New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1871-06-16
4 FARTBIYGs WORTH OF SLANDEE.

Our readers know something of the tribu-
lations of the half-dozen courageous women
who went up to Edinburgh to study medicine.
They were showed about from pillar to post,
but they got into the class rooms at last, and
carried off great deal more than their share
of the prizes, and if they could only have
been admitted quietly to the demonstrations
of anatomy, they might have made themselves
doctors and surgeons without any further
trouble. But here the native modesty Of the
male Scotchman rebelled. On the 18th OF last
November there was to be demonstration"
at Surgeons Habitat is to say, one OF the
Professors was to illustrate the human anat-
omy by dissecting o subject in the presence
tof the class. If the ladies did not blush to
witness this operation in the company OF
students of the opposite sex, the gentlemen
did and the gentlemen accordingly prepared
to express their dissatisfaction with that suav-
ity for which students in general and medical
students in particular have always been cele-
DRAFTED. An immense crowd gathered before
the Hall. To quote the language of an Edin-
burgh reporter, they wero evidently waiting
I" for something to turn up" Something did
turn I'D pretty soon. 1t was, first Miss Sophia
Jex Blake Next Mrs. Henry Kingsley. Then
Miss Peechy. Mrs. Thorne. Other ladies. The
gentlemen Kissed, hooted, howled, and used
foul language" which the newspapers refrain
from printing. They barricaded the doors.
Somebody burst them open and the
ladies got in. The gentlemen followed
with a rush, screaming. They interrupted
the demonstration. They pushed sheep into
the classroom. When the ladies, after boldly
sitting out the lecture, went home escorted by
chivalrous company of students, they were
struck, pushed, and pelted with mud, and they
reached home at last in most forlon con-
dition. In the course of public address last
Winter, Miss Jex Blake alluded to this riot,
and said that one of the leaders was student
named Craig, whose conduct could only be
excused on the ground of intOxication. For
this Miss Jex Blake has just been sued, and
the trial has excited great deal of interest
and amusement. AS she did not plead justifi-
cation, no testimony as to Mr. Craig's share
| in the proceedings or his alleged intOxication
was admitted but Miss Jex Blake and her
associates were allowed to give full account
of their adventures in pursuit of an education,
and they did it with so much skill that the
audience applauded and the jury virtually sus-
tanned them by giving the plaintiff one farthing
damages.
Miss Jex Blake has been very lucky. The
behavior of the rioters was outrageous, and
there was natural sympathy for the victims,
which even the popular prejudice against
mixed clinics could not stfie. But if the
Scotch students have yet to learn the meaning
of decency, the ladies of the Jex Blake school
land perhaps we might as well say ladies in
generaD have a great deal to learn about the
meaning of SANDER. 1t appears from the tes-
timony that the defendant in this case had
never seen the plaintiff and had no evidence that
he was drunk. Two months after the occur
renee she had made this damaging charge
against him in the most public manner pos
sible, with as much uDcOneern as a party OF
old women would feel in bandying scandal
over tea-table. Dear ladies, if you will come
into the pulpit, and speak from the rostrum,
and brandish the editorial pen, and make
yourselves as public and as noisy as if you
were men, do pray stop your gossiping. The
world is bigger than parlor, and it is very
unsafe to tattle in the public streets, unless
your tattle happens to be true. Before you
emancipate yourselves from any more conven-
tional restraints of sex, you will consult your
own safety and happiness, no less than the
peace of mankind, If you will learn the yirile
virtue of occasionally holding ones tongue.