is believed, was intended for his sister, the purport of which is that he had married into a den of vipers. He had wrote but a few lines, when the sheriff entered and informed him, that understanding him to be possessed of a brace of pocket pistols, it became his duty to deprive him of them. He unlocked a hat case, and grasping both pistols walked into an opposite room, and discharged one of them through his head. He breathed but a few moments after fatal deed. On Sunday afternoon last his remains were decently interred in the burying ground in this borough, on which occasion the Rev. Mr. Heberton delivered a very impressive prayer, prefaced by an affecting address.

Thus has terminated a train of event as extraordinary as they are deplorable. The more and the longer we contemplate this awful tragedy, the more we are lost in wonder and amazement.

We are not disposed to indulge in tender sympathy with the fate of him who rushes precipitately to the awful precipice which hangs over the abyss of eternity, and plunges headlong in the dark unknown, without one cheering ray to guide him to the confines of another and a better world—but we must say that the unhappy train of events which brought on the suicide of Charles A. Dale, will, when properly reflected upon, go far to wipe the stain of disgrace off his memory.