A CARD.
Judge William E. Turner, in a "statement" published over his signature on the 12th instant, asserts that he attempted to chastise me with a switch, and that I fled to avoid him. This assertion is a shameless lie. I never, to my recollection, saw Judge Turner with a switch or a whip in his hand. He has made, as I am informed, many threats of taking personal vengeance on myself, but he has never attempted to put any of them into execution. I have never avoided him, but on the contrary have passed him in the street almost every day for the last four months. When he attempts to carry any of his threats into execution, I trust that I shall not forget, at the time, what is due to myself.
Judge Turner says he holds himself personally responsible in and under all circumstances. This he says in print; but it is well understood in this place that he has stated he should feel bound by his oath of office to endeavor to obtain an indictment against any gentleman who should attempt to call him to account. Shielded behind his oath of office he has displayed his character by childish boasts of personal courage and idle threats of vengeance.
STEPHEN J. FIELD.
MARYSVILLE, Dec. 21st, 1850.
There were also annexed to the publication of Turner, letters from different persons expressive of their opinion of his general bearing on the bench and courtesy to them. Among these was one from John T. McCarty, the candidate against me at the recent election, in which he spoke in high terms of the Judge's conduct on the bench, and assailed me as his calumniator, applying to me sundry coarse epithets. In answer to this letter I published in the Herald the following card:
JOHN T. MCCARTY.
John T. McCarty, in a letter to Judge William E. Turner, dated the 22d of November, takes occasion to apply several vile epithets to myself, and uses the following language to Judge Turner: "Having been present at the first term of your court ever held in this district, and most of your courts since that time, and being familiar with almost every decision and your entire conduct upon the bench, I take pleasure in saying that I never have practiced before any court where there was so great a dispatch of business, so much order and general satisfaction rendered by the rules and decisions of the court, and that, notwithstanding the base denunciations of your enemies, a large majority of the people who have attended your courts approve and sustain your positions and decisions."
During the session of the District Court, at its first term, this same John T. McCarty was called before the County Judge to give his testimony on the return of a writ of habeas corpus, and then he testified "that the conduct of Judge Turner on the bench was the most outrageous he had ever witnessed in any court in which he had practiced;" and the tenor and effect of his whole testimony was in the highest degree condemnatory of the conduct of Judge Turner.
One of two things follows: If the statement in the letter be true, then John T. McCarty was guilty of perjury before the County Judge; but if he testified to the truth, then his statement in the letter is false. In the one case he is a liar and in the other a perjured scoundrel. Thus convicted out of his own mouth, his vile epithets respecting myself are not worth a moment's consideration.
STEPHEN J. FIELD.
MARYSVILLE, Dec. 21st, 1850.