St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-03-22

willie all Inc gulltler ones escape. " nat we
mean to say is that in the successful accom-
plishment of crime like that with which
HARRIET BURNER stood charged there must
be conspiracy, and to cons ttute con-
spiracy there must be more than one person
engaged in it. And we mean to say further
that the men at whose bidding and for whose
money the guilty woman engaged in her pro-
fession Of robbing young women of their
virtue are the co-conspirators and are more
guilty of the horrid crime than she is. And
yet it is the old story of the first mans first
sin, when brought to face an angered Deity
whose law he had broken, whimpered out the
miserable plea of defense ''the woman be-
guiled me and did eat" 1t was a cowardly
evasion OF responsibility for crime in Adams
case and is none the less so in this case.
1t is an erroneous idea of the law to fasten
guilt alone upon the woman in the commits
sion OF crimes pertaining to the vocation of
a procuress, Just as it is mistake in the
social code to cast the blight of ostracism
upon the fallen female, while the man, who,
perhaps, led her to ruin. goes unscathed and
retains his position in society. As rule, in
all instances where virtue is lost, the women
are less to blame than the men. Women
are naturally purer than men. Their moral
status and their family duties are such that
they always move in better moral atmos-
phere than their masculine companions.
Nature made woman to temper man, and
whatever morality be possesses comes from
her While man is out in the world in con-
slant contact with evil, and as con stantly
creating it, woman is confined to purer
circle, created and maintained by herself,
and where she dwells as in a citadel OF viz
tue. While woman's love and affection and
devotion are as wide as the limitless ocean,
and she is ever ready to consecrate her life
to the man she loves, yet even her deVotions
are as proud as thatwhich ''the priestess feels
when she nurses the fame of che shrine
where she kneels,'' and in her pres
ence the most CHASTITY vice sinks
back appalled,. And when woman fall
from her pinnacle of virtue, in ninety-nine
cases out of every hundred, the cause can be
traced to some vicious man, whose powers
of persuasion and capacity for the betrayal
of confidence have led her on step BY step
down the path of ruin, at the end of which
she finds blighted life, while her betrayer
and seducer deserts her to return to the So
cial field, where he continues to shine as an
ornament.
The GLOBE is informed by gentleman,
whose veracitY cannot be questioned, that in
a certain city, not over 900 miles from here,
a short time ago, he was brought in the line
of his professional duty into an interview
with a woman who was charged with being a
procuress, and that she exhibited to him let
ters from over 100 citizens OF tie place,
many of them men who held prominent po-
stions in social. business and even relg-
ious circles, and some of them heads Of
families, in which they promised her large
sums Of money if she would aid them in ac-
complishing the ruin OF certain Young girls,
whom they wished for the vile purposes
of their brutal lusts. Great GoD
Are our homes and families at
the mercy of an organized band
of robbers who seek to despol them of honor
and virtuei Is it not time that public SEN
timent was being aroused to avert the dan
ger which menaces all that is good and pure
and holy In our social life! Has not the
press a duty to perform in sounding the
signal note of danger and calling society to
arms to resist and drive out an enemy that
seeks to uproot it!
The seducer is an outlaw and the lash Of
chastisement should be applied to his back
by every virtuous hand. Our written law
says that killing is murder, but there is
great unwritten law which says that he who
slays a seducer shall be justified in the act.
The purity OF the family is of higher conse-
quencc than written statutes. The brute Of
a man VINO iuvades the sanctuary of home
and imposes the impurity Of his debased de-
sires upon the presence Of innocence, who
breaks the charm aud halo Of virtue and
defles the altar of domestic life, forfeits the
right to live in the midst of human society
and deserves to die. Tue death of the
seducer was decreed in the high courts of
heaven when the ages were in their infancy,
snd the decision has been followed wherever
the marriage couch has been spread
or the family tie has been woven. II the
an article of the meanest value be stolen the
law permits you to arise and slay the burglar
Shall II be less tender in its regard for the
more precious jewels Of the households
There are gems this moment in the circle OF
our homesteads whose luster we would not
have furnished or their presence torn away
for all the glittering treasures Of the Perus.
Our wives and our daughters are there and
we would not have one Of them lost in the
embrace of dishonor for all the gold mines
Of California. The crime OF the seducer is a
thousand times blseker than murder, vet our
laws provide no prisons or scaffolds for him.
For his victim there is nothing left IN life
except the pain of living. The joy OF exis-
teuce never comes back TO her The leper's
faint is upon the woman who has been be-
trayed and ruined by the seducer's arts No
glad aud golden summer awaits her in the
future. Her life is scorehed and barren
desert without verdure or one single cooling
fountain at which to rest in all the desolate
pilgrimage that lies before her
We have spoken thus plainly because we
thought the exigeucies Of the situation re-
CURED It. It has not been pleasant or
grateful task However disagreeable it has
been we conceive that We have eouscieu-
tiously discharged our duty as a public
journal in directing attention to the social
dangers which environ Us.
THE Evening Journal mistakes the GLoBE's