The Shasta courier., 1864-04-02
Terrible Results of fLicentiousness

Professor Wines. in an article in the Octo
Der number of the American PRESBYTERIAN
and Theological Review. on "The Sources
OF Crime, gives the following: Mr.. Gould
relates the story of fallen woman. whom he
encountered IN one Of our penitentarv hospi.
tails, which casts a terrible light upon the
tendency of licentiousness to produce crime
ehe had been woman of exquisite beauty
and elegant culture Her father. a wealthy
merchant of New York, failed in business.
and gave up everything to his creditors. She
was reduced to the necessity of learning the
trade of dressmaker, to earn her daily
bread, She became proficient in the busi-
ness, and her taste and skill commanded lib
eral wages. which enabled her to provide an
ample wardrobe for herself She had been
intensely devoted to the glitter and gayety of
fashionable life, and hope, which '.springs
eternal in the human breast, whispered that
fortunate marriage might restore her to the
| charmed circles whose delights she had once
tasted, and which she longed to re-e ter She
used every effort, by the charms of person.
dress, voice and manners, to attract the no.
tice and win the love of eligible young men.
Atfagth, she thought she had succeeded in
her obleet: but the young man. whose aasc.
tons she lreamed that she had won. proved
to be cold hearted william, who was in pur
suit only of amusement and qualification for
the passing hour. One evening he invited
her to ride. Driving into the country, he
aiighted att house of ofrefreshment in the neigh.
borhood of that city. He offered her a glass
of wine, which she drank The LIQUOR had
been drngged. A profound stupor ensued,
and she awoke the following morning to find
herself ruined. With returning conscious.
ness, the magnitude of the injury burst upon
her. She instantly resolved on revenge. and
the plan for its accomplishment flashed upon
her mind with the suddenness and rapidity
of lightning. She betrayed no emotion. She
uttered no reproaches She treated what had
happened as harmless jest, and blandlv in
vited a continuance of the intimacy. The
young man exulted in the ease and complete.
ness of his victory; but from that moment
she became the evil genius of his life Pro-
Tossing the tenderest and most unsefsh af.
fection, she drew money from him continual
ly, with which she hired sharpers to furnish
him with proyocations to drinking. gambling,
and ali the forms of vice and debaucherv. At
every rally of his better nature, by skillful
alienation of persuasion, banter and menace,
she choked the rising impulse of virtue, chain,
ed him 70 the car of dissipation. and CONFIRM
ed him in the career of vice. Full we'll did
she know whittier all this would lead him;
nor was she disappointed in her malignant
expectation. Drunkenness elouded his uu-
derstanding: debauehery ruined his health
and gambling reduced him to poverty. Not
until this point, the goal of all her prayers
and efforts. had been react ed. when poverty
aud disease had done their work and he was
unable to procure a wretched bed or a scan
ty meal, except through her charity, did she
wreak upon him the full measure of her ven-
gence. Then it was ber daily delight to visit
him, to load him with reprOaches, and to re-
veal to him, in bitter exultation, the whole
scheme so cunningly devised &. d so steadily
pursued by which she had wrought his ruin.
And when the closing scene drew near, she
sat by his bedside, and mingled her execra-
tions with the shrieks extorted by his dying
agonies. Nor was her vengence vet satisfied
Her warfare was againstthe whoesex, whom
she regarded as accursed and her insatitate
revenge cried out for still other victims
| Whenever she could fasten her fangs on
young man of genteel family, whose uncloud-
ed prospects foretokened Il brilliant career,
she never relaxed her hold. She studied,
with keer ness sharpened by experience, every
point in his eharacter-bis tastes, his PAS
sions, his hopes his fears, whatever repelled
Hiu dHu iHeD, Wllu an almost unerflng Sa.
gacity, adapting the means to the end, she
seldom failed in her demonac purpose She
claimed in this manner to have hunted down
thirtytwo young men. involved them in dis
grace, crime and ruin. Some of them end.
ed their days in prison, and others, hopeless
ly fallen. were on the road to the drunkard's
and felon's grave. When asked whether all
her sisters in ipfamy felt the same hatred to
man kind. she replied that she thought the
feeling to be general, if not universal among
them; adding that, when woman had once
fallen, she desired to revenge herself, not on
ly on her seducer. but on al his sex; thatno
game was followed with greater relish than
that involving all who came within her tolls
in crime and its consequent punishment;
that the most of them could number at least
two or three victims whom they had ruined,
and that many of these victims went to the
length of the actual commission of crime