St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1878-05-10
store,r while third hits it exactly
when he says, "Making horse-collars."
Five Motherless Girls.
AND AN UNNATURAL FATHER.
Grace Greenwood in New York Times.

and systematic and lOng-cOntinued ILL
treatment of, his four young daughters.
Permit me to say something in regard
to this case, for it is matter which in
wolves the question of filial duty-how
much may be required of it-and pa
rental authority far it may go.
1t involves still broader considerations
of public morality and of humanity.
This man Mechlin is, as he has been
for many years, a clerk in the War
Department, on salary OF Sl33 per
month. He is man of good family,
some considerable ability and educa-
ton, gentlemanly address, and w1thal,
remarkable fOndness for music, which
refined and heroic trait was frequently
referred to in the course of the trial.
He could beat and knock down, OF
bind with a clOthes-line, and lock up
alone in lumber room, one of his del
icate daughters, and go to tirst-class
concert and applaud rapturously the
singing of Kellogg, or Thursby. But L
am sorry to say that for the domestic
virtues this lover of harmony was never
distinguished. He is reputed to have
been bad son, brother, and husband.
Some ii years ago, his wife, gentle.
much-enduring woman, gave up and
died, leaving five daughters and some
sons, | believe; but the boys are OF
little account in this story, as they re-
belled and ran away some time ago.
The five daughters-the eldest of whom
was only 10 or ii years of age-were
placed by the father in the MOravian
school in Pennsylvania, where they re-
manned 9 or 10 years, on terms very
much reduced, because they were five,
and because the father. assuming the
injured tone of man borne down by
the mistaken bounty OF Providence,
worked on the feeling of the good sis
tiers. He seemed to them tender
hearted man, for he wept over his own
unfortunate condition, and yet he only
came to see that forlorn little mother
less flock of girls three times in all
those years. After getting the poor
girls home, Mechlin seems to have
treated them for a time with uniform
and undiscriminating unkindness, and
an even and impartial brutality, but
finally he singled out his eldest dangh-
ter to be his favorite, gave her special
privileges-such rs accompanying him
to concerts and OperaS-and chastising
her younger sisters. He appointed her
his lieutenant, they say, and, armed
with a stout strap, she administered
corporal punishment, according to her
own sweet will. This deputy disci
plinarian of the turbulent Mechlin
menage is a young lady of %, with a
singularly pallid, immobile face, and a
manner of great self-pOssession. The
youngest of her sisters is now Is or Is,
a fair, timid, Notwithstanding girl,
but who has been the object of some of
her fathers most ferociOus and indecent
assaults. She and three of her sisters
were compelled at last, to escape from
parental tyranny and sisterly cruelty,
to claim the protection of kind neigh
bOTs, and to reveal the "secrets of their
prison house'-hardly secrets, by the
way, as sounds of fright and distress
bad more than once been heard pro-
ceeding from that dwelling, overflow
ing with 'the poor mans blessing"-
Outcries of those poor young victims,
suffering under the cut of the strap, the
sting of the lash, the bullets of heavy
hand, the ''torture of the bOot''-for it
was proved that this "gentlemanly"
clerk, ''poor Mechlin," as he is called,
cuffed like a bear and kicked like Il
mule. AT length, every effort to induce
the father to provide for the support of
his daughters, if placed under such
guardianship as they or their friends
should choose, having failed, he was
arrested and brought to trial. Very
much evidence was excluded terrible
things, which were freely discussed out
side, were suppressed by the desire of
the girls themselves, and yet there was
enough adduced to prove that the de-
PENDANT was monster of cruelty and
unnatural passions, unfit to he at large,
if not unfit to live. Down South, where
blood is warm and thicker than water,
they would have made short work with
the man in England, where courts are
created to dispense-not dispense Nth
they would have made short
work with the case; but here, though
the accused had a fair trial, and the
Judge, Mr.. Smell, ruled and charged, as
became a man, Il father, and good
citizen, on the side of humanity in its
tenderest, most unprotected, and help
less representatives, and on the side of
public morality, and the jury agreed to
a conviction on several counts, invOlv-
ing an Imprisonment of two or three
y
trial on an appeal, and with a new
Judge, who evidently leaned to the side
of mercy and Mechlin. Under the ruling
and opinions of gray-haired magis-
trate, who, throughout this last trial,
has shown small fatherly pity for those
unhappy children, or manly Indignation
for the outrages they have suffered
under the influence of the outrageous
abuse heaped on the neighbors and
friends of the girls, as well as on them
selves, by the counsel of the defendant
counsel whose course ought to have
convicted him under regular s'bull-
doing" of Scripture texts, appealing to
a popular religion, one part Christianity
to nine parts Judaism-the jury gave
way, agreed to disagree, on matter
about which there is but one opinion
among humane and decent people, and
on Monday the Judge discharged them,
recommending compromise to the
parties-and an amicable arrangement
of the little family difficulty.
Undeterred and unterrifed by insult
ing comments, by the defendants cOun-
sci on the ladies who had preceded me
IN the courtroom, attended through
the entire session of Friday, observing
this case for myself. l had been told
that Mechlin was a ''nice-looking man :"
yet before he reached his place that
morning l recognized him by my own
idea of him, which was not at all
"nice" idea. He looks what he is, pre-
cisely has, in fact. a singularly bad
face-thin, sharp, with small, furtive,
deep-set eyes, long, prominent, red
nose, cruel, thin-lipped mouth, and
receding forehead. heard him testify,
principally in regard to the beating he
gave his youngest daughter, Mile, with
heavy stick, ian old chair-rocker, ac-
cOrding to her, for the monstrous Of
Tense of having helned herself rithont