Mr. Reynolds appeared in Morristown with the pamphlets on October thirteenth. A Boonton delegation was there, clamoring for his indictment for blasphemy. The Grand Jury heard of his visit and found two indictments against him; one for blasphemy at
Boonton and the second for blasphemy at Morristown. He furnished a five hundred dollar bond to appear for trial. On account of Colonel Ingersoll's throat troubles the case was adjourned several times through the winter and until Monday last, when it was set peremptorily for trial yesterday.
The public feeling excited at Boonton was overshadowed by that at Morristown and the neighboring region. For six months no topic was so interesting to the public as this. It monopolized attention at the stores, and became a fruitful subject of gossip in social and church circles. Under such circumstances it was to be expected that everybody who could spare the time would go to court yesterday. Lines of people began to climb the court house hill early in the morning. At the hour of opening court the room set apart for the trial was packed, and distaffs had to be stationed at the foot of the stairs to keep back those who were not early enough. From nine thirty to eleven o'clock the crowd inside talked of blasphemy in all the phases suggested by this case, and the outsiders waited patiently on the lawn and steps and along the dusty approaches to the gray building.
Eleven o'clock brought the train from New York and on it Colonel Ingersoll. His arrival at the court house with his clerk opened a new chapter in the day's gossip. The event was so absorbing indeed, that the crowd failed entirely to notice an elderly man wearing a black frock snit, a silk hat, with an army badge pinned to his coat, and looking like a merchant of means, who entered the court house a few minutes behind the famous lawyer. The last comer was the defendant.
All was ready for the case. Within five minutes five jurors were in the box. Then Colonel Ingersoll asked what were his rights about challenges. He was informed that he might make six peremptory challenges and must challenge before the jurors took their seats. The only disqualification the Court would recognize would be the inability of a juror to change his opinion in spite of evidence. Colonel Ingersoll induced the Court to let him examine the five in the box and promptly ejected two Presbyterians.