The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-05-19

tions to be can innocent and deeply injured |
woman, whose greatest fault was an error of |
Judgment in remaining so long with o man
who had forfeited every claim to her respect,
and outraged every instinct of her womanly
nature;" while another declares that s'the late |
Albert D. Richardson, in offering honorable
marriage to Mrs. Mcfarland in her distress
and misfortune, instead of the insulting pro-
lection too common in such cases, acted in a
courageous noble, and generous manner, and
is deserving of the esteem and admiration of
every true woman"
Now, we have no wish to find fault either
with the Judgment or the taste. of the women
of the Sorosis. We must protest, however,
against the illogical reason which they give
for their encomiums of the guilty pair. They
undertake to assert that McFarland's trial
illustrated the assumption by a husband OF
the ownership of his wife, and they denoupce
it accordingly as "a shame to manhood, an
insult to womanhood, and deep disgrace
upon our civilization" With all due respect
to the Sorosis, the Mcfarland trial illustrated
no such thing. What it proved was the set
tied conviction of the public that marriage is
q sacramental compact, indissoluble for any
cause except that admitted in the Scrip
lures. Mrs. Mcfarland in the course
of this trial appeared to be guilty,
not of separating from a brutal and
abusive husband, but for betrothing herself
to a lover, and attempting, under cover of
a secret and fraudulent divorce, to marry him
in defiance of the laws of Christianity and of
this State She says herself in her confes-
sion that the very next evening after she fled
from her home she not only allowed Mr..
Richardson to speak to her of love, but that
when he spoke all her heart went out to him
as freely as the river flowed towards the sea,
This passion could not have sprung into ex-
stence in a single day. 1t must have been
growing during all the period of her acquaint-
ance with Richardson, and she could not but
have known it. Whether they were actually
guilty of adultery or not, they were morally
guilty of it; and this is what makes their con-
duct SO criminal in the estimation of all right
thinking people.
A subsequent resolution of the Sorosis,
passed at this same meeting, declares that
marriage is "a holy and God-ordained insti-
tuition, based upon the equal interests equal
affections, and equal rights of the contract
ing parties" Mr.. Mcfarland, therefore, had
some rights and these rights Mr.. Richardson
invaded. 1t is not violation of ownership
with which he is charged, but corruption of
the marriage bond, and making love TO a
woman and engaging her to marry him while
she was still an other mans wife, If the case
had been reversed, If Mrs, Mcfarland had
been an intolerable shrew and torment, and
some attractive woman had sought to win her
husband from her, does the Sorosis pretend
that she would have hal no right to resist
and resent the seduction?
We are assured that some of the prominent
members of the Sorosis make no secret of
their approval of free-love practices as we'll
as principles. One of the speakers last Mon
day, we are informed he's borne the relation
of wife to two men who are still in the flesh,
and has eaten at the table and lodged in the
house of her first husband, or companion, as
she calls them, during her connection with
her second companion We will not be so
unjust as to suppose that the whole CLUB is
composed of persons of this character; but
respectable women will do we'll to be careful
how they commit themselves to declarations
but statements of the broadcast free-love the
cries