New-York tribune., 1872-05-09
THE GARRABRANT CASE.

Now that the trlal OF tllS WreUcneu WOman
is closed, we protest once more against the
place given to her and her like by the press.
1t is true that there are among us men and
women so nearly akin to the brutes that it
would seem to require a miracle Of Gods
grace to breathe human soul in among
their animal passions. Society has GER
tanly the right to protect itself against
them, but beyond that they should be
left to the care of science and religion: the
public have nothing whatever to do with them.
AS well bring case of Asiatic leprosy into
the highway for treatment. THE TRIBUNE,
according to its rule in such cases, gave each
day briefest report of the trial; but some of
our cotempOraries, we regret to say, felt it
their duty as news-carrers to present the
nauseous details in ertenSo at every breakfast
table, to the eyes of every pure woman or
child to which they could gain access. Now,
the reporter of paper has no more right to
thrust the life and habits of such woman as
Garrabrant on the Knowledge of o decent
family than he bas to open the foul sewers of
tho street into its doors no more right to
disseminate moral than physical death. News
carriers, newspapers are oInphatically to be, but
with the discretion to know what food its GUS
toners demand, and what they will accept if
it is thrust upon them. We suggest respect
fully that journals who serve up such gar
bage as this totally underrate the taste
and requirements Of their readers. But
small minority of their subscribers
will be found to buy or read the police news
papers. The reporters who gloat over the
"former events of the prisoners life, the
"changes of the prisoners face" and the pal
lor with which he listens to the final sentence,
as they paint them for the delectation of the
public, miss their aim, after ALL Murderers
and adulterers do not hold foremost place
in the interest of rational people, and the ma
iority of newspaper readers are (strange as it
may seem to the diseased imaginatiOns that
hang greedily over this courtroom offaD both
rational in mind and decent in habits. Yet,
at the same time, our protest would be needless
if there were not large class of these readers
whom the silly reporter, with his forid and foul
narrative, is educating down to its apprecia-
ton. 1t was not the cultured woman or the
reasonable man who could be seen hungrily
devouring the Garrabrant trial in the cars on
his way down town, but the beardless boy,
gaining, as he fancies, views of "life," or the
fast schoolgirl, who, under such tuition, will
soon forget to blush.
The evil which Lizzie Garrabrant and ber
class can do in the world is absurdly exag-
gerated by press and pulpit. The number of
abjectly poor and abiectly vicious among lis
is not one miserable tenth of the sum total
But above them lies the half educated, half
Christianized class, with just enough learning,
;ust enough imagination, to make them ready
fuel for any fire sent from heaven or hell
1t is out from this class our most effective,
successful mechanics rise, and in which the
most wisely organized beneficial and co0pera-
tive societies have their origin. 1t is, as
prison statistics will prove, curiously enough,
from il also that twO-thirds of the inmates of
our jails and pententiaries come The large
majority of convicts in this country can read
and WRITE The State has done SO much for
them. What they were given to read has
depended almost wholly on the press
Lizzie Garrabrant in herself was but a poor,
unknown wretch, going about her slow work
of killing her one victim and her own soul !;
but Lizzie Garrabrant, reproduced O myriad
times in all by every morning paper, the de-
tails of her loathsome calling has become an
active contagiOn scattered into countless
guarded and Christian homes. The evil in
crcases with every year. There is nothing, IL
is true, but regard for final expediency,
respect for the decencies and chastities of life,
for the virtue of men and purity of women,
to debar our brethren of the press. But wo
do not think we appeal to these in vain.
u:.lk