Omaha daily bee., 1897-04-25
TIME AND ITS wHIRLIGIGs.
Cuts Fantastic Tricks in the Lives of
Men md Women.

Men and Women.
The announcement of the death in the
Canary islands of the eminent English
banker, fnancier, philanthropist and ar
chaeologst John Bddulph Martin, brings
naturally to mind, relates the Philadelphia
Times, two of the most remarkable and no
torlous women America ever gave birth to
Mrs. Victoria Woodruff, now the relict of
the dead Englishman, and Tennessee Clafln,
now Lady Cook. What a career they have
led! To what remarkable height they
have risen in a foreign land from the one
time depths of Ludlow street Jail in America!
They are sisters and of the two Mrs. Martin
Is unquestionably the brainest, the other
being more gifted with merely physical
charms. They came to New YORK, II the
narrator is not mistaken, from Cincinnati
where their purse was poor and their ways
peculiar. In the metropolis they started
openly free-love abode over which Col
onel Blood who was Mrs. Woodhulis hus-
band, presided. They felt that the world
owed them a living, and they were deter
mined to collect the bill, and they ana. VIC
Woodruff had a head for figures, and this,
and perhaps something else, suggested the
idea to herself and her sister, Tennie Z.
Clafin-her correct name was tennessee
opening a so-called brokers' Office on wan
street They did not parade about that busy
the office. The novelty of the new enterprise
brought a large crowd about the Office door
and windows every day, but no customers
At least not many customers, ana yet one
who was better than a thousand others.
that one was Commodore Vanderbilt, who
greatly admired Victoria Woodhulfs brains
and Tennie Clahins piquant face
In connection with the brokerage scheme
the firm printed publication called wool
hull & Clahin's Weekly 1t was TINS sheet
Frtt. pana aI,,, t.,,, IL.
which precpitated the Tllton-Beecher TouD'e
and thus it's projectors became part of the
history of the most remarkable clerical
scandal known in the history of this or any
other country. The Weekly, while ostenslbly
intended for the discussion OF financial al
fairs was really largely devoted to public
exnosition of Victoria Woodhull's peculiar
ideas upon the subjects of marriage and free
love There were some foolish enough to
say that the sheet was unfit for circulation,
but however that may be, no effort was
made to suppress it until the publication Of
the issue which contained reference to the
difficulty between Henry Ward Beecher and
Theodore Tilton concerning the latters wlle.
In order, however, not to magnify the
matter, which had not then assumed It's
subseuuent proportions, 1t was deemed In
advisable to arrest the two women publish
ers for giving circulation to this alleged
libel, and so a preteXt was made OF another
article in the same Issue OF the Weekly
containing the most frightful allegations Of
Beecher's church.
The object of Mr.. Beecher's friends was
the suppression of the paper, and so two
indictments were found against Woodruff
e. Clanin by the United States grand jury
charging them with sending obscene matter
through the mails The case came to trial
before Judge latchford-afterward Supreme
Justice Blatchford-in the United States cir
cult court in New York City, and after the
Jury had been sworn and the examination of
one witness begun, the defendants were ac-
quilted by direction of the court. But If
ever there was a technical acquittal that
was The dreadful obscenity Of the article
OF was beyond question. AS the
defendants on that occasion later defed pub
lie criticism it may be well to give from
an official source the exact reason for that
acquittal. The original act OF congress max
ing punishable the transmission of obscene
literature through the mails failed in terms
to include newspapers. Congress then passed
a second act OF almost exactly the same
phraseology as the first, but including news
papers by title, and that act was declared
to be in repeal of the former one. The in
dictment against Woodruff Clahin was
found under the second act, but II was after
ward found that the offense to which the in
related had been committed before |
the passage of the repeating act. In the |
latter act was a clause which directed that |
any offense committed prior to It's passage |
should be punishable under the original act |
When the jury mad been sworn and the |
testimony OF one witness begun and a trial |
thus made counsel for Woodruff & Claflin |
put before the court the proposition that |
the repeating act could not repeal part Of the !