Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1875-10-27
bridal trousseau was of the old fashio

bridal trousseau was of the old fashion
ed sort; homely linen and good stout
sheeting prepared by careful, mother
ly hands. Her wedding tete was
among the trees, and the young people
from far and near poured in to see
pretty Alice married to the city doc
tor He, the Dr., had come to the
country place to wear his weeds for the
loss of first wife, and seeing the pref
ty, innocent girl, he had won he, con-
sent though hardly her heart. The
simple country folk were dazzled by
the honor Of such an alliance. "a
city DOCTOR" what girl in all the count
ry 100 good for such one? SO Alice,
not knowing, suffered herself to be sac
rlfced to the family notion of fine al
lance, and became the wife of one
who has led her from that innocent
Arcadian home to a disgraceful death
They knew nothing of this doctor,
the honest farmer people, but they
were not left long in ignorance. Hard
ly year from the day the girl was
gone away, crowned with roses and
apple blossoms under the fathers APP
ple.tree, the man she had married for
Zine position had her in the criminal
columns Of igbboring city paper as
partner in the loathsome crime of
abortion! Womanlike, the lower the
husband fell the more faithfully she
clung to him
Gas the husband is the wife is;
Thou art mated to clown,
And the ccarseness of his nature
Shall have power to drag the down"
For months the course Of justice
dragged on. The husband, defended
by sklllful lawyers, the friends OF the
victim OF his murderons malpractice
were clrcumvented by inaccessible
proof. By the skin of the teeth the
culprt escaped, though bis guilt was
notorious; indeed, his practice was I'M
concealed But the town would no
longer suffer his presence The girl $
friends implored her to quit the vii.
lain; no; she had made her bed she
would lie on it. Whether she had
come to love the man no one knew.
Her manner was impressive. The
bushes had died out in her cheeks.
The old innocent gaiety had gone
from her manner. Her life had chang
ed so utterly that her friends made
sure the baneful effects of the man bad
entirely changed the current of mind
and nature. She made no complaint
This kind of women never do. It is
only the light heads aud shallow things
that fill the air with fancied sorrows
Women, as we'll as men, who suffer
real sorrow, do not wear their hearts
on the sleeve for DAVIS to peck it.
She gave no token TO the agonzed
group that bad her good bye, as she
calmly took up her burden with the
outcast and criminal. We often talk
of the grandeur Of courage men exhib-
1t who cling to a sinking ship, with
shot and shell tearing and resounding
with groans Of dying and woun led; Of
the heroism of men who face the bat
tie front, OF the perils of the deep and
danger in every form But is that SO
brave, after all, when we study the
emotions of gentle girl, bound to a
man she cannot but loathe, whose ex-
lstence near her is blight? What l.
death or endurance in all the carnival
OF glorious war compared with the sac
rlhce of one gentle, constant soul like
this? The stake, the rack, the iron
coffin, we're perhaps uncomfortable, but
what were their feeting moments to
lingering despair of life like this?
Day after day, day after day, rising In
the light of heaven mingling with
things that were pure and wholesome,
listening to singing birds, the prattle
of innocent children. To see mothers
happy in their young, honored in their
husbands, to listen to the solemn BEN
ediction Of church bells that rang no
peaceful echo in her mind. To feel
that where she moved there strobe
by her side ever the brooding form of
guilt; the abandoned panderer to the
most atrocious aud despicable crime in
the calendar To feel that life was
but void in this unalt0fable dark
ness, and know that the man whom
she had vowed to love and honor must
go to the galIows if she made a sign?
For though she stands sentenced to
share the rope with her husband yon.
der, it is not credible that she willing
" or knowingly imbrued her hands in
the innocent blood shed by her inta-
nous destroyer. In that most power
ful and piteous of all works of fiction,
Adam Bede, George Eliot traces the
incoherences, the cowardice, the In
nocence, the accident which finally
makes Hetty the destroyer of her
scarcely born babe Though the ru-
ined girl was sentenced to transporta-
ton, there we're none who held her NOR