The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1855-10-22

The FREE LOVE CATAsTROPHE.-When Mr..
Brisbane, who was arrested at the Free
Love establishment on Thursday, and spent
the night at the station house, talks Of ap-
pealing to the courts Of justice for redress,
as he does in the letter we published on Satur-
day, he does what perhaps most men Of spirit
would do in the like case--he utters threat
which, when his blood is cool, he will think
twice about fulfilling. 1t is very possible, as
Mr.. Brisbane says, that the society of which he
undertook on that day to be the mouthpiece
does not propose to itself directly 20 work mis-
chief. But SO shrewd gentleman as the
late chief of the American Associatonists
needs not to be told that when men start by
placing the sentiment of individual con-
science above the prescriptions of political
and social institutions"-in palmer words,
when they undertake to decide for themselves
what is right and what wrong, regardless of
law, divine mandate, or human custom, they
cannot, when they get into trouble, appeal to
the law for protection or to the public for SYM
pathy, with any good grace or decent consisten-
cy. Moreover whatever the intention Of the
original Free Lovers may have been, it is I'M
denable that their acts brought them legit-
mately under the eye Of the police. When
the organ Of the sect admits the immortality
Of the scenes at these assemblies we may
safely credit the uninitiated who assert
positively that the Free Love Associa-
ton resembled the society of the Pacific
Islands, which, Us every one knows, has
been the most formidable obstacle against
which the missionaries have had to contend
With what hopes can the members OF such
body as this presume to appeal to the courts
for redress, because, forsOoth, they spent
night at the station house? Three months
of hard labor is the law for Mercer street.
Shall there be damages and sympathy for
Broadway?
AS to Mr.. Brisbane all men will agree with
the Mayor in regretting that he should have
thrust himself into such wasps' nest, and in
hoping that his adventure with Capt. Turnbull
will produce the same effect on his Free Love
inclinations that the loss Of half o fortune
did upon his Fourierite tendencies. 1t is plain
enough, indeed, that he and men of his stamp
are innocent partners in these operations. The
real men-the Andrews, the Gove-Nchols,
the Greeleys, and those who herd with them
almost invariably manage to creep out by
back door when row takes place, .leav-
ing their honester and more respectable COM
rades in the lurch. They pocket the gains so
long as the game is successful; the moment the
tide of fortune turns they beg your pardon,
look unconscious, and have nothing to do with
the unfortunate party
What harm has Mr. Brisbane done, in com
parison with that which has been effected
by the New York Tribune? A few hundred per-
sons at one time or other have heard him talk
Fourierism but the Tribune has poured forth
steady stream of social poison for years
The members Of the Free Love Association
learned their doctrines, not from Brisbane, but
from the Tribune; 1t was in the columns of that
sheet they were first taught to "place the SEN
timent Of individual conscience above social
and political institutions;" it was there they
were first told In the James and Greeley cor
respondence that marriage was an old fashion
ed absurdity. When there was a DISPOSE
ton in this country TO encourage social expert
ments, the Tribune went hesdiong into Fourier
ism, and made money, while such men as Albert
Brisbane and the wealthy converts to the
phalansterian system lost it. When Fourier
ism fell, and honest Andrews carried out it's
doctrines in his free love establishment, and
he police descended and broke il up, who
vas so innocent and unconscious as the Til
unep The free lovers might be viliied, and
brisbane locked up; but the Tribune, when
allied upon to share their fate, initiated Peter
nd "began to curs" and to swear, saying. we
now not the man."