The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-08-14


Women are generally believed to possess
more sensibility than men; but the testi-
mony Of both science and history tends to
treat this belief IS popular fallacy. Pro-
fessors Lombroso and Richet, In papers
read before the International Congress of
Experimental Physiology at Turin, de-
clare that in general sensibility, including
sensibility to pain, women are greatly in
ferior to men; that is to say. they have far
less feeling. The reason which had made
people believe in the greater sensibility of
woman was her greater irritability, and
the louder expression she gave to her suf-
fering. "Woman's cerebral hemispheres,"
Lombroso says, "arc habitually feebler than
mans, and consequently have less power
Of resistance and reaex action. She can
cry more readily than man. and does so
accordingly, because she finds it to pay.
She learns how all-powerful are her tears;
she tries to weep with policy, to weep
truly marvellous" he says. ito observe the
faculty Of weeping at their own caprice
which certain women possess"
The testimony of history shows that the
moment women become desexed, escape
from domestic shelter and mingle freely
with men, they not only never show more
humane sensibiiity than men. but gener-
ally exhibit less. The legend of Poca-
hontas aud Captain John Smith is
pretty tale, but if it be true it only shows
that the young Indian girl had an amo-
rous fancy for the Englishman whose mis-
tress she became. The rule Of Indian war
fare is that the squaw is as fiendishly cruel
rs her buck. Cleopatra was as cruel as
Catharine the Second of Russia. An
tony's wife. Fuivia, took the head of
Cicero in her lap and thrust her bodkin
through the tongue of the murdered ora.
tor. If it be said these examples are
drawn from antiquity, it is easy to quote
modern examples. Isabella of Spain re-
fused to spare the Moors from massacre in
cold blood even when her cold-hearted
husband Ferdinand was disposed to
clemency. Mary Queen of Scots,
Joanna OF Naples, Christina of Sweden,
Catharine di Medici, "Bloody" Mary
were not only cruel women, but wantonly
cruel. when state policy would have per-
suaded man to hold his bloody hand.
Margaret of Anjou, Henry the Sixth's
queen, is as cruel and bloodthirsty as
Richard the Third; she has ga tigers
heart wrapped in wonan's hide" Lady
Macbeth, Goneril and Regain and the Queen
in "Hamlet" are among Shakespeare
pictures of woman's capacity for excep-
tional inhumanity and insensibility. The
one CLEAN of sensibility that breaks the
blackness of Lady Macbeth's cruel heart
is when she says of King Duncan, "Had
he not resenbled my father as he slept I
had done it,"
In the street massacres of the French
revolution the most pitiless ofall the mob
are the women; it is Theroigne de Meri-
court that, when her old lover is found
among the prisoners, leads on q band of
female furies and hacks him to death.
1t is the women that never spare the no
blest victims of the "Reign of Terror"
but fire shameful insults by volleys at
them on their way to the guillotine. It is
women who were most conspicuous for
cruelty in the horrors of the Paris COM
mune in 1870, 1t was the women who
were responsible for most of the inhuman
treatment of the surrendered and defense
less Pinkerton men at Homestead, Pa.
Here is part of the shameful story as we
find it in the New York World:
A tall. handsome woman IN a blue calico
gown began the trouble by throwing handful
Of dust in the eyes of one OF the prisoners. The
man stopped In his tracks and uttered groan of
agony "My God, I'm blinded" he moaned.
"seryed you right you dirty curl" replied his
sssailant. rs she pulled from the pocket of her
gown biz oil jagged stone and hurled il with
crashing force as the suffering man. The stone
struck him IN the mouth, and although ne was
hx ieet tai and weighed 10 pounds he Tell face
downward the road. Two OF the guards
raised him to his fee. and led him away. This
man was badly hurt, the blood gushing from an
ugly wound in his right cheek and four OF his
teeth were knocked out
Nero words cannot describe the scene that
followed. Despite the pleading OF the guards
snd the protests OF a few conservative men the
mob vented its spleen on the dszed and wounded
prisoners Men were knocked down, pounded
With clubs and stones, and women spat in their
faces and tore their clothing, amid screams
cheers and Kisses Il was pandemonium-
When General Sherman died the flags
were run up on all the government DEPART
msnts a. half mast. Among the clerks in
tire census bureau was Miss Pollard, who
Was working for her living at $50 4 month.
Looking out OF 3 window at the flags, she
exclaimed: Il suppose, then, by this
sisne the little devils are hard at work
building up the fire TO receive himi"
When Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln hum
dreds of Northern girls placed Booths
picture IN their albums because he was
"snch handsome fellow" while Lin
coin. as one woman expressed il, Cooked
30 green and countriaed."
In the Hundred Days" between Ma
poleon's return from Elha ard his wreck
ri Waterloo seys rsl Of his old officers, who
had sworn allegiance to Louis the Eigh-
seenth, deserted to Napoleon. Among
them were Ney. Labedoyere and La Va
iette, who were arrested. tried and sem
fenced to death. King Louis was disposed
TO spare them. but the royalist women.
young and Old, swarmed into his palace
and c.amored for the lives of the con-
Gemned. The wife Of Marshal Ney, with