New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1872-07-28
Lnmrn ID. Fair.

We reproduce the following from the
South 81. Louis, a weekly paper conducted
by Mrs. Laura S. Webb, formerly Of this
city:
Sentimental newspaper correspondents
are wasting great deal OF sympathy upon
the condemned murderess Garrabrant and
speak of her as a youthful and charming
parsonage, with a pretty face, whom it
were a pity to hang. We are reminded
that Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was
guilty of similar nonsense, when, after a
short interview with Mrs. Laura D. Fair
in the San Francisco jail, she expressed the
belief that it was impossible that any jury
could find a verdict of guilty against a
woman possessed of such mild blue eyes
and charming features without mourning
the guilt of perjury. In the name of the
hOmely, aw-abiding portion of the fair
sex, We protest against the attempt to adj
just the standard of guilt by the contour of
the face and the color Ofthe eye.-.St. Louis
Times.
The above paragraph carries US back six
teen years ago. 1t carries us back to those
happy days when we were school girl in
the Academy of the Visitation, Mobile,
Alabama II was there that we met and
studied, quarreled and made up" again,
as school girls generally do, with Laura D.
Fair. We knew her then, as convent
girl, by the name of Laura Hunt, although
it has since been made public that she was
even then divorced from her first husband.
GraysOn.
How strange does it appear, as we look
| back over the lapse of years, that one
whose life seemed so perfectly pure, should
now be-a murdeTess How strange that
evil influences should have thus drawn her
down, step by step, until to-day she is the
inmate of a dungeon! Why is this Why
e tbo+ la Of oiV Il hpa nd cd on
the fair brow of Laura D. Fair Why is it
that the good influences that emanated
| from her convent life could not save her
| from this shipwreck of her immortal soul
Because tho world, the flesh and the
devil " have triumphed over a heart that
was naturally good, but alas, how frail
! Because her hopes were not anchored be
yond the stars, where the pure Of heart see
! God.
She looked lower than the stars; she an
! chOred her hopes on man and lost. Even
then, lost and degraded as she was, with
| her soul stepped in the blackness of crime;
even then she could have been saved if she
| had but looked upward to her God, and,
| with her arms around the cross, purified
! her soul with tears and prayer. Did she do
! this No. The evil influence that had en-
| quilted her thus far but drew her still far
| Their down, until blood stained those beauti.
! full hands that, in schoolgirl days, we saw
sweep the piano, the guitar and the harp.
The mild blue eyes and charming tea-
lures" are no excuse of her guilt. And
neither do we, womanlike, say that she
should be condemned for having been SO
fatally charming, We can but pray that
! the blood of Christ will wash the blood OF
! Crittenden from her soul, and the Laura of
| convent memory will yet be plucked as a
| a brand from the burning.
How wildly do we remember the last
| time that we ever saw Laura. 1t was at
the close of the session in 1885, and the day
! that she left school. We have never met
since, perhaps shall never meet again, yet
we shall never, never forget the queenly
form of that now terribly unfortunate wO
man, as she then passed forever from hel
| hallOwed convent home. How superbly
! did she look, all rObed as she was in pure
white, even to her very gloves and hat
! Would to God, that such had been her life.
| Far away from here, in San Francisco
| dungeon, is incarcerated the woman thai
we then saw go out into the sinful world
| Oh where then was her guardian angel
| Why did he not linger around her pathway
| and shield her from the demon of evil
| Why did he desert her 1t must have beer
because she ceased to pray, for prayer is the
! sole safeguard Of the soul. Then. while faitf
| and prayer are left, all is not lost. Let thi,
! he the consolation of Laura D. Fair in hel
| dungeon home.