The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1868-12-07
DAILY PRESS.
PORTLAND.
Monday Morning, December 7, 1858.


We observe with some surprise that an eG-
fort is being made on the part of certain jour
nails, religious and secular, to misrepresent the
motives of those benevolent ladies and gem
tlemen in New York who are endeavoring to
obtain Communication OF the death sentence
of the unfortunate Hester Vaughn. The
movement is represented as an attempt to
tighten the penalties of infanticide, and to re-
move the few feeble restraints which the fear
Of punishment now imposes on the commits
sion of this frightfully prevalent crime. Moth
ing could be more unfair than this. The i'm
pelling motive of these benevolent people is
not a want of detestaton for the crime for
which Hester Vaughn lies condemned, but
strong and not ill-loupded doubt of her hay-
ing committed the crime al ALL The fact of
her guilt does not by any means appear to
have been put beyond question. But little
was done by her counsel to bring forward the
points in her case, the lawyer to whom she
gave all the money she had in the world hay-
ing apparently little interest in the fate of
his client after the fee was in his pocket
| port of the position that so far from the ac.
| cused being guilty of murder, there was no
murder committed. Looking at the facts in
the light of common sense We are not forced
10 accept uny such conclusion. A wretched,
betrayed woman, deserted in the time of her
sorest need, alone in bare, desola.e attic,
struggles through her awful hour un-
aided and untended, and at the end of three
| days is found nearly insensible with dead
infant at her side. There is a hasty trial in
| which the poor girl is only half defended, and
| though the facts elected show the real Won
der to have been that the mother was not
dead as well as her baby, jury of men, with
the lively appreciation of the case which
might be expected of them, gravely de-
eide that this. struggle for life was mur.
der. And because some people are not able to
see the thing in that light, aud would save
this woman from being hanged, the self-con-
stituted guardians OF the public virtue raise
a cry that infantcide is becoming so common
that an example must be made, and that the
law must take its course. And religious
newspapers which do not scruple to make
money by publishing the advertisements of
physicians who make infanticide a trade
join in the cry, and work themselves into par
oxysms of anxiety over the public morals
Unfortunately for the credit of our modern
society few journals can show spotless
record in this respect, but surely that very
fact should withhold them from adding blood
thirstiness and hypocrisy to their real reck-
lessness of the public morals
Moreover thoughtful people will raise the
question whether if they must cure this
| spreading evil by hanging, they are not be-
ginning with the wrong necks. And so long
as poor feeble human nature is constituted
as it is, and no kind of penalty has yet been
found efficient to check certain forms Of vice.
wouldn't a founding hospital, such as Cath
clio countries have long seen the necessity of,
| go as far TO stop the frequent finding of dead
babies in muddy docks and buried salt boxes
as gallows with a woman on it?