The Kansas herald of freedom., 1856-05-17
Original Correspondence.
For the Herald Of Freedoms.
Letter from Mrs. Nichols.
TowNsHEND, Vt, April IA, SO.


DEAR HERALD Truth is stranger
fiction" long since became, to my mind,
as applicable to legal as to social life.
You are lawyer. You have heard of
illegal fctions s' What some of the
most striking ones are, have indicated,
I think, in my last communication, but
for the present l must speak of legal
truths, facts stranger, because giving the
lie direct to fastidious theory. Perhaps
cannot better illustrate and impress the
legal wrongs which have and intend to
present to our Kansas Legislators for their
manly rejection, than by detailing, in
brief. simple incidents of suffering un-
der laws, which have been, and still are,
in force in many States of this Union.
And here let me say, have been for
thirty years q careful observer, and
sometimes passive sufferer, under the
laws affecting the rights of married wo-
men. True. it is sca,ely fourteen years
since [ first sought. through the press,
to awaken public attention to this de-
psrtment of legal action, and If l have
done anything towards reforms securing
better projection and greater freedom to
my sex, | may be excused for indicating
one source of the courage, which, at so
early day, was an indispensable quail
hestion in advocating legal rights for
married women. Married at about that
time to my late husband, Geo. w. Mich
OILS, publisher and editor of the Windham
county Democrat, l was most happy in
finding In him, net only sympathizing
friend, but one who secuted the idea Of
impropriety in woman advocating any
truth. or attacking any wrong. whioh ap-
peais to her womanly sympathies. or has
to do with the progress Of the race to 8
higher moral. intellectual or political life,
Justice to hiEn, justice to myself demands
that bezr testimony to the noble man
hood which, having come to value its
cwn rights of msans of human happi-
ness, rather than pastry gain, feels itself
n.eooTe honored in releasing than in ab-
sorbing the ''inalienable" rights of wo-
man. From nay earliest childhood to
SLiis, "a oSSOuO AAoIt1ASC, WoS t1uSt
highly favored ia frequent opportunities
to sit "under the dnnnninGs af the sane,
t,.-,n az sstha kasaa's poor. rot Hiahy
years my father. as town agent and poor
master. was the recipient of all petitions
and complaints ia that department o.
town liss. studied the poor laws, and
peeped behind them into the causes o
poverty. While I sat in the quiet cor,
jner, an indignant and silent listener :
!. revelations from the quiyering lips OF tn
Moor and the heartiess contrisanees o
men to eysds the paupers' support, sas
INV fathers moistened eye. ana hear'
his reerstful replies 10 the oft-recurrini
tales al sorrov-"I can't help It; | au
only the agent of the town to do it
b;ddine"-and ..the Law allows it"-un
iii I learned first to despise such laws
and sscoud. TO doubt the sisdom of th
men Who could make them. Nobl
men-men of influence and official po
sition-uhsa appealed to them agains
,ahsss sutrsgss of the golden rule and th
sCop..;,tution, only pointed me. in reply
10 the Law, regrstting. but deprecatin
III. ;des that laws 90 framed as to obyi
ate what they termed s.abuses," bu
which. to my mind. were the legitima'
xses and fruits of the laws under whic
they we're obtained. "It is the law.
seemed with the majority to be shakin
of OF sllrsspopsibility IN the matter. 40
theconvictiop VAS forced upon my youn