Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1897-11-04

surely leading to what may possibly
blight not only your future lives but
those of generations after you.
To-day is Sunday, lovely, pulseless
air, calm in the stupor of intoxicated
life.
Who would desire to be dead, cover
ed six feet out of such an atmosphere,
to be food for worms on such day2
Yet there seem to be such-peoPle
who prefer to be diet for worms rather
than food for scandal, not because the
slimp angling of the one is more dainty
or less thrilling than the other; not be-
cause the gnawing and corruptive
feasting of the maggot is more exquisite
than the elaborate and sumptuous
reveling of the scandalmonger, ghoul
incernate. body snatcher, hyena
infesting musty and sepulchral society.
Last week Lille Hall, of Smith
Center, committed suicide. She was
aged eighteen. A few grains of
strychnine weighed in her mind more
than the granite based structures of
Earth upon which life Is the one teem-
ing revelation, and death the specu.
Iative occult, the vague, the uncertain.
Say that two thousand years of the
philosophy of Nazareth charted two
courses for this unfortunate girl, the
one hell with its trifing suffication of
birthstone, the other society with its
refined and virtuous finger of scorn
pointing at the unexpurgated and out
east Magdalene-choose.
What in hell is allurlng to impel
human to forsake the taunts of society
of earth for the shrieks and anguish of
demons as a melody or bliss?
What is the castigation inflicted by
society that its dread should drive a
human to suicide?
Who are these now casting stones?
Analyze that pointing finger. Is it
fFeatise on morals pure as the record Of
broad visioned truth2 Is it chaste.
sinless and sincerea
Is not that seornful finger the annex
of the hand of each of the $50. 900 on
DR.. Parkhurst's list in New York City?
Apostles of harlotries! adopts of lech-
cries!
The Smith County Journal in com
menting on the suicide of Lille Hall,
divulged too mqch in revealing that her
parents are ignorant, illiterates. Were
1t noto so, their talents transmitted
would have devised cloak to cover
her shame.
We say shame because she was
about to become mother.
Who is the father1 The Pioneer
says, 'some brute in human form;" the
Journal says, ''some pet of society who
will continue to be smiled upon, feted
and courted."
Thanks to society in its supreme
equity for saving the unlicensed father
from harm But the shameless mother!
Do you know who is the father of
Maurice, the chivalrous son of Sarah
Bernhart2 We are informed that the
"Divine SARAH never betrayed this
secret to Maurice himself. Sara did
not take strychnine. She is the un-
paralleled queen of tragedy. the adored
of adorers, the genius to whom kings
skneel, whose fingers mcnarchs lip and
become thereby exalted, whose silks
make church aisies cleaner for their
sweep.
The Romans taught US the art of
suicide To them it was death before
dishonor-not death after dishonor.
Lucrece was an unavoidable exception;
but she was ravished, not dishonored.
Strychnine is not the cure for error.
Ingersoll has the true philosophy.
Should his daughter go astray he would
say to her: I am your father, more,
your friend. Come to me in your dis
grace. Heaven may cast you out; l
will not. Society may cruelty you;
will forgive.
Suppose there were upon the Kansas
statute law making unlicensed mother
hood capital crime, the malefactor to
be executed by the administering OF
strychnine: Would there be any con-
siderable number found in defense Of