The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1871-11-10
LETTER FROM SOUTHERN OREGON.

SOUTHERN OREGON, Oct. 2S, 1871.
EDITOR NEW NORTHWEST:
Mans Rights" in his further reply |
to Mrs. O. T. Daniels" in your issue of
the 10th, makes some not very covert |
attacks upon Justice; evidently aiming
to defeat the ends, pervert the meaning
and misconstrue the efforts of Justice.
Justice would mete out to the offender
the full letter of the old Mosaic law,
eye for an eye, tooth for tooth;" would
pnnish crime and evil doors with un-
sparing rigor; would forever shut out
from the companionship of Innocence
and Virtue all that would contaminate
or degrade. Justice has sought to make
no defense of sin and of sinners, nor to
protect them from censure or abuse, nor
to shield them from merited condemna-
tion. Justice would not hide guilt from
punishment, or crime from infamy.
But there is class of people, gener-
ally women or efleminate men, who are
never so happy as when pondering over
some heinOus crime; whose minds are
so given to the worship of all that is
most revolving and disgusting that they
fairly glOat over the contemplation of
vice and shame; who so dearly love TO
parade and discuss their favorite subject
that under the plea of condemning the
perpetrator they find excuse to display
all the sickening details of the deed :;
who, in their anxiety to condemn some
one, become quite reckless whether their
abuse is launced at innocence or guilt,
and with the same feeling that prompts
children to throw mud at "a white wall
they delight to have for their victim
some one who has hitherto been free
from reproach, that his or her degrada-
tion may be the more complete when il
does come.
Justice has no desire to shield Grim
inals-Lot even from the attacks of
these human ghOuls-but would sug-
gest that it is a maxim of law, as well
rs humanity, to consider man innocent
until proved guilty. The real criminal,
| il thai may be considered criminal tChicI,
the Idtg licenses, has hitherto entirely
escaped. Nor was there any injury
done to the woman except by herself in
becoming an offender i'm the first place,
and in exposing herself to the weather
i'm the senseless and uncalled for man.
ner.that she did. 1t is perfectly absurd
to blame any one except herself for this,
which was the worst feature of the
whole affair. Neither Mr.. Fay or the
real author of her misery can justly be
eensured for her own reckless and fool
ish acts. She went of her own free will
out into the storm and darkness and the
forest periling the lives of herself and
her child. Mr.. Fay, by taking her to
his house and caring for her there after
she was found, shows that he did not
send her away, nor does she accuse him
of doing so.
Mr. F. did not 'blast her reputation;''
he did not "place her beneath the feet
Of society" did not "ferret her outr and
proclaim her to the world" All the
evils of notoriety that have come upon
this woman, now so cursed with evil
fame, have come from her own acts and
from the over-eager partizanship of those
who have made her name and wrongs
the excuse to attack and malign an i'll
nocent man. ''Man's Rights" Mrs
Daniels, and even Justice, have been faI
more instrumental in fastening her dis.
grace upon her than he, for he has said
and written nothing about her in any
way-not even made one attempt tC
'consign her to the infamy' that
"Man's Rights thinks 'she so richly de.
serves"
Justice still holds TO the opinion that
"Man's Rights and Mrs. Daniels ar,
not 50 much her friends rs his enemies
Had the person accused been other thar
the very man whose influence and tai
ents make him hated and feared by Z
certain political ring, even had he beer
prOrod guilty of far deeper crime thar
that of which Mr.. Fay has been uniustIy
accused, Hannah Rails might have bur
led her wrongs and her sorrows i'm obliv.
ion, unpitied and undefended. Mrs
Daniels would not then have rushed tC
the newspapers, eager to acquire fam,
like
THAT inspired youth who fired the Atheniar
! DOME"
'AIan's Rights would not then hav,
had opportunity to "pay off old scores. .
Women may not ban all impure mer
from their society, for the simple reason
that society would be too greatly
thinned, but they may ban those of theil
own sex who become so degraded as tC
sink to mans moral level. Because hel
moral status is higher, woman may
hope by keeping it so, to keep the world
still evenly balanced between good and
evil. Hers is the Sampsonian labor
hers the saving grace. She must Ell
courage reformation wherever found
She must unhesitatingly consign vice
and error TO the stern DEGREES of
JUSTICE.
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