The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1857-09-18

The recent Developments elected by the
seizure Of obscene literature In Frankfort street
give us very curious insight into the moral or
rather the immoral, condition of the country.
One would naturally suppose that in q republic
like ours where education, wealth and refine
ment are more equally distributed than in any
other part Of the world, that the men would be
more pure ard the women more chaste; that the
eanctity of the home circle would he respected;
that the good, the true, the beautiful would be
exalted; that the bad and the obscene would be
cut down, cast off and despised Such is the
theory; such are claimed to be the results OF
general system Of common school education. such
ps has bee extended from New England through
the Central and Western States BIT what are
tire facts ia the case az shown BY the recent &C
| tion Of the police? We find here man engaged
! extensively engaged-in reprinting the most
disgustingly obscene works that have ever been
Issued from the London and Paris presses, accom-
panied with plates too filthy for description-sad
evidences Of the fact that the more noble the art,
the more degrading it becomes when prostitu.ed.
Well, we find also that the persons who buy these
things are the leading men Of the country
preachers, teachers and guides of the people;
members of the national Congress; lights Of the
| pulpit, the bench and the bar; thunderers upon
the political rostrum; presidents of councils and
caucuses and conventions directors Of banks and
insurance Offices; pillars Of the church; leaders
Of class meetings; deacone and elders; Pharisees
who pray at the corners of the streets-mighty
wrestleys with the devil with whom it seems the
victory rests. Join with these develope-
ments the fact that the newspapers
TEEN with accounts Of seductions, adul-
teries, violations of the domestic hearth, de-
sertion of children by their natural protectors,
extraordinary elopements, &c, &C., and it would
really seem that our social system is rotten to
the core.
The increase of these crimes against society
has been much more rapid than the increase of
population, and it cannot be said that it is owing
to foreign immigration, because the sinners are
chiefly well informed well-to do people, not
perhaps all in the best society, but respectable
persons whose positions one would think should
teach them the necessity of placing some check
to their passions. That check was most effec-
tually found in the preservation OF the marriage
and those social enactments, c0nveniences and
compromises which make the common law of
society; and which, no viewer unfair and irksomc In
individual cases. are after all the only guide and
safeguard for the majority, because they are
founded upon common eense. Thirty years ago
this position was generally received as an axiom,
and our people were much happier and better
for it. Our country was not perhaps Arcadia,
but wives respected and obeyed their husbands,
husbands cherished their wives, children obeyed
! their parents But missionaries came to tell us
that we were all wrong, and to prove it to us
philosophically. Robert Dale Owen and Fanny
Wright came over, like st. Paul to Athens
preaching, teaching and converting many
Owen was full Of all sorts of new tangled ideas,
agrarian, sociniaE, socialistic and otherwise; and
Fanny Wright told the wives of America that
they were all mean spirited slaves, and that the
very best thing they could do would be
to run away with any nice young man
for whom they took fancy. They join
cd Issue with the anti-slavery agitators
who were just then commencing their work,
and Illuminated their doctrines from the ros-
trums of lyceums and lecture halls, and once
| OCCupleQ Inc UCdIus VI luc tuedtfe. All
sensible people looked upon these philosophers
a. harmless lunatics-lsughed at them, and said
that the temporary excitement would cease after
1t had lost the charm Of novelty. The seed, how
ever, was sown, and we are now eating the Bit
ter fruit II was from the Wright and Owen doc.
trines that some hard headed spiusters couceiy-
cd the idea of the womens Rights Conventions,
the preachings and teachings of which have car
RED sorrow TO many hearth. Before the pro-
mitigation Of the Fanny Wright creed single
| elcpement seduction, or Grim. con- in respecta-
BILE society would make an excitement all over
the country; now they are too frequent to excite
much attention, except from the aggrieved par
| ties. The womens rights mania Is strongest on
the lire Of country from Boston west to Chicago.
| 1t is in the cities and towns upon that line that
their conventions are held, and the journals OF
those same cities are constantly publishing &C.
counts Of abductions, seductions, adulteries e.
capedes Of married men and elopements OF mar
| ried women.
Owen and Fanny Wright were, however, only
the pioneers before the grand army Of lewdness.
| They surveyed and laid out the broad road that
leads down to the pit; II was reserved for other
missionaries to make the way clear that all might
walk therein. These missionaries adopted the
doctrines Of Fourier, including that OF promis-
cuous intercourse between the sexes. They I'm.
ported all the filthy books upon the subject and
reprinted them In Boston. They organized pha-
lanxes all over the country, and found plenty of
male and female dupes. Their chief priests were
the philosophers who now edit the Tribune, and
that journal was their special organ. For
several years the Tribune attempted to cram
down the threats Of the American people the
filthy doctrines of Proud hon. Saint Simon and
Fourier. The phalanxes all fell through, but the