Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-10-10

prey for his lusts. 1t is only since 1862
that protection was extended up to the
thirteenth year, it having before that
been limited to the eleventh year, since
| 1882, prior to which date the tenderest
years of the female afforded her no protec-
ton whatever against seduction. The cor
respondent referred to, in noting the agita-
tion caused by the Dumas pamphlet, says
that the most recent Partisan statistics
prove that of the l, 900 births in that city
weekly, 1913 are illegitimate. He of course
denounces as extravagant the remark of
the French lady that sin every French
family there are two households ;" but
might be supposed 1t is entirely the
proper thing in Paris, says this writer, for
a widowed mother, for instance, with her
two daughters, to attend the opera, and
tn ere see the guardian of the girls in box
with his mistress, and remark laughingly
concerning it. The next day the guardian
calls upon his wards, and is received with
open arms and embraces, and the quartet
sit down to dinner and discuss the play of
the night before. NJ. Rivet has intro
duced bill in the Chamber of Deputies
to remedy the scandal relative to bastardy
somewhat, but it has raised storm of
opposition, and has small chance of be-
coming law. The result of this state
of affairs, it is charged, is the en-
couragement of infanticide in this the
politest and most cultured country on
earth, and especially in the "Divine
City" Dumas proposes to agitate fer
reform, however, and if he sdheres to his
purpose he may hand his name down to
posterity for honorable remembrance. He
proposes that the father of an illegitimate
child, on the fact being clearly shown,
shall be compelled to give it his name and
provide for it in accordance with his abil-
ity that if he is married man, or is I'm.
able to support the child, he shall suffer
imprisonment not less than two nor more
than five years that the woman who at
tempts to fasten the paternity of her child
upon an innocent man shall suffer penal
servitude, as for forgery, or as perjuIer,
the extreme limit being twenty years at
hard labor; that abortion shall be punished
in like manner, and that infanticide shall
ha bokl p,E
Dumas does not express the hope that he
can accomplish the reform in less than
decade, for he says it is next to impossi-
BILE to get public men in France to
give serious thought to any ques.
ton in which woman is concerned
before the law. He adds with bitterness
They seem to have neither wives, daugh-
tiers nor mothers, and they make no dis
tinction between the Virgin Mary and
Louise Michel" Still the time must come
in France when the law will compel the
father to divide with the mother the re-
sponsibility for their natural child. But |
it must not be supposed that because the |
Code Napoleon is i'll adapted to the social
requirements of this day, and is still re-
tanned in France, that therefore virtue and |
homer are at low ebb there. Fortunately
the perfectibility of character is there a
matter of belief, and thousands of high
minded men and women are laboring to
bring about social reforms that will remove
such scandals as those quoted from the
statute book. But the moral sentiment of
the masses has fret to be elevated to the
true conception of duty in this respect.
The reformers have an honest faith in hu.
man nature, and firm belief that tradi.
tional evils and hereditary prejudices must
yield to reason and the immutable DEGREES
Of truth. But the processes of such re-
'orms are necessarily slower of growth and
operation in France than with US, for the
sentiment of ownership in women is not
wholly eliminated there. SO long as the
aintest shadow of it remains it will pro.
luce the evils in greater or less degree ;
which have, for all time, flowed from the
lenial to women of complete independence,
nd which she alone can yield up to the
nan to whom she gives herself, and into
whose life she projects her own with per.
ect trust in the ownership Of affection,
7hile before the law her legal independence .
emains intact, and by virtue of which she
lay claim the same protection awarded to ;
he man