Litchfield enquirer., 1875-03-18

moment; she tr10Q when she went abroad in the streets to crowd her secret into her own bosom and conceal it there. She lives threagh snch days of agony as would seem to man an eternity. days through which she prayed for the night to come to conceal her and give her little rest night through which she prayed for the day to come, even though 1t revealed her shame. that thereby one more day might be counted off in the dreadful tally-med- itating death, meditating suicide, medita- ting murder, the destruction of life that had not yet began. By and by, her little one in her arms, under her fathers and mothers eye, father and mother doing what all civilized and Christian folks on this day teach, in putting premium upon murder, say to her, as society says to her, "Get rid of the child, put it out of sight. If you stand quite alone, and go to some place where you are not known, you may have fresh chance perhaps in the world, but that child will hopelessly bring you to infamy; it is the scarlet let ter known to all the world; get rid of it. '' So father and mother said to her: eff you take the child away, if you put it in some foundling asylum, some home for destitute children, if you get it out of the house get it out of sight, get it away from the neighbors, you may stay where yon are, not otherwise" Father and mother can shelter you, provided you. the daugh- ter, get rid of your child. So she took her child and went out into the city to look about her. In all the great city, there was no place for such fatherless, nameless child. homeless child. Some
 body told her there was such place in a neighboring town, to which she went. At it's door she knocked-ah, too many such mothers with such fatherless and name less children had been before her. The place was full. Back she turned, crossing Charlestown bridge. Suddenly a thought struck her, s'I am going home, oh, but they told me there was no home for me, unless I got rid of my child" ''Some- where they said, anywhere, but where, where?" And so thinking, she looked down into the dark, cold water flowing under her somewhere. Oh, she thought, would this place, even if I took my child there, be any less miserable to her than the still wateri These founding asylums, would they put any more tender arms around her? And to what life can she grow up without name. without father, without home, without 8 place in the world-she with the curse of womanhood on her? She will carry her mothers shame until she loses it in her own. By and by she may come to just such an hour and just such time as this An, it cannot be wrong, it cannot be wrong, it seems to the poor distraught brain, to send this child of mine to the bosom of Father more merciful than any mothers heart could be! And with this thought. the distraught brain gives way, the miserable hands un. loose, and the baby slips away into the river beneath. She has got rid of hel child. somewhere! Half crazed, she finds her way back to her home. A man whose acts concern no one but himself, has done so much for her!
 The men come and drag the rivers bed, and pick up the little cold, dead body. Men sat in coroner's inquest on it; men find true bill; men go and drag her out of her home; a man locks her in a prison cell; men bring her into the courtroom; man sits in the judges seat; twelve men sit in the iury-box to consider the laws made by men for the protection of such as she; men consider, men decide, men condemn; man passes sentence, and now nothing remains that a man can do fol this girl, who, while having lived through an eternity of agony, has not yet number ed seventeen years of time. Nothing more remains for man to do in her behalf but presently for a man to miserably adjust the hangman's knot, and let the gallows trap drop under her.
 An ordinary, vulgar, commonplace mur derer frequently without family, home, ol refuge, Is prescribed by all the laws, pun. ished by the laws of all the world. But this man, this assassin, this man, who has crucifed love, who IS in very deed the murderer of the woman who has loved and trusted him and of the child of his own loins-this man goes alone not mere ly unpunished, but unquestioned through the world. since his deed has concerned himself alone and himself so slightly Applause. That glrl's case is paralleled by ten thousands of others at this ver1 hour. And what think you of the teacher of this girl? Go to him. What think you of such teacher? What shame, remorse and triall What think you when such teaching and influence is transmitted to children, who are to live and grow in the world, making of those children sinners, liars, scoundrels, thieves, murderers. by this woman's soul. How do such child ren grow up? How do they live? How can such a mother give her children a good and honorable manhood? A woman who goes into the race with men, compet. ing with men Is sufficiently weighted with out this. How can she run? The child ren are not hanging about her neck, but are like chains about her feet. What can such a mother give good to such child, and how do such children grow, creating reform schools, creating houses for iuve. nile delinquents, creating almshouses, packed in prison-pens, and at last dang. ling from that horror of civilization, the gallows! Preying upon society, the thieves of society, the refuse of society, the murderers of society, cursing society with all the ruin and injury that they work when they are out of prison, wreak. ing society with it's millions upon millions of debt to keep therein the vicious idle ness to which the laws place them at last. An yet in the face all struggling society, load 1t down, people dare to look into the face of man and say that a man is held held to no such accountability as woman because his act concerns himself alone and himself so slightly!
 FALSE TEACHINGS OF SOCIETY AND OF sENTf
 - MENT.
 But more. Says sentiment, woman if condemned so much more terribly be. cause she drags down our men as we'll as herself No such charge can be brought against the man. It is considered that when that woman began her life as a little girl she was to have the free heritage oi the girl, of 8 lover, and wife, and with the walls of home built about her. It seems to me that 1t Is worse thing to prevent construction than to destroy after the structure is complete. The man has de. prived this woman of portion of he, fair inheritance, and has destroyed he1 girihood, her womanhood, and even the hope of home More than that, society says-caErying out this same teaching
 that man cannot be expected to control himself, to constrain himself, as life de
 mands of the man, for his nature is differ. ent. Society says since this man will moi control himself, with the brain, with the
 heart, with the soul, society says this man is at liberty to range as wild beast through the world. Society must be pro- tected, not by teaching him to control