Litchfield enquirer., 1875-03-18

Wu0u you 83h tu0 T6dSOu 0UCn CUu- demnation on the one side, and such easy judgment on the other, "A woman is to be so judged and punished. since sho stands as the key stone of the arch of home, and if she falls out of it she not alone falls. but she drags in ruins about her husband, children, home. Whereas, If man so comes down. neither wife nor child is touched-home remains intact The man, ,says Society, IS not to be judged as the woman, because his act has touched no one but himself, and himself, after all,
 but slightly And, because the universal ity of this talk is spreading disease, mias- ma. moral death among the boys pre-em- inently who are growing up for the next generation, since men who know the truth will not tell it, and women who hear false hoods have not the courage to deny them. I, one woman at least, stand here as I mean to stand elsewhere to assert in the face of this savage civilization and infidel christianity of the nineteenth century, that eight-tenths of all the sorrow, misery, suffering, sin, shame in communities comes from the establishment on the part of man and acceptance on the part of woman of two moral codes-a moral code at the bar of which man is to be tried and acquitted and woman is to be tr1ed and condemned [applansel, which is the direct outgrowth of demand on the part of men for liberty that shall be bound less as license itself. A man is not to be judged and condemned as a woman be- cause his act does but concern himself alone, ald himself but slightly. Is 1t true? Let us see.
 AFFECTS OF DETERRENT CODES FOR THE It Is conceded that no man steps off the smooth fair pathway of virtue, of respect ability, to go aside into the by-paths, un- less he goes with some companion and his companion woman. 1t is not true, then. that mans act, or such walk we will say, touches himself alone. He takes some woman with hlm, and her fate must be bound up more or less in his deed. Conceded, then, that this woman's fate is bound up in his action, what of it? A young man is taught that it is but triv. ial matter for him to go astray, taught that he can seek his pleasure and find his happiness wheresoever he will in the world, what is to hinder him from mount ing steed at the door to go his way gaily through all the world, and find his pleas ure grounds where he may discover them? He rides along the highway; he looks out on the one hand and sees his neighbor's Is carefully tended garden, or his friends pleasure ground walled and hedged about and he sees that it is doubly carefully tended or guarded and walled about with added security, because there grows with in the one or the other a flower, sweet, fair and dstately-beautiful, it's very weak ness and it's very sweetness giving it over to the eye of the spoiler. The young man has been taught that he can find his pleas ure wheresoever he will in the world :. it is. after all, but wasting little time in the morning of youth, and then there is all the noon, afternoon, and evening in which to do the work of man. What IS to hinder him from striking spur in steed. and leaping the garden wall. smelling the flower, breathing in the incense of the flower, and by and by plucking it to wear at his button-hole? No great harm dcnS herei To be sure the young man had bet ter have been engaged in the serious and and earnest work of life; but, after all. no great harm could accrue from hls daily ing away few hours of morning sunshine in the pleasant garden. No great harm What has he done save to smell flower, pluck flower, lean against the garden wall and gone hack again to the highway among the travel of men! And who is to blame for 1t? And so looking down he sees this lily fostering smell far worse than weeds. He sees that this flower, plucked from its stalk, is Nilting, wither- ing, no longer a sweet and beautiful thing. Who is to blame the young man for pluck ing it out and dropping it as he rides on? No great harm has befallen the young mans life; he has plucked his flower, it has faded, and he has dropped it on the highway. He IS not to be condemned. since his act is to be condemned so slight ly, touching himself, and himself alone. in such an insignificant manner. He rides his way through the world.
 As for the flower lying on the highway, nobody takes the trouble to go and watch it where it lies, to see how it has died there, and not as flower dies, in an hour, but is dying through torture and agony ex- tending through days and weeks and months and years of time. Nobody need stop to consider that the flower perishing through this lifetime of agony exhales at least not the last perfume of the flower, but an immortal soul. Oh, as for him, his act has touched no one but himself, and himself but slightly He shall he free to ride through the world where he will and as he chooses, the husband of a good wife, the father of children, an hon. ored citizen, respected member of the community, pillar in the Church of God. A mans act touches no one but himself, and himself but slightly. Which of us, I wonder, has read the story that has struck in it's telling the eleventh hour over in our sister city of Boston. But for it's closing and finishing. it has been paralleled in hundreds of thousands of cases in this land, is being paralleled by tens of thou sands at the present time. A young girl, fair,, ignorant, innocent, loving, and as she believed belovedi Was this girl to fear the man who came with the ostens1- ble gift of hls heart in his hand to her? Was she to fear this man? Was she to protect herself against him? Why, all her life had taught her that that man was to be her protector. Was she to arm herself when she came near to him. put barrier and wall between them? Why, sentiment and reason, poetry and religion. experi- ence and anticipation, had all gathered together to teach this girl, subtly and i'm perceptlbly, that the man whom she loved and who professed to love her shall be a barrier between her and all of the dangers in the world. It is because she loved him absolutely she had faith in him absolute.
 Then this young man, taught as young men are taught, that if they betrayed the trust of friend or stranger who was man, if they refused to stretch helping hand to brother perishing in need, if they shall break faith, break honor, break truth as man with man, they shall be pointed out, shalt be thrust out from so- ciety of men and their fellows who are honorable men-but this one supreme in- fanny of winning faith only to betray it, of guarding trust only to fling it out and trample it under foot, when faith and trust was the outgrowth of woman's heart, g confidence of woman's soul-that to do this is manly sport. This young man so taught and trained, simply as multitudes l of others do, lived out his lesson: he had wasted little time of life; better, had
 been down to his counting house, had bet ter be reading from his law books erstudy. ing his theological book, or working in surgeons room Of course he had better