Wyoming democrat. [volume] (Tunkhannock, Wyoming Co., Pa.) 1867-1940, 1868-12-09
Hester Vaughan.

The case of Hester Vaughan, a young
English woman, now, and for the past ten
months lying iii prison at Philadelphia,
and since June last, under sentence of
death for infanticide, is exciting considera-
BILE interest in all parts of the country and
especially among the women of n. Y City !;
where, on Wednesday evening last, large
public meeting was had, which was presid-
ed over by Horace Greely, and, addressed
by several prominent Ladies and Gentle
men. Resolutions We're passed condemn
ing her execution on the vague and unsat-
! isfactory evidence adduced against her and
asking her unconditional pardon by the
! Governor of Pennsylvania.
! \ Committee was appointed to present
these, in person, to Governor Geary.
This case has given rise to considerable
criticism on the course of the sympathies
of the citizens of Philadelphia who, it
seems had much of this precious commodi-
! ty to expnd in behalf of a negro murderer,
who was tried and convicted about the
same time and by the same court before
whom Hester was tried
We extract the following summary of the
facts Of these two cases from the Ny.
! World
THE CASE OF THE WHITE GIRL.
1t seems she came to this country in 1865
Il young Englishwoman OF twenty, with a
man to whom she was married, but who
was really married to another woman and
who deserted HESTER at Pottsville, PENN
sYLvANIA. Whereupon the deserted wo-
man became Il dairywoman, and while in
this service was the victim of what she al
leges to be n rape though she persstently
refuses to give the name of her rayisher,
declaring that he is the husband of wo-
man and the father of a child upon whom
! great sorrow would fall with the revelation,
and that misery enough has come from the
matter now. As indeed there has, seeing
that child was the result of IA rape, that
the child did not remain long in the land of
the living, and that the child's mother is
pronounced to be the child's murderer
| What suffering rs well as sorrow HESTER
| VAUGHAN endured appears in the narrative
that, when she found herself to be preg-
nant, she went to Philadelphia, where she
worked hard and lived miserably in a room
renting for 80 month. Last FEBRUARY the
child was born. The mother says she was
three days in labor, suffering her agony
and shame alone i'll her wretched room,
without friends or fire or food, or a single
comfort or comforter At last she was un-
conscious, and then some German women
found her and dead child together. There
was Il puncture in the soft part of the
child's skull, made, according to testimony
l..rn h.. l,N- Inn cf~17
ment, and this is the first shred of testimo-
ny against HESTER. Then the women say
that HESTER offered them all she had in the
world to take the child away, which she de-
MES, saying that she could not speak Ger
man and they not understand English, and
that she only asked for assistance she sore
ly needed. But this is shred two i'll the
testimony, and these simple shreds have
been twisted into a rope strong enough to
hang HESTER VAUGHAN.
After HESTER VAUGHAN had been speedi-
ly tried, poorly defended, and summarily
sentenced, for the first time one woman in
Philadelphia went to call on the unfortu-
nate, though HESTER had been lying in
prison full five months Only one woman
in all of Philadelphia, which is full of phi
lanthropic women who Will do anything
for the negro brother, and who cry aloud
1 Tor boiled clnckenS ana homemade CAKES
to support the Aati-S2drerg Standard This
one woman was very kind to HESTER but
she could excite no sympathy among her
sex, and now HEsTER's case is brought
from Philadelphia to be considered in New
York.
Is there no sympathy or feeling in Phila-
delphia o yes, quantities of it. It ap-
pears as follows At the same time, and in
the same court which sentenced HESTER to
be hung, was sentenced also ALFRED ALEX
ANDER, incidentally mentioned as ''colored" "
He had been cohabiting with another mans
wife who had borne child to ALFRED,
| ''colored" and one day, influenced it is
said by jealousy, he stabbed the woman,
from the result of which she subsequently
died, and ALFRED was tried and sentenced
to be hung. Twenty thousand men and
women in PENNSYLVANIA have petitiOned
Governor GEARY to pardon, or at least to
commute the sentence of that negro Not
one man or woman has yet signed a petit
| ton for HESTER VAUGHAN BY all means
let us hear what is to be said in HESTER S
favor. The plain case will at least dO an
! Offset to
! THE CASE OF THE NEGRO.
On the next day after Hester was convic-
/ ted, in the same court and before the same
judges, a colored man was convicted of
stabbing married woman with whom he