Bisbee daily review., 1905-11-11
BEATING A WIFE.

In the state of Oregon there Is a whipping post for the purpose of doing unto wife beaters as they have done unto their wives. Already several men, including a country postmaster, have fallen victims to the Oregon lash.
 The old idea that wife beating is ( necessity for the preservation of dc nestle peace and happiness has thus received a severe setback.
 But in other parts of the world it Is still considered necessary for the lov- | Ing husband to inhict a certain amount of chastisement upon his wife. The custom is an old one, and an African explorer reports that he once found dusky woman crying as though her heart would break because her husband had not beaten her for so long a time that she felt he had ceased to love her. And even in Eng land there are men who fancy that the one of vital significance. A Leith magistrate, speaking from the bench on a recent assault case, said: If
 woman requires to be chastised, the husband should take a strap to her, and not use his hand"
 | considered proper and even necessary In some parts of England. If a man strikes his wife with his hand he will, | indeed, be guilty of assault. But if he closes his fist upon a strap, he may make his wife feel its bitter sting to l his hearts content
 This procedure, however, is not likely to take a firm root in America. l For, strange as it may seem to one familiar with the history of marriage institutions and marriage customs, the women of the United States have long manifested certain qualities quite at
 variance with the once customary fem mine spirit. In America the women
 are rapidly becoming arbiters of our destiny. The coarse, rough work they leave to men, but they insist upon teaching the schools, inculcating the ethics, writing the books and monop- olizing the culture. Nor will they for q moment admit that their husbands nave any right to lay a hand, CT even strap, upon them. when they pursue a course disobedient to the husbands will. It is even getting fashionable to strike out the word "Obey" from the marriage service, though it is quite probable that the American husband of the future will agree to speak the word against which the feminine lips rebel.
 Woman has been crowned queen In America This is well; is, in fact. as 1t should be. But the pity of it is that man is no longer king. Our women want no royal consorts They are even beginning to speak a little dis respectfully of mere man" A useful machine mere man" is admitted to be. To earn bread. and to cover that bread with butter, he is still indis- pensabIe. But the women's clubs have corralled the universe in their grasp, and one may no longer learn the way out of agnosticism and into the light which metaphysics and science shed upon our path, without going to high priestesses. Even in our show houses 1t is only necessary to state that the playing company consists mostly of girls and the crowd runs with frantic eagerness to view the wonderful spec tacle. Shakespeare spells ruin ana the actor goes bankrupt. But the actress, like Tennyson's brook, seems destined to go on forever.
 What. strike a man." said pr. Channing when the custom of hogging in the navy was brought to his atten, tion. An increase in the humanitarian spirit abolished the practice. And now the habit of beating ones wife is becoming Osolete. To what is the decay of an old time habit due? Prin- cipally to the growing belief that the American woman is the central fact of existence, the supreme glory of evo- lution "The eternal woman leads us on," said Goethe. This may be true. but at the present time 1t looks as though the American man was keeping a long distance behind.
 -