The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-11-08

the path which ends in desperate leap
to death from the Bridge of sighs2
Who is responsible largely for the
dreadful trade OF child-murder, for the
suicide or living death of betrayed women?
There is pardon for hayward, dissolute
sons; there is no forgiveness or cIemency
for truant daughters, and child-murder
has become q craft, and a woman once
gone wrong is like the plucked rose-it
must needs wither.
For this awful public opinion woman's
inhumanity to woman is quite as respon-
sible as the ruder, though not in this case
the sterner sex. Women quite as much
if not more than men are responsible for
the prevailing false social philosophy.
There should be no sex in mercy, COM
passion, humanity, forgiveness; least of
all in justice. We are either too kind to
the boys or too cruel to the girls. In
prosperity our daughters do not need Us,
but in moral adversely they bitterly need
Us. because then every man is tempter;
every woman is a fury On their track. 1t is
an awful indictment of our Christian civ
ilization that young, healthy women.
fond Of life as all healthy youth is fond Of
life, frequently risk their lives and lose
them miserably rather than face the brutal
public opinion which makes a woman's
sin an insupportabIe, because perpetual,
unforgotten, unforgivable shame. A
woman who steals for the first time sell
dom commits suicide, or puts her
life in peril to escape the PEN
that her crime against property
may be ultimately forgiven, if not forgot
ten, by her fellow creatures if her subse-
quent conduct stands for honest living
and sincere repentance; but every woman
knows that there is no mercy, no charity,
no forgiveness, no oblivion, for a good
woman who once goes wrong and her
fault has become visible to the pitiless eye
of the Christian public. The erring woman
does not know why this is so; she has
read the story of Magdalen: she has heard
eloquent preachers deliver thrilling SER
mons, using the story of the Mag
dalen as text and illustration
of the sweet charity; the I'M
mixed, unbroken benignity of the life
and thought of Christ, and yet she
knows that while the story of the Mag
dalen and its lesson lives in art and
poetry and the pulpit. it does not live in
everyday life among protesting Christians
any more than the Golden Rule or the doc
trine of forgiveness to enemies.
1t is part of the poetry of Christianity
that is well nigh universally rejected as
Christian rule and precept in practical life,
not only by the brutal-tongued and cruel
minded classes, but by decent and decor
Gus people who would feel insulted if their
Christian character, conduct and motives
were impeached. The erring woman is
intellectually and morally persuaded that
her fault cannot be intrinsically unpardon-
able since Christ forgave it; she knows
that her confederate in sin and folly, who
is at least as responsible a sinner as her
self, is not treated SO merciessly as to
drive him to despair and self-destruction,
and yet she knows that for her there is so
much certainty of contempt and cruelty
of lifelong shame that she risks death
rather than discovery. She seldom can
turn to her parents for kindly shelter; she
knows that her lover is likely to leave her
naked to the falling sleet Of sorrow and
shame that gathers ready to burst over
her head. She knows that her lover, if in
fair worldly circumstances, will be able
ere long, as a reformed rake, to
be accepted by good woman as
presumptively desirable husband,
while for her there forever disappears that
sweet vision of happy home tires gleam-
ing warm and bright that is the dearest
ambition and finest aspiration of every
affectionate woman. She feels she cannot
patiently tolerate the prospect of carrying
so heavy a cross, so she offers a premium
for malpractice. Sometimes she survives
her immolation; sometimes she sinks I'M
der the shock, and then the insulted virtue
of society inveighs against the crime of
malpractice and invokes the law which
makes abortion assassination. Society,
whose inhumanity drives women by forced
marches to despair, puts a premium on
the multiplication of such murders.
So long as society treats an erring
woman, whose error has been exposed. as
henceforth a person who leaves all hope
behind, just so long medical malpractice
will not be lacking to murder women and
children, because the woman will step for
ward to this chance of cruel death as
blithely as to bridal rather than surren-
der her secret into the keeping of Chris
tan world that she knows will kick her
down TO social degradation and death, will
Danish her to that Siberia of social con-
tempt, the rigors of whose Arctic circle no
| sensitive woman can possibly survive.
So long as society makes woman carry
so terrible a cross as the consequence of
| the exposure of the secret of her shame,
| Just so long women will continue to risk
! death, and consent TO child murder rather
| than endure the shame of surrender. Thus
| woman's inhumanity to woman makes
| countless thousands Of their sisters mourn.
---------------
| 1t is humiliatlng fact that every bale
of New England made goods destined for
China is shipped by the Canadian Pacific
| railway TO Vancouver, and thence to its
destination by English steamers, and this
large traffic has been diverted from 4 --e n.
lean railways and from the Pacific Ill
steamers because that line has not BIN
able TO compete with the English and