The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-04-28
FRIDAY, APRIL %, 1871.

THE CONVICTION OF MRS. FAIR.
THE general course of a certain class of crimi-
nal proceedings has been reversed by the re-
cent conviction, at San Francisco, of a MUIR
deress. Male juries are prone to render YER
diets in favor offemale defendants or criminals
whenever plausible excuse for such decisions
can be furnished, and it was generally sup
posed that Mrs. Fair would be acquitted. If
she had killed only one man, this
would have probably been the result
in the present instance; but
even San Francisco jury was not proof to
the clamors of justice against one who had
murdered at least two men. few years ago
she killed her husband because he had the
audacity to insist that Union instead of a
secession flag should be hoisted upon their
dwelling. When she was arraignsd for this
charge Mr.. Crittenden successfully defended
her, securing her scquittal. Out of the &C.
quaintance formed during this trial crimi-
nal intimacy grew up between
MIR. Crittenden and Mrs. Fair, and the latter,
after rendering this intimacy source of con-
siderable pecunisry profit to herself during o
series of years, finally killed Mr.. Crittenden
because he would not abandon his lawful wife
and children to devote himself exclusively to
his murderous mistress. There can be no
sort of doubt that woman guilty of such a
crime should be convicted of murder and
hung in any State where capital punishment
is inflicted for murders of any kind, and
the verdict in this case is only
deemed singular because in many notorious
instances other wicked women have been
shielded from deserved punishment on ac-
count of their Sex. The existence of feel
ing of delicacy on this point has exerted a
deleterious influence on society, and it has
done much to increase the race Of insidious,
dangerous, and reckless female adventurers.
While the bulk Of women are, morally, de-
cidedly better than the bulk of man
kind, thoroughly bad women are
decidedly worse than the worst of bad men;
and it is even more essential that they should
be restrained and punished than that the
rigors of the law should be enforced against
male criminals. Mrs. Fair is the type of q
long line of female adventurers, of high and
low degree; and although she went beyond
the usual limits of her infamous sisterhood
in perpetrating murder, she bears a close re-
semblance to them all in her INSCRIPTIONS
exercise of her acts of destinations, in
her greed for money, and in her
ungovernable thirst for vengeance against
those who thwart her purposes. In this age
of womans rights, when the equality of the
sexes in matters of property, professions, and
politics is so zealously advocated, it would be
we'll if the doctrine was adopted so far as it
applies to equality of share of punishment
for all grades of criminal offenses. Certainly
some course should be adopted to thin the ranks
of female adventurers and of the female crimi-
nails. In governmental affairs they exercise a
most pernicious influence, for among all the
arts of lobbyists none are so successful as the
employment of fashionable but shameless
women to persuade representatives to squan-
der the money of the people. Many classes
of predatory criminals habitually enlist fe =
male accomplices in their service. Our towns
and cities swarm with courtezans whose lives
are made up of varied infamy. And then
still more infamous and dangerous is the
class who, like Mrs. Fair, are wives to-day
and mistresses tomorrow, and who are
ready to indulge in the loftiest aspirations or
to commit the greatest of crimes. Thacke-
rays famous picture of Becky Sharp owes its
great success to the well-recognized fact that
it was no fancy sketch, and to the general
conviction that parallel characters could
readily be found in real life. While
the police and the courts are
hunting down bad men, they should not be
sparing of the bad women who
are not only wicked themselves, but the fire.
quent cause of great wickedness in others of
both sexes.
We are glad to see that the San Francisco
press unanimously endorse the verdict in the
Fair case; and the moral atmosphere of the
country will be decidedly improved if in all
sections, hereafter, public sentiment takes the
same direction, and approves and applauds
the successful prosecution of dangerous
female criminals. They should have theil
full share of the prison and the gallows, de
spite the promptings of unreasoning gal
lantry.
The STATE SENATE has passed the join