Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1867-04-19
Nnion aud 9ispateh.
FRIDAY, APRIL 10. 1867.
Largest Circulation in City and State.
MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS-BAR-
BARIsM OF THE HIGHER CIVIL

ZATION.
A few yearsibefore the war Mr., Charles
Sumner edited the Senate Of the United
States upon what he was pleased to term
the barbarism of slavery" Illustrating
his subject by a repetition Of the particu
lars, gathered here and there, of the mis-
treatment of a slave by some cruel mar
who happened to be the owner Of
chattel." This speech was printed il
pamphlet form and scattered broadcast
over the country, and it created some.
thing Of sensation, for unfortunately
there were instances in which negroes
had been treated with unwonted cruelty
But the cruelty said to have beenpracticed
upon the poor negro slaves sinks into
comparative insignifcance beside the
refined cruelty and the slaughter of the
inuocents in the Northern States, with
the particulars of which the journals Of
that section have made the country IA
miliar during the past few months. The
blood chills in ones veins as he runs
over the recital of horrors like these
"The murder Of the innocents" is at this
time the form of homicidal mania which is
sweeping over the North. Every paper
which we open appals us with some horri-
BILE account of child murder. The propri-
etress Of one of the most elegant houses on
Fifth avenue keeps furnace in the base
ment of her house for their destruction.
The Rev. Mr.. Lindsay whips his son to
death because he is not gifted with much
quickness in prayer Massachusetts hogs
many hundred thousand boys annually
with terrible severity, and extends the same
delicate attentions to about seven thousand
halfgrown girls. These are the most noted
wholesale transactions Of this sort, but the
business of retail barbarity is carried on
everywhere We take few of these cases
as we find them grouped in the New York
Tribune. In New Jersey, Mrs. Wander
bilt employed a little girl as a servant.
This amiabIe and exemplary lady amused
herself for eleven months by beating her
servant with broomstick and an iron
dipper" Aided by her husband, she every
few DAYS used to tie this unhappy child up,
and lacerate her back with heavy horse
whip, using such soothing remedies as pep
per and salt and water At last, says the
Tribune, this unhappy girl made her es-
cape, land was found one morning in the
open fields with bare feet and legs, and
wearing only a single under garment, so
saturated with blood and filth that it had to
be pulled from her body like scab She
appeared with evidences Of torture so pitt
full upon her person that stout men wept at
the spectacle Her jaw had been broken
her hair had been torn out by handfuls
her lips were cut open her eyes were black
and Scared; her whole body was bruised
and discolored."
No photograph of this child has yet APP
peared in Harpeg's Weekly, as the artists
are probably waiting the arrival of the
humanitarians of the Freedmen's Bureau,
who contributed a photograph Of the back
Of Mrs. Abraham's negro girl" to the
picture gallery of the Journal of Civil
ization" last SUMMER
But this is only one of the many instan-
ces of inhumanity to children which the
Tribune catalogues. 1t tells of poor baby
found in a New York alley with its
throat cut from ear TO ear" of a mother
strangling her infant in the same city, and
of brute in Indiana who, having a boy,
only four years old, apprenticed to him, put
him to death with a wagon whip and q
huge club, beating his flesh to jelly
hanging him up by hook, aud roasting
the soles of his feet over a fire. The par
ties TO this worse than Indian deviltry
al orgtVtftal faw Iou
ago philanthropist in Chicago whipped
his daughter to death, and the police found
her body lacerated and covered with blood.
The Tribune declares that, "in the North
ern States, murder by the lash seems ia
have become epidemic, and women are
often implicated in the unnatural bar
barity" But the philosopher, who has a
specific for the cure of negro woes, can
suggest no remedy for this wholesale MUIR
der of Northern children.
Anothe of these horrors, ventilated
through the Chicago Christian Advocate
by minister of the Methodist K Episcopal
Church, is called foticide, which seems
to be confined not alone to the large cities
Referring to the prevalence of this crime
especially in New York and Massachu-
sets, this Methodist minister says
If every mother, in this country, guilty
OF murder, should be hung for the crime,
the married women in many of the States
would be almost decimated. The crimi-
nails mounting the scaffold would not be
only courtesans who shoot their lovers
when excited by rum or jealousy, or both
young women frenzied by wounded pride
when Tilted, or maddened by shame when
seduced and abandoned, or the mothers Of
ohsprings whom to kill before they are
born or strangled afterward is the necessa
~ sacrifice TO the reputation of its sin
ming parent; they would be also woner
whom we meet in society and meet oftenel
| because of their crimes, women who pos.
sess education and pretend TO refinement,
! who partake Of the sacrament, who art
! prominent in the church as well as in tn,
! world, but who repeatedly commit murder
with the GOODNESS and dehberation of ;
| Borgia or a Medici.
And he brings forward facts and the
testimony of number of eminent physi
clans in various parts of the North t.
establish the truth of his assertion.
The Detroit Post, edited by Gen Car
Schurz. says in regard to the revelations
OF the Methodist minister from whom W,
have quoted
Another dissertation may be found IL
! the January number of the Detroit Reuia
Of Medicine, contributed by DR.. Mors,
| Stewart, of this city. Ii is u subject th'
! wickedness and horrors of which, however
deliCately the subject itself be spoken OF
| cannot be treated otherwise than candidly
and without euphemism. 1t is a heinou'
| and an abominable crime which, under the
disguise of false names and suggested by
| false motives, and defended by plausible
| excuses. is committed without reflection
without remorse, and without shame. The
| success Of its preparation and the relative
value of the methods are current topic
! among those who practice il, and the gooc
| fortune Of those who can recount th'
| greatest number Of victims is frequently s
! subject of congratulation. Private insti tn
tons are built for its accommodation anc
supported by il. Young women who are
looking forward 10 marriage are also learn
ing how To avoid what they consider its In
II q nnaH