The Arkansaw traveler., 1884-08-09
JANE GREY swIssHELM.

If fase's cruel knife lifes chords did no, sever.
 JANE GREY sWISsHELM.
 lGerrude Garrison, in New York Graphic, |
 This woman, who died at Swissvale, Pa, last week, was the last of the severe type of strong-minded women. The modern woman reformeT, in befeathered hat and stylish gown, treAds a fiowery path in comparison with the one Jane C. Swiss helm trod.
 It was an event of national importance when in 1898, in Httsburg, she jumped suddenly from her sphere" and landed in the journalistic arena in command of a little paper called the Hiafey Spelled with an @e"). A political paper, too Worse than that-an anti slavery paper . The new craft was little but mighty. It created what she styled "a pantaloon panic" The editors from shore to shore considered their hifarcassd garments im- perilled by this dafing woman, and de- tended them by snee4ing q h9. Even that "puffeck gon1lGnaA," George D. Prentice, gallantly said of hH, She is . man all but the pontalocass Al long as they could keep her ont q trousezs the affrighted male editors were not lost. If she had really put on the sacred gar ments they would have streaked it into Canada in hopeless terror. This panic actually produced the celebrated Bloom CT !" costume. Men defended their pam taloons 90 desperately that they created and spread the idea among female mall contents that masculine supremacy lay in the form of mems garments, and that a woman dressed as . male would be as potent as he. The idea took material shape as that mongrel monstrosity, the l" Bloomer."
 Over the pen name Jeannie Deans,' '' Mrs. Swisshelm had contributed articles and stories to NfaPs Safsrday Gasskts of Philadelphia, the Doikar kfasstapey and the Pittsburgh Spfya of Li6eyfy, but the little Yisikey soon made her famous in two countries She had jumped too far out of her sphere " to ever be hound ed back. She staid out until the day oi her death.
 The Hisif<y not only flew in :he face oi public sentiment by advocating the abo- lition of slavery but it taught the incen- diary doctrine that woman was entitled to the same legal protection as man, and that as matters were she didn't get il. The men were not to blame for this, but the laws were. It pointed out the for gotten fact that when men oppressed and robbed women they did so with the sanc- ton of their own laws, made by their English ancestors, brought across the ocean and planted here.
 Mrs. Swisshelm is often spoken of as a woman's rights" woman. She really never favored suffrage, and had no sym pathy for the original type of equal sui fragssts who fairly dayed man, the op- pressor," alive, when they treated the world to specimens of their oratorical powers. She wanted women to be equal before the law with men, to have the same chance in h1e, the same pay for their labor and the same tolerance towards their hults-to share equally in every thing. Speaking on this subject not long ago, she said, If my word would enfraa- chise women tomorrow would not give it, because they are not fit to vote. think both men and women should be graded into classes, and only be permit ted to vote when they reach . point in in- telligence which is considered the stand ard of qualification.
 We can only measure character and judge of the magnitude of any ones achievements by knowing something of the burdens borne. Jane Swisshelm's personal history was sad, though she never asked sympathy of either her friends or the public. There was some thing heroic in her life. Her matrimonial star was evil. After twenty years of un- happy vedlock she took her only child, then . baby, in her arms and went up into the forests of Minnesota, hoping to live a peaceful life, far from all public strife and contentio1. The dream was vain. Some of us can escape our destiny. The busiest and stormiest part of her life vas yet to come. This separation occurred in 1857. In three years her husband obtained a divorce on the ground of deseztion, and in 1870 he married again. Speaking of her domestic experiences she said: it was all in the great plan. There vas something for qe to learn which could not have leaEned without just such an ex- pexience q passed throagh." She made but one direct charge against her bus band. It vas that he @was not much better than the average man."
 Mrs. SWisshelm re-estAhlished the His- ikey as S. Ooud, Nina. and vent through ja siege of border ruf6anism on its ac- count that endangered her life and the lives of her fiends. She also became . lecturer, and after . stormy editorial and oratorical career went to Washing- ton as correspondent for the New Yosk TSi1sss, the first woman ever employed in that capacity in this country.
 Aftez the var broke out she spent two years in the hospital as nurse- h her autobiography she grows more enthusi- astic over this pan of her york tAan over anything else she has done. She elected sshjecfs for ha care exactly as she vould h&ve voeen chosen-by sesson of tier fiiDess. When sAe fbusd . man vhose face bore evidence of . clean mind and . maaly apizit vhose E5e vould be vussh