The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1874-03-26
Correspondence Cincinnati Commercial.
CH1L1IoorHE. O.. MARCH "A. IS

CHMLICoTHE, O., March IA, 1874.
The meeting this evening in opposition
to the women's movement, was a success
as to numbers, but in nothing else. Soon
after dark the crowd began to set toward
the City-Hall, and in a short time a tu-
multuous mass filed the room with the
steam of beer and fumes of vile tobacco. l
saw dozen or twenty women walk up to
the door with escorts, then pause suddenly,
and after a hurried consultation turn away
with that peculiar look people have when
they get into the wrong pew. But inside, a
few feet from the reporters table, sat
Madame Mary Yeager, ex-keeper of beer
garden. was told there were three ladies
in the back of the house, but in a careful
look failed to find them. But the crowd
the masculine crowd. Descend, We tune
full Nine, and, Noah Webster, rise from the
tomb, to give me polysylabic strength to
describe them. Such an assemblage, in
sad and sober truth, / never saw before
since the days when the Chicago Tribune
sent me to report an anti-war meeting on
Wells street. Such fearful old mugs, such
lov-browed, stubby-haired rows of human
ity as filled the front seats it would be
hard to equal anywhere out of the larger
cities. was particularly struck with the
appearance of one genius with a roaming
red nose, pig eye and soap-fat chin, who
held an enormous club-cane in his hand and
started the applause. He possessed hor-
rible fascination for me, and his presence
so near, seriously interfered with my du-
ties. Beside him sat a nondescript, 1 |
should have guessed him as Corkonian, |
caught young and partially domesticated |
or buckeye taken in infancy and reared |
on Irish whisky These two fellows are
fixed forever in my memory. They will |
haunt my happy hours; they will lead the |
scenic march in more than one nightmare.
But back of the front ranks was rather |
better class, and in the far corner of the |
hall were two or three dozens who might |
have been delegation from the meeting at |
a neighboring church. But taken as |
whole, l never could have believed that the |
fine, old, respectable city of Chillicothe |
could have vomited forth such crowd If |
any unpredjudiced visitor could have seen |
both, and compared this crowd with that at |
the temperance meeting on Thursday even
ing, l think he must, perforce, have come /
out convinced that the widest vagaries of |
the praying women's movement were sim
pie, cold Indifference compared with what !
the situation called for.
Thomas Murphy called the meeting to
order, and nominated Charles T. Mason,
Chairman. Somebody named Rev. Mr..
Bethauser for the place, which elected loud
and jeering laughter. The first nomina-
ton was carried unanimously, and Mr.. Ma
son took the chair amid great applause.
He at once introduced Judge Stafford. In
appearance the Judge is a heavy-set man
with some resemblance to the late Stephen
A. Douglas, hair and beard once dark, but
now turning fast to gray, and with cold
blue gray eyes which lighted up with pas
non atfrequent intervals during his speech.
The first five minutes he devoted to get
ing the crowd in order, frequently declar-
ng that he would not speak to mob;
hey must have order" Every five or ten
minutes in thr first half of his speech he
paused to call for order, and the third or
:ourth time called on the police, if any
we're present, to keep the crowd still. But
he crowd soon grew responsive, and cheer
ed him on. Every time he spoke of the
female Commune, 'deluded women" or
'fanatical mob, there was applause; every
piece of slang and epithet applied to the
clergy elected great laughter and cheers,
md when he made the blasphemous parallel
between himself and Christ, the crowd
vent almost wild with delight. At this
point the speaker seemed to lose control
If himself altogether, and effectually took
cave of decency. He gave a horrible
,ravesty of the trial of Christ; the false wit
ness, 'hired to lie like the men that lied on
ne at Hillsboro," Peters denial of Christ.
md the like, and capped the climax of rib
lldry, profanity and indecency, by quoting
Testament open before him) Peter as saw
hA 4 4 n I
the man." And the graceless, shameless
crowd laughed, stamped, hooted and yelled
ike so many savage Indians (No; I'll take
that back; the Indians respect one another's
reigion.) This weary and disgusting per-
formance went on for half an hour, the
speaker reading aifew verses at time from
the Testament, and then applying the de-
scription of the Jewish chief priests and
elders to that of the ministers of to-day.
1t was horrible-too horrible for reproduc-
ton in print.
1 trust l am not easily excited to anger
Or disgust. know that am not given to
can't. and persuaded that those who have
read these letters will not accuse me of too
great a reverence for religion or temper
ance. But l know 1 speak but the simple
truth when say that this nights per-
q deep and damning disgrace to Chillicothe.
The last seven weeks comprise nearly all
my knowledge of the rural society of this
Eastern country; but in five years in the
far west never attended public meeting
half so disgraceful. 1 have heard Brigham
Young swearing like pirate in the pulpit;
but that was in a rude country, with
ruder religion, and he did not profess any
thing better. But that such a meeting as
this could have been held, or such speech
made by Judge, in Christian country,
is something 1 never would have believed
On another's evidence. In one respect on
ly is this better than the Territories; if
such a speech had been made in any of the
Western towns have lived in, in reference
to their women, the men would have
the speaker out of the stand and
hanged him to the nearest tree. 1t was at
once the most indecent, profane and shame
full harangue l have ever listened to. A
full report is impossible. An abstract of
the most decent portion is appended.
The Judge spoke an hour and three quar-
ters; ct the close the crowd called for MIR.
Fromm, editor of the German paper, and
at this time-1O:20 P. M.-he is speaking
in the German language. BEADLE.