New-York tribune., 1870-05-26
GONE MORE TNFORTUNATE."

Two stories with the above hackneyed head
ing come to us in our exchanges: one, the
history of young girl i'll Warren County,
who hss lust been committed for trial for the
murder of her illegitimate child. She is, it
| appears, the daughter of an honorable and re-
spected family, and was a favOrite i'll the
| village for her own beauty, and innocent,
kindly, generous nature. About year ago
| she became acquainted with certain Joseph
| Housel was engaged to him, betrayed, and
then deserted. She concealed her situation
even from her own family, until last week,
when the dead body of a child was found
under an Outhouse floor. The girl, who was
i'll, confessed that she had spent the previous
night in agony in the garden, and toward
morning, believing the child to be dead-born,
had hidden it. The lungs of the child were
subjected to the usual tests, and proved to
have been inflated; the girl in consequence
was removed from her fathers house, and
thrown into the county Jail, to await her trial
for murder. "The unfortunate prisoner" the
report adds, "feels keenly tho horrors of her
terrible situation, and has twice attempted to
Commit suicide since she was imprisoned"
There is the story. 1t needs No words of ours
to give it meaning and forca TAe woman,
credulous, af1ectionate, loving with such abso-
lutte trust as to forget even her honor for
the sake of the man to whom she had prom
ised her life : the desertion, the months of ter
ror and loneliness that followed the night of
agony in the garden, the child, dead in all
probability, if it lived at all, from neglect and
cold; the wretched mother herself but a child,
with blind hope of escape from the disgrace
more terrible than death, before her, making
a feeble, silly effort to hide it; the cOnclave of
grave doctors and jurymen; the girl taken
from her bed to a Jail cell as murderess;
after a while trial, and, if the law be carried
out, death for these are not the kind of mur-
ders for which insanity is an acceptable de-
fense. SO the law and custom punish the
crime of an unguarded passionate moment i'll
a woman. Meanwhile Joseph HOusel, the part
ner of her crime, who cOntriycd the murder
of this girls soul, who has cOolly, during all
these long months, refused the promised honor
able marriage which might have saved her and
his child, goes in and out as usual among his
fellow men without rebuke.
The other story is brought to us by the
Dublin papers. A certain Annie Brown, well
known in the Irish capital as the most noted
of the demi-monde, for her beauty, wit, and
with the one exception) fine womanly traits,
was so fortunate as to die the other day. AS
soon as the breath was out of her body, the
poor corpse was taken to hospital her
horses, carriages and house, with its luxuri-
Gus appointments, were put up at auction
the Irish press is rcveling in the sensational
details of the sale, and of the post-mortem
examination we have picturesque sketches of
"the face so noted for its beauty, with the false
4 4 L i
"blo0d which followed the operators knife,
"the ghastly, sunken cheeks.n "She numbered
"among her admirers" we are told, some of
"the most prominent men of the time, who will
doubtless read with "A sigh of pity this last
"recOrd of the unfortunate creature.n sigh
of pity? Let us hope for so much, at least
from the noble masculine nature. Heaven
forbid that the story should be told to us
without its moral. The rigid censors of public
vice could i'll afford to let such a fiightful ex-
ample AS poor Annie Brown, with her wealth
and beauty, her generosity and wit, pass
unimprovcd to the grave. "The pestilental
" nuisance" they say, " of which this woman
" was type, is largely on the increase among
us. Our streets, our seaside resorts, are
"haunted by these unfortunate beings. Public
morality demands that this perhaps necessary
social evil shall at least be kept out of sight
" of our decent women. Husbands have their
"wives to guard from contamination, fathers
their daughters, brothers their innocent
sisters. Let them join in some effort which
will purge our streets of such denominations,
and make them pure for those who are dearest
" to them" BY all means, let Annie and her
sisters be- kept out of sight until their dead
bodies, OF the story Of the rare w0manliness