Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1879-04-02
MEMPHIS APPEAL
A WON AE NOT wORI III MORE THAN
a MULE OR A HORSE.

A few months ago a man invaded the
home of poor German laboring man named
Voss, and deliberately laid seige to his
daughters affections, and by that means Sc
dueed and debauched her. When the facts
became known to the father, whose natural
affection for his child was far above the va,ue
set upon her by the law of Tennessee, he had
no option but to kill the seducer or sue, under
that law which rates the women of the State
with the beasts of burden or of the field
sue, not for the injury, to the soul thus
stained, not for the irreparahle hurt to the
heart whose purity he had cherished, for the
child he had raised in guileess innocence,
not for tine chastity which is priceless, but for
the value of the labor of which he had been
deprived by her inability to work during
pregnancy. He had either to take this
course, to regard his child, so dear to him that
he committed suicide rather than continue to
witness her degradati1n, to hear her plant
i've means and heart-breaking sobs over
calamity that is worse than death, or muir
dor tho who had murdered his happiness
and destroyed his child's virtue. He
could not have the author of
this ruin arrested and sent to the peniten-
hary. Seduction Is not in the eye of the law
crime bearing any proportion to the crime
it IS ID the eye of the parent whose home has
been desPoiled and ruined. The law gives
him only an opportunity for damages such
as he might get If the man who has wrought
the spOliation of all he holds dear. dearer
than life itself, had manned his mule or his
i 4 L ~
Is It any wonder, with law so brutal, so
barbarous, a law which levels the mothers
and daughters of the State to such degrad-
ing depths, is it any wonder that fathers,
brothers and husbands, outraged as poor
Voss felt himself, generally become a law
unto themselves and have had recourse to
murder in order to be avenged. What man
is there in the city who looks at his child to-
day, and whose heart is filed with pride and
satisfaction as he paints to himself bright
and beautiful future, such as he fondly be-
heves she deserves, but will sympathise with
fine unfortunate man who murdered himself
to escape from present made horrible to
HIM by the seducer of his daugh-
ter? What mother is there who,
reading the report we make of this matter In
our local columns, will not ask herself the
question: as it always to be so that women
are thus to be rated under the law with the
chattels of the father or the husband, and
seduction-the worst crime, after rape, in
the calendar, is to be cheapened to the rate
of wages the victim might earn2" Is it not
time that the women of Memphis bestir
themselves for the repeal of statute which
is ode Of the worst of the remnants of bar
barism that has fingered with the English
speaking race for many thousands of years ?
Why should not the Women's christian asso-
citation, devoted as it is to helping the erring |
of the sex to reform-why should it not take |
this case in hand and prosecute the seducer |
to the extent even of the Objectionable |
and debasing law, carry on the suit be-
gun by the father who lost his reason and
took his life because of his dear
d lughter's ruinP This case of Miss
VOss is one that falls peculiarly within the
line of the duty they have mapped out for |
themselves of rescuing women from the |
shame and degradation of lewdness, too |
often consequence of loss of chastity, and
we suggest to them that to pursue and pun |
ish one seducer would be, as a preventive |
measure, o. more consequence than the at
tempt to reclaim a dozen women already
broken down in vice.