The National tribune., 1907-07-18
THE DANGEROUS 'USWRiTTEN
LiW."

cial aspirations.
THE DANGEROUS sUSWRITTEN
LAW,
The ''unwritten law has been much
before the people lately, and greatly to
its detriment. Sensible, law-abiling
people have become much more scorn-
fully impatient since the Loving and
Thaw trials of it's being invoked to save
red-handed murderers. The limit of
pettifogging impudence was reached
when Thaw, a vicious degenerate. who
had married his mistress, appealed to
| it to save him from the proper penalty
for numbering one of her former lovers.
There was some approval of it when
the Strothers brothers killed the man
who had betrayed and brutally treated
their sister, and then tried to desert her
on the day of the wedding SO as to in
validate the forced marriage.
1t was an outrage, however when
the whisky-craZed eX-Judge Loving was
| acquitted for having shot down the
young man for an alleged mistreatment
Of his daughter. The Judge, following
| the iniquitous precedent in the Thaw
case, would not allow the young wom-
ans story, told to justify and save her
father to be subjected to cross-exami-
nation and sitting.
Gov. Vardaman, of Mississippi, has
gone wrong on an ''unwritten law"
case. For motives of her own, Mrs.
Angie Rirdsong murdered DR.. Thos. II.
Butler, and then alleged the unwritten
ed her to five years in the pcnitentiary,
and the Supreme Court affirmed the
sentence, but Gov. Vardaman an
nounces that he is not to be swervel
from his determination that the un-
written law is for women as well as for
men, and l will never permit Mrs.
Birdsong to go to prison.
This is in spite of petitions signed by
great numbers of the people of Mrs
Birdsong's home, who are familiar with
her life and character and the circum-
stances of her crime. They are strong
| ly opposed to any clemency for her.
The women signers We're born and rear
ed in the same community with Mrs.
Birdsong. and many of them We're her
schoolmates. They say: "Py no
stretch of the imagination can the un-
written law be applied in Mrs. Bird
songs case" and continue: THE un-
dersigned ladies of Monticello and
Lawrence County regret exceedingly
the misguided public sympathy ex-
FL, ,
this town and County, brought about by
prejudiced reports sent to the metro
politan press, and also because the true
condition of affairs was not brought out
at the trial.
Over in Maryland. however, a case is
in progress. in which the unwritten law
came as near being justified as it ever
can be. A young man betrayed a girl
under promise of marriage, and when
| her brother and her poor old mother
begged him to save her from disgrace,
| he scornfully refused, and they shot
| him
The girl, with her newborn babe, is
present at the trial. and the old mother
! testified:
'She first pleaded with Posey to re-
pair the wrong she alleged he had done
| her daughter even offering to pay all
the expenses. her son adding that if he
wanted to leave his sister afterward he
| could get divorce, but that he must
marry her.
They even offered to support him,
and keep his lunch pail filed.
These are humble people,-common
I I.1,. - l.
sensational interest, and no money TO
hire high-priced lawyers, but their
family honor is as dear to them as if
they belonged to the Four Hundred.
We have little use for that female
virtue that has to be protected at the
point of the pistol. Every woman must
be the guardian of her own virtue.
This can not be too strongly impressed
upon her. injured husbands" are ag-
gravating frauds, and they who kill are
plain, ordinary murderers. In SO cases
out of 100 it is their own brutality or
other misconduct that has driven their
wives to the arms of other men. Their
crimes are not prompted by love for
the woman. as sickly gushing sentimcn-
talists make believe. but by their
wounded selfish vanity. and their base
hunger for revenge because their wives
have preferred other men.
There is never any justifica ton for
| the unwritten law, but the nearest
thing to it comes when a man has ruin
ed a loving, trusting girl. and we
therefore hope that the Maryland jury
will be merciful to Mrs. Bowie and heI
son.
Later.-The Maryland jury has ac-
quilted Mrs Bowie and her son.