Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-07-03
WAS IT HEROIC!

/
Bradford, Pa. The keeper of a doggery in
a disreputable house has daughter of
whom he is very proud. Like a great
many Of that class who seek to shield their
children from the infamy they follow, this
man has been careful to keep his daughter
| from association with the low characters
who visit the place. She appears to have
been, in that sense, a pure girl. Tuesday
last she was i'll her fathers bar-roOm, how
ever, and being addressed rudely by one of
| three men who entered the place, after
breaking into tears at his language, she
accepted his challenge to shoot him if she
| felt insulted, and then and there shot him
dead. It is added that while the girl has
| been arrested, public sympathy is entirely
with her. Very likely; and we are not pre-
pared to say that the feeling is not largely
justifable. But there is another side to
the case. What business had the girl in
the diSreputable place if she was not of il?
Had not the murdered man perfect right
to expect the inmate of low den to par
he was, insulting as his language may have
been, had he not Il right to expect it to be
received by one who put herself upon his
plane in quite different manner? 1t does
not appear that he assaulted the girl or
offered to do so. She killed the man because
in place where no decent woman is ever
found, he met and addressed one whom he
had every reason to believe was a strumpet
and who would not take offense.
1t is wholly improbable that the girl will
ever be held for trial. She has rid the
world of a worthless fellow, public SYM
pathy is with her, and the chivalrous in
mans nature will shield her. But after
all this, what shall be said of the fine dis
tinctiOn sought to be thus drawn between |
apparent vice and real virtue? Here is a |
woman of 20 years, alleged to be pure and |
uncontaminated by vicious associations, |
but who is, nevertheless, found in a low |
and disreputable den, knowing it to be so |
kept by her father. Being greeted by one |
of the kind Of visitors that she well knew |
alone enter such wretched places, he is met |
by what he has every reason to believe is |
mere assumption Of 7irtuous indignation
on the part Of the woman, and the result is
the fellow meets his death at her hands,
and all the world applauds her act.
Certainly. as we have said, the woman
knew that in her fathers den she must
meet just such kind of rude men and ex-
pect Just that kind of Il reception. She did
not therefore, have reason to be surprised,
and it Is difficult to see that her act is
worthy TO be estimated as any more cour-
ageous than if she had fed and concealed !
her bushes. This kind of people, who
make parade of virtue, are not to be APP
proved as are lhe modest ones who toll in
garnet and cellar and work the finger ends
10 the bone to keep the wolf from the door,
and all the while valantly rebuke tempta-
ton, defy insult and maintain their integ-
rity under the bitterest of trials. There is
more of the heroic in the character of |
the half-Starved, hollow-cheebcd needle |
woman, who struggles virtuously TO exc |
out existence upon crusts and |
husks, than III the petted daughter
of the keeper of a disreputable house, who |
shoots down the man who insults her, in a |
place she had no business to enter. The |
world claps its hands in lsudation of this |
latter one; it has little care for the shrink |
ing workwoman who by day and by night |
is forced to put up with ruder and more |
humiliating and vulgar insults upon the |
public highway, as she seeks or returns
from her place Of toll. There are heroines
and heroines, but for those who fight |
virtues battle out to the bitter end, |
and conquering, die victorious, the |
great mass of humanity do not
pause to hyeathe a word Of Sympa-
thy. But for the Goggery- keepers daugh-
ter, in her comfortable a@d well-kcpt viz
tue, even the Geographic reporters send |
flashing across the country the sympathies |
Of continent The pitiful ones, whose |
valorous battle with temptation, poverty, |
want toll, insult and assault, is constant,
may not be blamed if sometimes they qucs-
ton the truth of Drydcn's line: Virtue is
her own reward