The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-07-01
,. howells on the Injured Husband.
 From Harper's Bazar.l

,. hOwells on the Injured Husband.
 From Aarper's Bazar.l
 ne appearance, In most instances l
 Pre the injured husband kills "the l ! stroyer of his peace" is that he is npt at all maddened out of his self posse@sion. He goes about his crime 1 wirN very notable intelligence and de- ilperaton He steals upon his victim, or Hes In wait for him. with entire self possessiNp; and have no doubt that he has forecast the chances of his &C., qufttal for his misdeed before he does it. l have TO doubt that far oftenest he would neSsr dream of killing the destroyer of hts peace if he were not goaded to it py fear of the shame he must suffer bseforS tie community, or thinks he must NSuf,r, unless he mur- ders one of the paralaours, or both of them. It is thereforeyan abominable public opinion which fo4ces him, just as in other times an abonrnable public opinion would have forced tim to kill the slayer of his brother. or yet in other times to fight duel, We have got rid of the avenger of blood, aud we have got rid of the duellist; bus the husband maddened by his injuries still remains to the enjoyment of an impua- ity in murder beyond the privilege O.
 
 any other homicide.
 The theory which his apologists pro- ceed upon is that the betrayed wife" is always the prey of her paramour. In the words of MT. Clews, unless the reporter has mislanguaged him, the
 paramour is supposed to 'insinuate
 himself into home under the guise
 of friendship, and with studied. sly,
 ensnaring arts, alienate the affections
 and betray the honor of the wife of his friend," But very possibly this is not
 the way it happens, except in the emo tional drama, and in very romantic nov els, though it may happen so in real life. 1t seems probable that the ir1- jured husband sometimes knows this quite well, when in the fine frenzy of becoming a law unto himself, and pre- pairing to do his injurer to death. Very likely he would willingly let both para mours go, but the public opinion behind him urges him to do murder in behalf of his sullied honor and the cause of domestic purity. He knows that if either paramour merits murder at his hands one merits it as much as the oth- CT; and that his madness, if it is mad ness, or the god in him, If it is inspira- tion, ought to deal equally with them; but in the very ecstacy of his abandon he is obliged to distinguish, out of defer- ence to public opinion, and murder on- ly one of them. He may safely count upon getting off with slight imprison- ment if he murders both, but he knows that he will not have the sympathy of the community so wholly with him in that event.
 I should like to ask the casuists who ! excuse or justify him, who say some that 1t is his privilege and some that itis his duty to shed his injurer's blood.
 why he should be excused or justified for adding murder to adultery? What has been gained for the purity or the
 peace of the home by this lustration or .DIOOQ Has wee been renQereQ re- pulsive, as the critics used to say of l the stories where virtue was always rewarded.
 ! The moral of the whole affair seems I to be that a man may kill the para | mour of his wife; but is this lesson at l all profitable to the community? What l sort of injured husband is it that com | monly avails himself of this privilege, l or discharges this duty to society? Is 1 he commonly good man? Is he ever | a good man? The statistics are not l at hand, and one hesitates to hazard l the conjecture that he is usually a ] good man. man of pure life himself, and friend of the domestic virtues, l But if he happens not to be a good man, does he become better by the l murder he has done? Or is it that he has sacrificed himself to the general | good, and for the sake of civilization ! has taken a crime upon his soul which no good man could commit without last I ing remorse?