Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1878-05-26

many wrongs and insults as was heaped upoI
poor Kate Southern. She had enough t.
drive her mad, and if, under SINH
lar circumstances, man hao
slain the seducer of his wife, h'
would have been triumphantly acquitted OF
the convenient plea of insanity, and would
have been borne out of the courtroom on the
shoulders of the very men who convicted
Kate Southern. A recapitulation of THU
woman's wrongs will arouse the sympathy O.
every Just man and woman. Mrs. Narclssf
Cowart was VIGOROUSLY bad character. Sht
married man by the name of Scott Cowar
and lived with him only short while, wher
she began acting indecently, and was so out
rageously unfaithfur to him that she drove
him away, and openly refused to share his
couch with him. She shortly afterward be-
came intimate with a married man living
near her, and by her base conduct separated
him from loving wife. She met after this
Bob Southern. and he fell into her snare, and
remained in illegal intimacy with her up tC
the time of the tragedy. Bob Southern be-
longed to family of high responsibility. He
was a handsome young man, and was be-
sieged by the late Mrs. Cowart. In the
neighborhood lived the beautiful Kate Ham,
brick, the daughter of one of the best men
of the county. Her forehead is represented
as broad, massive and smooth; her eyes
piercing, and the lashes long and beautiful,
while the hair hangs in massive waves and
ringlets. Her intellect was never strong, but
her appearance is that of digpifed, chris
| tan lady. Her expression is represented as
supremacy sweet, and her whole appearance
that of purity. She was an exemplary men,
Der oG the Baptist church. This happy and
lovely girl was married to Robert Southern
on the tenth of December, 1876. Previous to
the marriage Mrs. Cowart pursued Kate
| Hambrick with a remorseless fury. She
visited the father and poured into his ears
all sorts of falsehoods, and threatened
to kill his daughter if he permitted her to
marry Southern, by whom she was soon to
have child. After marriage she resumed
her crusade on the poor offending Kate. So
many were the threats that Southern was
forced to leave the neighborhood IN order to
save the life of his wife. Under this mental
and physical torture Hates health became
impaired. She was thrown into spasms
from mental anxiety. During a visit of
Kate to her fathers house an impromptu
party was given her and her husband. To
this party Narcissa Cowart, unlimited, at
tended. She tainted Kate, who summed her,
and fnaly commenced the attack on the
miserable girl, and was righteously killed In
self protection. After the murder Kate was
PROSTATE, insane, helpless. Goaded to des-
peration by a woman who lad pursued her
and was endeavorlng to renew the former
disreputable relations with her husband, she
in an hour of frenzy and desperation slew the
destroyer of her peace. The conviction of
Kate Southern under the circumstances has
shocked the American people, whose sympa-
tbies are aroused for the woman SO
foully wronged-frst by Mrs. Cowart,
then by the verdict of the Georgia
jury. With half the provocation under
similar circumstances, if an Infatuated hus-
band had slain the pursuer of himself and
his wife, he would have been triumphantly
acquitted. We have never espoused the doc
trine of womaH's rights; but such unjust dis
elimination as this against women shows that
injustice is done them, and that it is not sur
prising that they should look to the ballot
box as the only bulwark for self-protection.
When Dan Sickles waylaid and cowardly as
sassinated Barton Key for causes not half so
provoking as those that nerved the arm of
poor, demented, crazy Kate Southern, he was
acquitted and canonized as hero. Even the
President of the United States visited him in
his cell, and gave him his sympathy, and
promised him protection. Thirty years ago,
when a governor of Alabama hunted down
the man who had debauched his household,
as Mrs. Cowart had debauched the husband
and household of Kate Southern, and muir
dered the destroyer of his happiness, ne was
acquitted, and borne through the streets upon
the shoulders of the excited populace, who
Endorsed the murder and the murderer. We
do not complain that the people of Georgia
have manifested determination to enforce
the law which makes murder a crime.
But we insist that the same public
sentiment which acquits man for
numbering the seducer of his wife
should acquit the woman who, under great
provocation, murders the seducer of her hus-
band, and tauntingly boasts of her purpose
and her achievements. Kate Southern was
the first woman in the south who has COM
mitted murder for the same causes which a
thousand men have committed murder. and
have been acquitted Why should she be
condemned to the gallows or sent to the PEN
itentiary for a crime which, if her husband
had committed, he would have been acquit-
ted, and taken his place by the side of such
heroes as Dan Sickles, who was recently the
American minister to Span? The early
history of woman is one Of degradation.
The frosts of antiquity benumbed the out
gushings of female intellect. With the adj
vancement of civilization woman has been
garded as the equal of man intellectually,
and his superior morally. But if Kate South
ern should be permitted to languish in the
penitentiary, it would show that the southern
people are about to lapse back into the days
of barbarism, when women were logged for
crimes which men could commit with impu-
nifty. 1t is hard for US who live since the
emancipation Of woman from bondage to re-
alize that there ever was a period in the
worlds history when woman occupied any
other than the lofty position which she now
adorns. 1t is hard for us as We turn one by
one the musty pages of ancient story, to en-
ter into the spirit of any age or any civiliza-
ton in which she figured as serf or slave
rather than as the gentle creature placed
upon earth to develop the finer feelings of
the man, and turn his thoughts upward to
higher and nobIer and better.
But if the wrongs of poor Kate Southern be
taken as evidence of the sentiment of the |
American people, women are 10 be hanged