The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-12-05

by the mania of sex, caused by dis
ease or excess. Some are spurred on
by uncomfortable anger, or thirst
for revenge alone. A few are driven
to crime through fanatical religious
views, and some by ordinary insanity.
These crimes are very seldom pun
ished as they deserve. All the ma
chinery of the law is employed for
their protection, if they are ever ar
raigned. And many times. if the
victim does not die at once, no arrest
is made. | have personally known
of women in small town, who were
kicked by their drunken husbands
into insensibility, but who fingered
along for a few weeks, whose deaths
were never even inquired into by the
authorities. And the husband in one
instance had no trouble in getting
another wife in the course of few
months, while his family of helpless
children were made charges upon the
charity of the people.
But even if you get such MUIR
derer condemned and incarcerated,
his sentence is short, and weak and
pliable governor soon pardons him
out and makes voter of him if it is
near eIection time
The perpetrators of crimes against
women seem to be favorite objects of
executive clemency.
Recently a few of these besotted
fends here had the grace to blow
their own brains out, after having
killed their wives or sweethearts.
For quite large proportion Of the
women slain are sacrificed by men
who claim to love them, but who
have been refused by the victims of
their violence.
Is there any remedy7
| can conceive of none but the old
abiding one of education, moral as
we'll as intellectual. But public at
tention must first be aroused to the
magnitude of the evil, and all the
forces which make for righteousness
must be brought into play for it's
suppression. The temperance agita-
tion must be continued and re-
doubled; what laws we have upon
that subject must be diligently en-
forced, and stronger safeguards de-
manded. The Campaign of educa-
ton" upon the subject of narcotics
must be carried into the lowest
walks of life, as well as into the high
est. And all squeamishness in regard
to the horrors of licentiousness must
be abandoned, and the Young of both
sexes taught all its consequences,
physical as we'll as moral. Boys and
girls must no longer be allowed to
go to destruction unawares.
Let more publicity be given to the
vices of men, that innocent women be
less often deceived by an outward
exterior of virtue. There are things
which should be proclaimed upon
the housetops, and the life led by an
infamous man is one of them.
The women of this country, by
united action, can make it almost
impossible for well-known intemper
ate and licent:ous men to marry re-
spectacle women. Public opinion is
all-powerful if it can be aroused. Let
every woman be made to realize the
risks she runs in such cases. Bring
it home to her by every sort of argu-
ment and appeal.
See also that the present excellent
laws concerning the teaching in our
public schools of the effects of stim-
ulants and narcotics upon the human
system are enforced, and that the
teaching is conscientious and ade
quate.
These laws will be but a dead let
ter, without the active support of the
best elements of the community. Let
every intelligent woman interest her
self in her own locality in this vital
question. see more hope here
than in any other line of work.
Let the press be invoked to aid in
the protection of women. If they
would give the subject but one-half
the space they bestow upon the
theater hat, they could effect an i'm
mense good.
The pulpit, too, if it would be little
less general, and more specific in it's
attacks upon the evils that are in the
world, would be an incalculable pow
er. If it would drop its attacks upon
extinct satans," and hurl itself
against the very live and active devils
of our modern life, it would hasten
the coming of that good time" which
has been so long upon the way, and
we could the sooner announce
Gods in his heaven,