Omaha daily bee., 1883-01-12
THE STATE CAPITAL.
A Vast Variety Of Railroad Bills
introduced in the House,
A Woman With q History APP
pears in the Lobby.
THE: LEGIsL ATIvs PROCEED
INGS.

Special Dispatch to TuS BKx.
LINCOLN, January 1.-THE chair.
man OF the railroad committee OF the
Colorado legislature asks to have n
meeting ard conference of the railroad
committees of Kansss, Colorado, and
Nebraska, to provide for similar and
beneficial railroad legislation in the
three states.
The county superintendents are in
session to-day with a view to advise
the legislature a. to the needs of the
educational interests in the state.
la the house three or four railroad
bills we're introduced. One was a bill
providing for commissioners similar
to the n introducing in the senate
by Butler. Ninety-eight bills have
thus far been introduced.
Special Correspondence Of THn Be.
SENATE PROCEEDINGS.
LINCOLN, January 1.-The entire
morning was occupied by the reading
of bills. To give their titles only
would afford little information and
space will not permit of more. None
of them are 80 important at this time
az to justify description at length.
Upon the floor was a lady, Mrs. E.
p. W. Packard, whose history is not
only one of the most remarkable, but
it reveals a danger to which married
women are exposed in this asylum of
liberty. Her story is fully corrobo-
rated and shows the atrocities to which
the sex may be subjected without
cause and without remedy. In 1860
Mrs. Packard was the wife of a Pres.
byterian minister and the mother of
ak children. Her religious views ex-
perienced a change which brought her
nearer In belief and sympathy to the
Methodists than to the denomination
of which her husband was a member.
They were then living in Manteno,
ILL.,, and 1t appeared to the husband
to be a great detriment to his success
that his wife should the
harsh dogmas of Calviniam, and es-
pouse a more liberal creed. Finding
argument of no avail, he formed the
infamous plan of immuripg the wife
of his bosom and the mother of his
children, in a lunatic asylum. The
law In Illinois favored his Internal
scheme, for it gave the husband this
power over his wife without challenge
from any quarter as to the justice of
his course. No examination was re-
quired, no certificate OF insanity-the
husband directed it and that was
enough to rem I'VE q woman from all
the endearments of home and the at.
fractions of social life and consign
her to q living tomb from which no
living power could release her save
the power that had doomed her or the
merciful hand of death.
In carrying out his bigoted, meroi.
less, fiendish purpose, Mrs. P. was
kidnapped, taken to the insane asylum
at Jacksonville, Ills, and kept there
for three years, with no access to the
outside world.
At the end of this period the poor
prisoner of religious fanatioism Sc.
cured material, scrawled a rote and
thrust 1t through the upper and lower
sash of her window as some one was
passing by. 1t was a prayer that the
party would make known the fact that
she was sane, yet confined, and calling
for deliverance. The paper fell into
the right hands, and when 1t was found
that the law was helpless, the people
en- maSSe threatened the destruction of
the edifice, and the clerical despot was
called upon to remove his wife as a
measure OF safety and to avoid a riot.
The result was not only the liberation
Of Mrs. Packard, but at a later period
14S othor women, falsely charged with
insanity.
After trying again to conine his
wife, Packard fed, taking property
and children. The wife tried to secure
what she supposed were her rights,
but found she had none; that by COM
mon law she was q %nonentity; that
in a legal point of view she had less
Independence and fewer rights than a
single woman, and that before she
could stand a show In the courts she
must secure a divorce and become
a single woman This she did
not favor, as she did no.
believe In divorce, but for one ground
given in the New Testament, and had
devoted herself to the work Of seeking
the correction of the statute laws In
regard to the married woman in sew.
eral states. In sixteen years she has
secured the passage of nineteen bills,
all contributing to establish woman's
identity and projecting inmates Of in.
s sne ssylums. She has nothing to do
with any other schemes, such az
woman's suffrage, but is o~anvsssing the
legislature 30 az to secure the passage
OF a bill giving to the inmates of our
asylum the privilege of correspon,
dence, free from the censorship of the
superintendent, a privilege inmates Of
that institution do not at present en-,
Joy. After sgitatlng this matter In
the several state legislatures, she pro.
poses to go to congress and have the
identity of married women declared
throughout the republic.
New York Press Comment,