Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-08-07
loyalty which mankind acknowledge to-

wards one another, she owes to that hus-
band special obligations of the most bind
ing and sacred character, and these she
must deliberately ignore before she can be
conquered. The woman who will yield
under such circumstances mist be un-
trustworthy thenceforth and forever. She
has rejected her husband and preferred an
other. 1t is her choice, however, and the
wise husband, however mach he may suf-
fer, will recognize the futility of all at
tempts to undo the evil that her infdelity
and fckleness have produced. In such cir
cumstances it would seem that for the
self-respecting and we'll balanced man
there can be but one course. Though
''that the jesses were his dear heart strings
"he'd tear her from. his breast"
But the Unbalanced mind at once loses
itself in an outpouring of egotistic mania.
when such domestic catastrophe is dis
covered. The invasion of his chattel-rights,
the violation Of his monopoly, the humbling
of his vanity, are the dominant emotions.
How little any consideration for the woman
enters into the mind of such furious men
is seen in the recklessness with which, by
their homicidal act, they fix an indelible
stigma upon the former. There is no chiv-
alrous sentiment in their hearts. They are
mastered by feeling as thoroughly selfish,
as blindly, passionately selfish, as any of
which human nature is capable. And it is
this blind, neutrality-suspicious. which pre-
vents them from realizing the remuneration
of them implied in the proceedings which
urged them. More temperate intelligences
would see that there had been transfer OF
the woman's affections that there never
could have been real deep-rooted love for
them on her part; and that therefore, how
ever unhappy and deplorable their case
may be, it is without remedy. The most
preposterous of all notions, however, is the
notion that the wronged husband "vindi-
"cates his honor by killing the seducer
or paramour of his wife. As matter of
fact he does nothing of the kind, and for
the sufficient reason that it is thing i'm
possible to be DONE The fact of the Sc
duction remains, no matter who is killed.
Nothing can undo or alter that. The
relations between husband and wife can
never be the same again. An impass-
oA1 h,r, h., Lao la&,
them. The confidence destroyed cannot
be replaced. 1t is the product of perfect
love, and it will grow and subsist in no
other soil. The man who thinks to rein
state himself by calling all the world to
witness his shame who thinks to make
reformation easier to his wife by advertis-
ing her dishonor who imagines that by TAX
ing the guilt of murder upon his own soul
he is making his path in life easier; is poor
irrational creature whose insensate folly
should move us to regret and sadness, but
whose course no man of common reasoning
faculties ought to look upon as other than
fatuous and wrong And it will become
necessary for society to abandon all senti-
mental medieval notions about higher
law in this connection. There is no such
law. The theory which sanctions murder
in these cases is emphatically lower law,
and must be numbered with those barbar-
GUS frontier customs which civilized COM
munities always discard The real law
sufficiently defines the circumstances under
which homicide is justi6able, and the cases
we have been discussing do not fall within
the legal category. They are in fact muir
ders, and there is no other name for them;
and we shall never attain really healthy
condition of public sentiment on this ques
ton until they are not only SO recognized,
but so treated whenever it becomes neces-
sary to deal with the perpetrators of them.
ELECTION FIGURES FROM THE SOUTH.
T.. 1