New-York tribune., 1871-09-07
THE SINS OF SOCIETY.

The public is laboring just now under sud
den and violent attack of morality which bodies
no good to the wretches like ROsenzweig, Van
Buskirk, Perry, and Burns who have fallen
within the grasp of the offended law. But
while we cannot regard the punishment of the
professors of child-murder with any feeling
except profound satisfaction, we may profta-
bly, pause and ask ourselves whether we are
not visiting all our vengeance upon the petty
instruments of crime, and suffering the greater
criminals to go unscathed. The police are
said to know positively of at least fifty abor-
tionists in this city, not to mention scores OF
reputable practitioners who are strongly sus-
pected of occasionally relieving importunate
ladies of their trouble for a suitable considera-
tion One shudders at rejecting how terrible
must be the extent of the loathsome moral
disease which employs 80 many vile agents In
the cOncealment of its consequences; and
it becomes a matter for serious reflection
whether something cannot be done not merely
to punish a single form of the crime,
but to remove the corruption from which 1t
| all springs. One class of social philosophers
| finds the root of the evil in the nerciless
severity with which the world judges female
frailty, and believes that we can stop infanti-
eide by promoting prostitution, or, in other
words, by opening our homes to the women
who have sinned as freely as to the reformed
| drunkard or the converted rake Of course
| we can save the lives of a great many lille
gitimate children by destroying the sense of
| shame which attaches to the bearing of an
| illegitmate chld but whether the result will
| be worth the price we must pay for it is
| question which the advanced reformers have
not stopped to consider. Mrs. Woodruff, we
| dare say, believes that she could prevent in
! fanticide by abolishing marriage and some OF
the more amiable and less e1ratie members OF
| the party in which she is distinguished
leader would cure abortion by the ballot, and
| drive all the Rosenzweigs out of existence by
a XVIth Amendment to the Constitution.
Washington journal judges the fount and
origin of crime to be the freedom of inter-
course between the sexes which distinguishes
in such marked manner the social laws of
America from those of Europe-forgetting
that where such intercourse is most jealously
restricted the moral tone of society ia invaria-
bly, lowest, and sins against the marriage law
are most common.
What then, shall we dOf An incident re-
ported in our account of the Burns abortion
case the other day gives, perhaps, clue to the
answer After the woman Burns had been ar
rested, detective officer stationed himself at
her apartments to receive Hthe "patients" az
they called. There were girls of different ranks
of life who sought relief from the consequences
of indiscretion. There were young men who
wasted assistance for women whom they had
seduced Lastly, there was wife who wanted
to be spared the burdens of an honorable
maternity. This was the most hOrri-
ble revelation of that Clinton-st. office;
vet it is q revelation that has its parallels
in the experience of almost every practicing
physician in the United States. The crime of
abortion in respectable families is known to be
so common that in many parts OF the Union
the natural increase of the native population
has been entirely stopped, and were it not for
immigration there would boa constant falling
off in the number of the inhabitants. We have
been assured by social investigators time and
again that the Anglo American race is actually
dying out, and the cause is no secret The
medical profession has uttered repeated warn
ings, and the church has spoken, though per-
haps with too little boldness and freedom,
dreading to shock delicacy even while seourging
SID. 1t is probable that American mothers
have no very distinct idea of the enormity of
the crime which they commit in the slaughter
OF unborn infants, and, clingng to old falla-
cies about the period when life begins, do not
understand that they are guilty. of murder
whenever, at any stage Of pregnancy, they rid
themselves of the sacred burden which heaven
has laid upon the sex. Can our preachers
and men Of sc4ence do nothing to rouse their
| consclencef Is there no voice to telatthem of
the awful guilt they are laying upon their
souls, and the terrible consequences they are
bringing upon the countryf Married women
undoubtedly supply large proportion of the
unholy gains which swell the purses of men
like Ascher and women like Madame Restell.
I ANA Hew can we wonder that when respect.