Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1879-06-19
UNFORTUNATE WOMEN AND
AVENGING MEN.

lt is crSditable to cur civilization that the
msfortunes of women always command SYM
patty. A wife seduced from her allegiance
10 her husband, or a young girl seduced,
stripped of chastity of mind and body, I'M
der any plea, seldom appeal to the public in
vain-never, where their subsequent conduct
proves them to be of virtuous intent. 1t is
30 easy for man whose purposes are not
honorable to lay his plans to entrap an unsus-
pecting and confding woman, that it does
not take much pleading to bring her case
home to the heart of every husband and
father, and enlist for her sometimes an active
aud publicly declared sympathy. Men of the
world who have had it bred III their bones
that it Is more dishonorable to invade man =
home and ruin his daughter or his wife, than
to steal or murder, are not apt to condone a
crime for which there can be no excuse so
long as there are women who sell themselves
for price in an open market. The whole
tendency of our educational methods is to
teach self-restfaint, and the drift of
our laws is TO impose self-restraint
The decalogue, the foundation of all
law, is plain on that point. 1t says
"thou shalt not commit adultery" ''thou
shalt not covet thy neighboi s wife," Mod
ern society in some places enforces this pro-
hibition by death, because the laws of no
State or nation are adequate to its punish
ment. In the case of Hill, recently on trial at
Atlanta, Georgia, for killing ais wife's So
ducer, this is the feeling that has been
aroused in a community where the seduced
and the seducer, as well as the slayer, are
well and init mately known. The theory of
the prosecution that the unfortunate woman
was lewd and Abandoned has utterly broken
down before the testimony of the husband,
the father and the victim herself. Their
knowledge of her-intinate as no others
could Unsupported by that of her mother,
all goes to sustain 6 character that, tainted
by one act, to the comnittal of which she
was lead by a deliberate and designing man,
is otherwise pure and good. Her mother
clings to her with passionate fervor, and
speaks of her in terms of endearment and
with tenderness and affection that only
mother can feel. Her father, in tears, testi-
fed in open court to her life of purity and
peace before mSrriaEe and of happiness with
her husband until The fatal act of crime into
which she was seduced. And tho husband,
last Saturday, created q profound sensation
in court by reading statement that, &C
centuated and intensified by his manner, could
not fail to have a profound effect upon all
who were present. He opened by saying
that his statement was not taken I'M
der oath, and that he wanted to say
what he had to say, not under the restrictions
of an oath, "and may the God Almighty,
that l am soon to meet, smite me dead in
my tracks if l deviste one iota from the |
truth" He then went on 10 sag that Sim.
mons met his wife while she was a school |
girl. and had loved her ever since; that he |
had persistently pursued her, and at last de- |
ooyed her away from home under the pre-
tense of taking her to him; that Simmons |
thus decoyed her away, persuaded her to |
drink beer, and then and there Rlienated her; |