The San Francisco call., 1898-01-09
oooooooooooooooooooos ] WITH ENTIRE FRANENESS. 5 BY HENRY JAMES. {


 There was an interesting story in the Examiner of last Sunday concerning man who had been caught in an ava ianche. Naturally the first impulse of man after escaping from an ava ianche would be to write to the Exam lner and describe the emotions which filled him during his descent, and DOT traying with some particularity the rude treatment that had jared his sys- tenn and torn his clothes. But it hap pened that the tale had already ap peared in the New York Sun of the Sunday before and had by that honest journal been credited to the Colorado Springs Gazette, of date unspecified. Can it be possible that the Examiner had merely taken this piece of reprint. directed it to itself and run it as hav- ing come from the esnow-pelted hero who had drifted down with the slide? Verify fear so. There is no form of misrep- resentation of which the yellow journal would not rather be guilty. For one I distrust 1t so thoroughly that seeing the name of friend in it's obit- uary column I would be thrilled by reasonable hope that the friend was among the living.
 Clara Palmer is reported on good au- thority to have wept upon hearing the verdict of mot guilty" pronounced in her favor. Naturally any girl in sim liar position would have given some ev- idence of concern. Tears do not neces- sarily indicate the presence of grief. People weep for joy, for surprise, go into briny dissolution for any excuse or for no excuse. An analysis of the Fall mer reason for turning loose the tor rent would show it to have logical basis, and heartless indeed would be the impulse to dam her lachrymal ducts. The girl had been acquitted, vindicated after having killed a man. She had made the plea of insanity, which I believe was the veriest pre- tense. That she was ever crazy, that she ever thought she had been crazy or that the excellent citizens composing the jury ever entertained such an idea I do not for a moment believe. They were governed by an as yet improved theory that among the inherent rights of the female is that of staying the male. If it was Clara's legitimate privilege to put the particular vic tim she selected out of the way, there is no ground for opposing the de- sire of any woman to put any man out of the way. Concerning this view there have been some expressions of doubt, enough, in fact, to create feeling of uneasiness on the part of any lady making bold to act upon it. Thus axnArinnnad not only a sense of relief, but realized that by her firmness and her pistol she had for tified in its immunity the sex she hon. DTS and adorns, and opened wider to it the promising field of murder; surely enough to account for tears of joy. Or perhaps these crystal drops were for the twelve in the jury box, who by a few sobs and pretty face have been in duced to set the seal of approval upon a policy which in the fullness of time l trust may be fatal to some of them. Any young woman who feels the need of Advertisement is at liberty to go gun ming after any young man, or old one for that matter. There is no closed sea son. At certain periods the quail is protected, the deer may roam fearless. the duck quack with none to make him afraid. But man must take chances that owing to his own amiability as a target are growing appreciably less. l hope Clara will not make too free use of her license to slaughter. Let her be generous and lend her gun to some oth- CT girl pining for innocent amusement
 Massachusetts women are trying ha r6 tn of fhaif. hnr the practice of law. Their noble inn pulse to prevent her earning bread is based on the supposition that she is not as good as they are. If a woman whose life has not been above the yelled and nsinuating reproach of her spotless sis l ters choose to enter upon a profession which may be honorable, 1t does not seem to me the spotless sisters are bur nishing their own halos by taking the role of dogs in the manager, never a dig nified role, and particularly out of touch with the benign spirit supposed | to glorify and dominate a sex far bet ter than mine. hope the lone woman, combated by the holy throng, will tri- umph over them and that in the end ! they may have the grace to be i ashamed. If a strict moral test were to be applied to men who seek places at the bar many an eloquent voice would be hGshed and the few attorneys left would have more business than they | could attend to. While sorry that any woman should desire to become a law yer, and confident that thinking twice she would rather become something else, she has an intrinsic right to a fair deal and for a sanctified band of her own sex to ring in cold deck is a blow 1t an ideal which man in his blindness has seen fit to set up.
 
 Now that Theodore Durrant is dead. he best hope is that he may be for gotten. and yet the student of the ab- normal must long speculate upon the strange creature whose black and ap- ! palling record was Friday fitly ended { by the hangman. In form, but In naught else. was Durrant human. He could not be subject to the ordinary emotions which go to make up the span