The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1895-12-10
Pur,tanism Going Mad.

One of the rights every woman has IS
to live. to act for herself, to work OUT
her own d~estiny-to do as she pleases, IN
fact. Just like a man, so long as she
interferes with the rights of nobody
else. We are no believers in Oriental
tutelage. We believe a woman has the
right even to go to the Devil her own
way. if she wants to 60, just the same as
d man.
But may Providence protect US from the
thought that every woman who happens
to be alone and ~friendless. in difficult,
dangerous or embarrassing circumstances
is irving to go to the Devil or toqead others
there. May it be long before the average
self-respecting man will take it upon MN
to assume thai because a girl or a wom-
an is upon the street in the hours OF
darkness or has occasion to accost a
stranger on the public t-horoughfares, she
is necessarily an outcast and deserving
of a degrading punishment.
We have had in New York, IN the aast
few days, two instances of heartlessness.
of criminal cynicism upon the part OIL
notice magistrates such as surely never
before d~isgraced the justice Of this coun-
try. We hope there is no man OF orol-
nary human instincts who has not felt
his soul revolt against the treatment ac-
corded by the aged beast named Mott
to the unhappy young woman, Lizzie
Schauer who was dragged before him by
outrage, however, hardly reaches in afro
civ the conduct of another of Mayor
Stroug's reform appointees, Magistrate
Sims. in the case of a raid upon an al
legged disorderly house. In the crowd OF
cantiyes there were two who were dis
tinguished from all the rest by their
obvious innocence. The police who made
the raid completely endorsed their stories
accounting for their. presence in the
bouse. They were young working girls.
one a seamstress, who was there on her
employers business, and the employer
was in court and swore to the fact. The
other was a milliner, whom the police
found in a remote basement ROOM, trim
ming a hat. The conduct of the girls IN
| count was ample proof of their innocence,
indeed the account which all the papers
agree in giving of the despair of these
Young creatures at their awful position
would melt the heart of anyone but q
Parkhurstian Dogberry puffed up with
| phariseeism and conceit.
The action of the man, Sims, battles ex-
PLANTATION on any theory of his sanity.
what he did was discharge of-hand
twelve women about whose immortality
| there was neither concealment nor dis
mute. and he held these two unhappy girls,
to make q parade Of their shameful mis-
| fortune by a public examination.
One girl tainted and cut her a as
| she fell on the floor. This one. Sims later
liberated with the grudging remarG
that he would give her the benefit of the
doubt. The other, he persisted in holding,
though the girls horror became SO in.
tense that she had to be sent to a hos
pital.
The reaction against this sort of justice
and morality is coming. It is coming
surely and swift. When it comes. it VIII
eween far over to the other extreme
The world has seen such excesses before
and students of social and moral tenden-
cies know how they result. When New
York is presently again given over t.
vice and corruption, the people on whor
the blame VIII rest will be Con an
Roosevelt and Sims and Mott. and, abovs
aqI, Parkhurst. the great i~nstigator Of ths
unhealthy excesses in which the New
york police organization = now INDUCING