The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-03-20

infamy of a man who tempts> young,
giddy, affectionate and inexperienced
young girl to take false step and then
deserts the victim he has betrayed and
disgraced. but for married woman, who
is mother as well as wife, no plea OF seduc-
ton can be accepted. It is fair presump-
ton that when q married woman and
mother goes wrong that she IS an
aggressive wanton utterly unit for the
married state, and the voice OF justice
would say that sincesshe was presump-
lively with her beauty and siren quality
seductive, and seducing rather than Sc
duced, she was at least as guilty, as little
entitled to mercy as her paramour. In
practice, however, the married woman. no
matter how aggresslvely wanton she may
have been in the use of her blandish-
ments, generally escapes all harm at the
avengers hands.
This Mrs. Deacon lives lie with her
husband and children: is detected: the
husband murders her paramour and goes
to prison; the woman suffers nothing but
the loss of her children, her right to which
she had fairly forfeited by her conduct.
The woman is rich, still young and beau
tiful; she has desolated two respectable
homes by her base behavior. To her
children and her husband she will always
be sickening memory; to the family of
her dead paramount she will always be a
hateful recollection, but that will not
trouble her; she has her money and. her
youth and beauty still; she can con-
tinue to go forth like Alexander
to spread her conquests further; she
was born with the base temperament of
Cleopatra, and in the career of a Cleopatra
she will find the natural field for the exer-
else of her peculiar passion for low in
trigue. The world is full of Antonys, like
NJ. Abeille, and the memory of murdered
lovers never long fits like ghost before
the eyes of a frivolous woman. Under all
the circumstances the murdered Abeille
woman whose wanton wiles lured him to
his death.
This situation, which leaves the man,
who accepted the white flag of surrender
which the woman hung out at his APP
proach, in a bloody grave, while the
woman loses nothing but her children,
illustrates forcibly the utter barbarism of
the notion that there should be legal i'm
munity for a husband who kills his wife's
real or suspected lover. In no civilized
country is adultery made capital offense;
in most civilized countries it is not treated
q : a 1rly 1al off OF oil &c,
made legally criminal the penalty is not
severe. Nevertheless, in this country pub
lie opinion treats adultery as an offense
punishable with death by the husband,
who is allowed to be judge, jury, witness
and executioner when he proceeds to
lynch the real or assumed despoiler of his
home. No matter whether he kills his
victim in passion or with cool mallgnity
sets a trap for him; no matter
whether he has suffered real or only a
pretended injury, public opinion treats
him as if he was moral hero as well as
social martyr. In just protest against our
absurd refusal to punish adultery ade-
quately in law, while We permit it to be
avenged by murder in practice, the New
York Evening Post says:
But it stands to reason, and stands to decency
as well, that all odenses deserving death should
be tried by judge and jury in open court in the
ordinary way, and the sentence, on conviction,
be executed by the officers of the law. and not
by furious, and it may be half-drunkeu,
prosecutor. If Abeille deserved death he was
entitled to fair trial by his peers, and TO exc.
cution by the guillotine, and not by pistol in
the hands of a rival That the right OF private
murder by an aggrieved party should be re-
served by law or opinion in this one case seems
a discredit to modern civilization.
The case of Lieutenant Hetherington, of
the United States navy, who recently shot
young English banker to death in Yoke
hama, illustrates the deplorable conse-
quences of this absurd theory of legal i'm
munity and private vengeance for real or
suspected domestic wrong. Hetherington
was good man, who was married to a
vain, pretty woman, an incUrable flirt.
Wherever she went, in the absence of her
husband, she flirted right and left with all
the men she met in society. A young
English banker accepted her challenge to
Irritation, and wrote her some very tender
letters which fell into her husbands hands.
Hetherington brooded over the discovery
and finally, in accordance with the stupid
theory that his honor could be washed
clean only by blood, shot Robinson fatally
in the street. Robinson lived several hours
and sent ''his forgiveness" to Hethering-
ton, and expressed the hope that the legal
outcome OF the affair would not ruin
him."
The woman, whose folly and wanton-
ness caused this dreadful affair. was a
heartless fool, as may be gathered from the
fact, that in spite OF the circumstances of
the wife of Admiral Belknap. she attended
dinner party given on Saturday evening,
the day after the shooting and the day on
which Robinson died, clad in white tulle
and diamonds, smiling and greeting every
one with pretty speeches. She even re-
marked to one guest: you know the
judge has shot George?" The lady re-
mained there till late. and departed as
happy as if nothing had happened to mar
her self-satisfied tranquility.
To Mrs. Belknap's protest against her
presence at the dinner the women an
swered, "Why should not go; he killed
Robinson; didn't" And because of this
pretty, vain, heartless fool of a wife.
Lieutenant Hetherington shot his fellow
man down like 8 dog in the street. and
this woman, who really is responsible by
her reckless habit of filtration, for the
young bankers murder, is wife and the