The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1875-11-12
|. PLEA OF mot GUILTY" EN-
TERED,

81 am young girl, and can't have the infiu-
ence that older women could have, though If
had the education I would try my influence
with the pen. The women want equal rights.
They say when they get to vote they will stop
liquor-drinking. think they will have more
influence at home, if they try, than they will
at the polls. If they have husbands that will
drink, and they can't stop them, let them be
kind and gentle TO their sons and brothers, and
save the rising generation anyhow. 1t will
be easily done. Just make home cheer
ful and pleasant, and encourage them TO read
to you in the evenings while you sew OF knit;
it will benefit you and them. Ithiak there are
at least eight men out Of ten that never would
go TO drinking nor go to the saloons to spend
their evenings if their homes were peaceable
and pleasant"
We can eheerfully and readily excuse
one who styles herself "only young
girl, for the verdancy and lack of judg
ment displayed by the foregoing senti-
ments, which we find in the columns Of
an exchange; first, because we don't
expect young people of either sex to
speak intelligently upon any subject on
which the lamp of experience and OBJ
servation alone can shed light; and Sec
ond, because the sentiments expressed
are but the reflex of the jaundiced
prejudices of ancestors which nothing
but sharp and, perhaps, bitter expert
ence will ever quite dispel. But when
we hear men and women who should,
and do know better, charging home
upon the many women of the land who
bear and endeavor to bear bravely and
with a strong sense of duty the opprO-
brious title of ''drunkards' wives" the
downfall of happiness caused by intem-
perance; when we see the pitiful, pinch
ing economy to which these falsely-in-
dicted ones are subjected, the bitter,
grinding poverty and ceaseless, carking
care that has robbed their cheeks OF
bloom, their eyes of luster, their forms
of beauty; when we see the squalid
misery and absence of even the barest
necessaries of life with which these frail
victims of mans weakness and brutal
ity are exhorted to make cheerful and
pleasant homes, we confess to feeling
of contempt and indignation for moral
lists who would fain throw the burden ot
mans transgressiOn on the already
bowed shoulders and broken spirit ol
sufferingwomen. Political nonentities
they cannot even lift their voices
toward the abatement of the tempta-
ton that has hidden defiance to theil
home efforts, and deprived them at last
of peace, love, and happiness.
"If their homes were peaceable anG
pleasant" How, we pray you, is it In
the power of woman to render 6
pinched, poverty-stricken, fireless, sup.
PEERLESS home pleasant? or how a home
peaceable when at the approach of the
husband and father the children Greer
terrified into corner, and the wife
looks in vain for the promised supple:
that were to feed them? How, wher
they are the wives of drunkards, are
women to prevent their children from
inheriting the baleful curse of appetite'
or how shield them from the corruptinl
influence of fathers daily example
Is it not enough that woman must suf
fer all these things, but that she mus
be further agonized by the unjust ar
raignment of impractical moralisti
with the Charge, at is your own fault
We wonder that the ghostly array o
women murdered by the demon intem
perance does not haunt the unfeelinl
writers and speakers who charge then
with feeding and fostering at their owl
hearth-stones the hideous Moloch tina
remorselessly preyed upon health, hap
piness and prosperity, consigned tn,
dearest hopes of their youth to grave
of infamy, and caused them ere yet tn,
sun of life had reached its meridian, t.
welcome the grave as their only refuge