Daniel McFarland Trial: 1870 - The Libertine's Letter

Defense lawyer Graham's opening depicted McFarland as "a man overtaken by sorrow and calamity brought on by the unholy, reckless, and lawless passion of a bold, bad libertine, a wife-seducer and child-robber sent into eternity by a husband and father wronged when a great sea turned away his reason." The jury—all 12 of them husbands and fathers—listened intently.

Now McFarland's attorneys presented an "intercepted letter" written by Richardson to "Darling Abby" shortly after her marriage broke up—but before the divorce. Interspersed with frequent "darlings," it included such titillating expressions as "I want you always, a hundred times a day my arms seem to stretch outward toward you. I never seek my pillow without wanting to fold you to my heart for a goodnight kiss.…" The letter ended with the pencilled notation, "Burn this—will you not?" Spectators gasped. Newspapers printed the letter verbatim.

How had it been intercepted? Richardson had addressed the letter to Mrs. McFarland at the Tribune office in care of its publisher, in whose home she was staying while separated from her husband. But a Tribune mail clerk, seeing Mr. McFarland drop in, had handed him the letter.