Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1883-09-30
THE DEGENERACY OF PURITASIsN.
An impious poet has told the world, in
blasphemous verse, that

fA"1IANAADH' NNA'Nf AAhNN /
MAN may many pious texts repeat,
And yet religion have no inward seat.
A man may cry church, church, at every word,
A davis not reckoned u religious bird
Because it keeps a-cawing on II ~steeple."
We see the truth of these ines illus
trated in the professions and the practice
OF two Of the most sanctimonious OF the
puritanical States, Connecticut and Yer
mont. The people Of these two States
sprung directly from the Pilgrims. They
are always Boosting OF their civilization
and thanking their good genius that
they are not as other people. But both
States seem to be degenerating. Crime is
rife in Vermont and the administration
OF law has become 50 lax that the figures
show 1t Is almost impossible to con-
Wet a murderer. Education is also on the
wane III Vermont. The Vermont Super
intendent of Public Schools in his last re-
cent report says:
As a whole, the common schools are not now
accomplishing what the best interests of the peo-
PIE and State demand. Among the many causes
Of this ineticiency are the following: The num-
people hive, gradually gathered around business
e%enters, and many rural districts arc thinly popu-
lated; schools are small, scholars young, real es-
tate deprecated, taxes high, and the tendency of
the times is to employ cheap teachers: school
houses are neglected and the work of the district
schools is unsatisfactory. Tho sentiment of Nil
persons interested in educational progress is that
we need the same plain, sound common sense ap-
piled 10 school managemcntw which successful men
apply to business.
Fol years the iaCkdaws who have been
so long cawing from schoolhouse s~teeples
about their educational facilities, have
been deiaming the South because of its
neglect OF the public schools, which are
no worse than in Vermont, judging from
the above extract from official sources. If
the above extract had been made from the
official report OF the Superintendent of
Public Schools in Mississippi or any other
Southern State, it would have been eagerly
copied by the Republican journals of
Vermont and every other State, and held
up as a striking and unanswerable COM
ment upon the Southern people and their
institutions. AS it happens to be a puri-
tanical Northern Republican State, which
boasts OF its civilization and whose popu-
lation, according to the same re-
port OF the Superintendent of Edu-
cation, has 1898 persons over ten years
OF age who cannot read, and 1887 who
>"HiSN INV VIZ iNlhbllNdh hCNSDdDGIo
are so much occupied in exposing the il
literacy of the South that they are unable
to see the degeneracy in the banner Re
publican State of the North. If the South
ern people chose to initiate their bad ex-
ample they could argue that the lament
able amount OF illiteracy in Vermont, and
the insufficiency Of her public schools, as
confessed by the Superintendent, were the
natural and legitimate result of voting the
Republican ticket. But we allude to this
matter in no sectional spirit, with no view
OF elimination and recrimination 1t is
natural that the Southern people should
call attention to the fact that the South is
not the only section suffering from in
terror popular educational facilities. Con
necticut has long been known as the land
of steady habits. But it has most wofully
d~egenerated. The murder of women has
become an inoffensive pastime with the
nen of Connecticut. The State furnishes
the largest percentage of divorces
per capita, and the largest number
Of women murdered by undiscovered
assassins OF any State in the Union. II
seems to be celebrated for a detective
skill that never detects. 1t must be lapsine
back into barbarism, for the men are muir.
ing defenselesS females, which is one Of
the first instincts OF the savage. The
Hayden trial in Connecticut a few year.
ago failed TO reveal the man who murdered
a feeble girl. Then again recently the
Malleys were tried in New Haven for the
murder of a beautiful girl and acquitted
Now we find one Mr.. Lewis in the tolls o
the Connecticut law on suspicion of the
murder of the girl he was going to marry
There seems to be such an a~ntagonism be
tween the sexes in Connecticut that they
get divorces soon after marriage, and il
order to get rid of the expense
and annoyance of a divorce sui
Lewis has inaugurated the plan OF
killing sweethearts before marriage. The
numerous divorces and the frequent muir
ders OF young women in Connection
shows that the people who have so Ions
cawed upon the church steeples in prais,
of their puritanical ideas and customs ar,
rapidly degenerating into barbarism. Tn,
unsavory reputation which the State ha.
achieved as the murderer of women vii
rapidly increase its population, as ever,
man who wishes to get rid of his wife o
his mother-in-law will remove to tn,
State, and the Haydens, the Malleys anC
Lewises will, for = price, enable disconso
late husbands to gaze on the butcheret
and mangled forms OF sweet wives anG
loving mothers-in-law.