Notoriously, you cannot convict a cow-thief when eleven of the jury got part of the beef. Judge Swayne owes his escape to similar conditions. He was acquitted by the United States Senate not because he was innocent, but because he was regular. He had not done anything which the Senatorial Jury does not constantly do.
A railroad fell into the Federal Court of which Swayne happened to be the presiding judge. Swayne possesses and controls this railroad through the medium of a receiver. In law and in morals Swayne is the trustee of the property, administering it for the benefit of the owners—the stockholders. Had he put his fingers into the cash-drawer at the ticket office and stolen five dollars, his crime would have been clear, indefensible. Proof of such an act would have compelled a unanimous verdict of guilty—even in the United States Senate—for Senators do not do it that way.
But Swayne knows how the game is played, and he played according to rule.
That is to say, he made use of the trust funds which were in his possession and control, to fit himself up a palace car and stock it with the best eatables and drinkables. He then took on, as a retinue of servants, the employees who were paid to work for the stockholders, and appropriated car, provisions, employees and all to his own private purposes.
With this luxurious car, upon which he had spent the trust funds committed to his care, he took himself and family on long pleasure trips to his native place in Delaware. In this rolling palace he and his family enjoyed a tour of the West.
The sum total of the trust funds which he thus converted to his own use could not have been less than thousands of dollars, for the car and its equipment would have been worth hundreds of dollars per day had it been used by its owners, the stockholders.