Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1868-08-20
Ap.u IsAIos Mrsrrs--A Cam rnou

0KK or HKa HUsBASps.- AN individual
ia whose style, not less than bis initial,
we recognize the author Of Avery
Glibun F" and the "0rpheus @. Kerr Pa
pers," addresses the appended note TO the
editor ofthe New York Tribune. As the
cratic career Of the subject Of the sketch
which was ended In Paris, was com
menced In Memphis, what follows will
be read with interest here:
SIN: In your recent obituary notice Of
the late Adah Isaacs Menken believe
that / can detect the hand Of writer
who, whatever his sense Of duty as a
public chronicler and moralist may be,
has still mind TO comprehend and
heart 10 credit such extenuation Of cir
umstantial error in q womans career
as an unprejudicod witness can offer and
an impartial commentator accept
Equally intelligent conclusions differ
widely as TO the natural qualifications OF
womanhood for those occupations
wherein the popular approval and sup
port are challenged at the expense
Of private sanctity; but there can
scarcely be two opinions concern
ing the tendency Of all social and
moral education to either divert q
woman from such presumed self-sscri-
fee, or turn the pitiless magnifying glass
Of a-censoriousness upon her every
defect, if inclination or destiny success.
fully tsmpts her to defy intolerant Gus
tom. The subject OF your notice and
this communication not only had her lot,
with imperious necessity, with those OF
her sex who so call upon themselves the
conventional censure Of inert morality,
but was also peculiarly misfitted, by
her impulsive, undisciplined nature,
to exact even ordinary justice from
her Judges. Compelled, while yet a
child, to go upon the stage in Memphis
as an operate danseuse, that her
widowed mother and helpless younger
sister might be saved from want, she
knew henceforth no other school, no
kinder home than the theater, and gave
to it an energy and uususpecting aspira-
ton which had brought fairer fruit if
more sophistically directed. Soon sepa-
rated from her family by the exigen-
cies Of profession in which she
rapidly arose to perilous success, and
deprived of every sacred influence by
which the female character is guided and
guarded to the pure and gentle royalty
of home life, she grew into the wild,
volatile, improvident creature of a life as
unstable and inconsistent as the popular
caprice which gives it motive Taught
only by her unschooled impulses to dis
criminate between wisdom and
folly; governed only by the uneducs-
led dictates of a passionate intellect
in the assertion of an Individuality
which knew not that il should seek any
other justification than its own felt me-
cessity, she provoked thousand scan
dals by her mere ignorance OF the studied
forms of propriety, and was deemed an
exception to all the possible good of her
calling, because she knew not how to
identify herself with respectable average
of its evil. From this to an impetuous de-
fance of the misjudgment exaggerating
her oddities into graver faults, was but
step; then came q passionate, urtutored
spirits spssmodic attraction to the first
and falsest pretender to the imme-
date sympathy it craved. To ex-
pect the appearance of deliberate
prudence, or even common discretion,
| from rank, unframed nature like hers,
had been futile indeed; but too often the
| public voice accused her as reckless
| tratficker in her own self-perverted sen
abilities, when it should have been silent
through pity for her as the victim of
their wanton deception and heartless
abuse by others.
The present writer has no desire to mar
| the lesson of misguided talents and a wo.
manhood soiled in the dust yet would he,
as having sad, truthful knowledge of his
subject, plead earnestlyagainst too harsh
| judgment of one in whose homeless and
| pnfriended life there was much to claim
the forbesrance of every just man, and
make every woman's uncharity for
woman melt in relenting tear.
am, air, yours truly, X. ID. N.
New York, August 10
YIN. !. d. CLUE. --This organization
of young men held regular weekly
meeting, last evening, in the Stillman
Hall, and was addressed in forcisle and
telling speeches by Hon. John r. Eel
lows, of Arkansas, and Capt. james
Brett, of this city. Conspicuous in the
hall was the beautiful banner of the club,
completed only few hours before the
club convened, and which displayed a
handsome appearance, and called forth
many expressions of admiration. 1t is
seven by nine feet in dimension. On one
side is portrait of Gen. Frank Blair
holding the national flag in one hand, on
which is inscribed: No carpet,bag
Governments" and pointing with the
other to the Temple of Liberty, to which
he is directing his steps. At the top of
the banner is the inscription Young
Mems Independent Democratic Club, in
white aud golden letters, and at the bot
tom is Cardinal Richelieu's declaration
that I'm the lexicon of youth, which
fate reserves for a bright manhood,
there's no such word as-fail." Only
one side of the banner was exhibited last
evening, and the other,we understand was
purposely deferred until the next meet
ing. In the center Of the reverse is an
admirable vignette of our Presidential
candidate, artistically arranged in
wreath festooned with the stars and
stripes, and over which, near the top, in
large golden letters, is the word