The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-09-06
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FSon Our 0,vs Correspondent
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New York, Sept. s. 1870.
susCsdc SfR woman's-Rishts wemnn.
In the suicide, few days ago, of Mrs. Mary
Macdonald, womans rights woman of this
city, the enemy of womans rights women will
discover an argument in his own favor. He will
assert that the trash act" was induced, not by
sutterings that are common TO all women, as of
portion of humanity, but by sufferings pecu-
liar to the sex that bankers after sixteenth
amendment. he will declare that Mrs. Mac
donald, however fit she may have been by
nature to render husband happy had her fit
ness therefor destroyed by the false teaching of
the claes OF feminine reformers among whom
she enrolled herself. He will swear that In all
probability she never sewed q button on a shirt;
never baked loaf of bread that was not heavy;
never allowed her husband to smoke cigar or
pipe in the house; made herself not only mis-
tress of the house, but master; constituted her
self cashier, aud controlled the domestic ex-
peHses; and did everything n 'lop-sided"
woman could do to make wretched the men and
boys of her household and to educate the girls
to become prototypes of herself. la the alb
sence of all positive information in regard to
that most unhappy and mistaken woman, am
not prepared to maintain the truth or the
falsity of such allegations. Ny knowledge aud
belief are limited to the fact that on last Friday
evening Mr.. Macdonald upon coming home,
found tho windows and doors of his residence
locked; that, the hour then being 6, he lay
down In an adjacent wood-shed TO rest until
his wife, who, he thought, was out visiting,
should make her appearance; that, uncon-
soiously, he fell asleep, and did not wake until
ten; that then, seeing no change in the doors
and windows he became alarmed aud sought an
entrance by force; and that, upon penetrating
TO the bath-roorn, he found his wife dead ia the
hath-tub, with two razor wounds on her left
arm and one across her throat. Some garments
which che evidently intended should be used to
bury her in were spread out in the adjacent
room. Here, too, was found an uusealed letter,
addressed In very affectionate terms to the
husband. No one appears to be able to give
any adequate reason why she should have killed
herself. Her home-life is believed to have been
happy. She was woman of talent aud infu-
ence. To charge with the responsibility OF the
act the doctriues which she had SO long advo-
Gated would be silly display of scandal and
prejudice.
Still, an act like this, the foolishness Of which
Ia swallowed up and lost sight ofin the profound
and touching tragedy of it, is not calculated to
increase the respect of the average mind for the
cause OF Woman Suffrage, which, just at this
time, needs all the assistance it can get. The
majority OF the people with whom Mrs. Mac
donald was brought in contact, aud who neither
had nor have any settled conviction of the good
and glory of women's voting, will be blind to
such moral and religious beauty as her life,
otherwise, may have possessed for them, and
the progress Of the cause will be retarded in
corresponding proportion. / do not know what
private grief she may have had to endure, and
would not willingly say word calculated to do
injustice to her memory, but the manuer of her
death obviously reads the warning that feminine
suffragiets do not strengthen their cause by thus
Implying that their private lives and public
careers are failures, and that there is nothing
worth living for. ALI BABA.