New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1871-07-25
Rifle Eyes COYDOyTNG MURDER.


vanced women who clamOr go earnestly for
social regeneration are unwilling or unable to
tell us precisely what they want. The uni
verse is not governed by fine phrases; domes-
tic virtue needs some other safeguard than
mystical poetry; and society cannot be puri-
fed and ennobled merely by substituting for
the old reign of law new dispensatiOn OF
impulse which, however glorious it may be in
the rhodomOntade of feminine philosophy, is
not dstnguishable by practical people from
very vulgar sort of license We know what
one class of the female reformers want; for
some of them at least are quite clear in their
own minds, and certainly frank enough in
speech but when a lady like Mrs. Davis cries
ont for Free Love, and then shTieks with
horror because the only possible defini-
ton of Free Love is explained to her,
or when two such philanthrOpi5ts as Mrs.
Henry b. Stanton and Miss Susan b.
Anthony take pains to demonstrate On eiflisive
sympathy with a notorious representative Of
the vilcst variety of Free Love principles, we
are puzzled for an explanation, and would beg
the ladies Qf there were any use in begging
to come down out of the clouds and talk plain
English. Mrs. Laura Fair, we believe, never
spoke at conventions, but she practiced in the
concrete the same liberty of love which the
advanced women advocate with so much clO
auence in the abstract. Her life was a course
OF vulgar lust, crowned by cruel and sick
ening murder. Therefore, Mrs. Henry b.
Stanton and Miss Susan b. Anthony feel it
their duty to visit her in Jail and offer her
the hand of sympathy, and Miss Anthony at
tempts to defend her in a public lecture,
until the Kisses of the audience 6blige her to
change the subject. Pray, ladies, what do
you wantf
1t was apparently for the purpose Of getting
an answer to this question that a San Francisco
reporter subjected Mrs. Stanton to a mild cross
examination. He got very little for his pains,
as anybody could have predicted. "When [
Cooked into the mild blue eyes of that poor
woman" said the lady, "and studied
"that pale and sOrrow-laden face, could but
feel that no amount of testimony, no array
" of evidence that might be piled up against
cher, could ever convince me that she was the
"bad, bold woman that the press has stated
" that she is. Mrs. Fair may not have been a
" saint but she cannot have been a Demon"
Now, this lady knows that about the facts
of the homicide and the principal incidents of
Mrs. Fairs life there was no dispute the wo-
man justified Misrepresentation adultery MUIR
der and all-upOn the very principles of which
Mrs. III. b., Stanton is the apOlOgist, if not the
apostle. So when Mrs. Stanton complained
that the case had not been fairly tried be-
cause the jurors were not her peers !;
the majority of them were foreigners
and foreigners cannot and do not look
Is la cho ba,ra
meant, if she meant anything at all, that a
Free Love murderer should be tried only by a
Free Love jury, and that Mrs. Fair had a valid
defense for her life and crimes in the beastly
doctrine of affinties which she avOwed when
she shot Crittenden. Mrs. StantOn's philoso-
ply comes to nothing short of this, if there
is any meaning in words and any force in
logic; but she will, no doubt, be angry with
us for saying so.
The impractical, unreasonable, prepOsterous
ideas of these advanced women were displayed
in other instances during the San Francisco
interview. Tie imprisonment OF the poor
woman" was, to Mrs. Stantons mlnd, II
disgrace to the City of San Francisco"
She ought to have books flowers, and music,
q better cell, and opportunities Tor exercise
81 disapprove of our whole system OF JaiiS'
"They should be surrounded, as are our asy-
Gums, with grounds and gardens. Instead of
"sending bands of music to the parks for the
rich. we sbould send them to the jals for
"the unfortunate But really, why not carry
ont the Stanton doctrine of liberty to its logi-
cal development Then everything would be
lawful and we should have no use for jalls.
Most readers will object to the notice we
D,.f Ia
cousa neonle have been too much amused, or
aisousted. or too indifferent or too gallant,
that people protesting such vicious principles
in such respectable guise have really come to
nossess a power for cyil aud to need, OF all