Litchfield enquirer., 1876-03-30
---1&f8lt tite Wofnans Journ8LL.----- ONE MORAL FROM THE BELt<NAP
 TRAGEDY.


 I was talking over the fall of Secretary. Belknap with q lady of my acquaintance, whose moral standard is apt to bs rathaE. exacting and whose absolute directness and truthfulness would drive Charles Reade to despair and make him re-write all his noYels.@The conversatinn interes-- ted me aashowing the point sof fyieYa 1in which women somahmearegardia Ia claAs5bf offences about which they have no sexpe- rience. She frankly admitted that she could not see what Mr. Belknap had done that was 30 very wrong. .HeWas not 8 vicious man, sine says, tsand he did not. steal this money. M. Marsh, or whoever he was. gave it to him out of his profits It was very generous of Mr. Marsh ,s.s and. very foolish probably; bat why should he not doswhat he pleased with his owna If MT. Marshwasi a bad man, of course he ought not to have been appointed but if he was .agood smanfor the post, it did not make him any the less good that. the Secretary received money for appointing him. Why should not the Secretary @re- ceivs is?y Ilasked her if I, being mem Der of a School Committee, should do rightly in receiving money for getting a certain teacher appointed. hhe said that If the teacher was a good one, and had salary enough to afford the money, she. did not see any thing very seriously wrong Tn doing It; nothing in the least to ranked with stealing, gambling or the like. It was, in short, private affair. That the act was dishoaorable in it's very nature, or that i.'was in any way of public concefn she did not see. Afterwards, on putting the same to four other ladies collectively. found that only one of the fonr looked at it i6st as an honoEable man would look at t;that Is, with prompt lndIgpatidn at from any bad SsSsss dsnses. Inc s5befs were qqite iRaig F ! Tasainst seq 6etary Belknap and has vile but zon grounds mainly sympakhetie, that is, because of the probable WroRgto the scldisl and their families, who would have to pay higher prices that the purchase money might go to. the Secretary.
 On suggesting this last point of view to the lady first mentioned, she admitted the great force of it, if true, but said that it had not occurred to her, as she had sup posed frontier trader would extort as much as he could from the soldiers and everybody at any rate e,-which was per haps quite as shrewd a surmise as the oth- CT one. m Whens furthermore, l. explained. that there vas an express law against .ta- king bribes by apnblc offcef: sue admit ? ted that Ems nndoubtedlY made the act wrong; but she stilLdeclined to admitthat such an act was wrong in itself, or was at all to be ranked with crimes or even as moral offence properly. so, called. .s1 Some persons would, no doubt draw from such a talk the impatient inference that women cannot view public affairs as men dos and that it is very fertunats they haye no vote My interference was very different. It seemed to me, that in this case, as in the fAmiliarinsta of Ofsmuggling, the differ. ance otview lay not in the nature Of the sexes. but in their habits. Women are apt tD see certain pabliy afGairs more dim ly, just as a reclnse or: snnworldly oman sees them more dimly.1 as compared with those more actively engaged. Charles Lamb thought smuggler the only hon est thief; for he only robbed the revenue, an abstracti6n fof which Lamb owned that he could never greatly care. Lamb had been clerk at the India House, and had written many large volumes of com. mercial transactions; and if he, in jest or earnest, took this view of smuggling, how much more would woman? And dare say Lamb would have maintained, as my friend did, that the taking of bribes for an appointment otherwise unexceptiona-s ble, was in itself no moral offence. Per haps there would have been q little wlim sical persistence in his maintaining this attitude; and so there was, indeed, in the attitude of my friend. 1asf sEEf1
 Theanaoral is, that women, like men, heed sufficient contact with actual affairs and with large interest to accustom them to understand what may be called the commercial aspects of politics. They should aim to keep their husbands as ' clear from any loss of statesmanllke hon. Or as from any sensual sin. J All Iexperi. ence shows that there is no patriotism more heFeie or self-devoted than.tha of women.E sAswife will not readily sacrifice her husbands fectitude for a few Paris dressesy fl she eah have opportunity to understand the matter, and see in what rect;tude practically consists. It is un- fair to debar her from the whole world of public interest, and then condemn her if she goes astray through ignorance saof that world. If freports be true, this peo.f pie has just been disgrace before the na- tions, in it's Centennial year through the influence of two women. Had those women ever been educated to knowi the difference between public right and public wrongSst fa'z- g4#a,nar et T. W. H. Ei
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