Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1922-03-24


her a. soon 40 he was In q position to
| marry her, and she promised to 80 out
to hims
Then, to escape from unhappiness at
home. she left our, island and took do.
mestic service In England, and there,
never having heard from her sweet.
heart again, feeling herself deserted
and FORGOTTEN, afraid to return to her
! fathers house with her fresh burden Of
trouble, she gave birth to child and
stransled It. lff
The circumstances Of her cohfinemen.
are sufficiently remarkable to deserve
mention. Il appears that down to the
| last her condition was never suspected
BY her mistress, that her child was born
in the night when she was quite alone.
and that she came downstairs to her
work at her usual hour In the morn.
well and was sent back to bed, and .
doctor was called to see her, but be
prescribed for some tri6ing ailment
without reslising the cause Of the girls
illness. The same night, the household
being asleep, she rot up again. wrapped
her dead child in a newspaper. carried
| Il to q waste inclosure at considerable
| distance, threw It over the fence, and
then walked home, and on the following
| day she was found in her room un-
| conscious.
I Discover Babes Body
The body Of the child was discovered
BY the accident Of little boy playing
In the neiehborhood Of the waste in!
| closure, and in the inquiry which was
set afoot suspicion fell upon the girl,
and in due course she was arrested:
| At the coroner's inquiry she denied
everything-that she had killed the
| child or had ever given birth to child
4 at all, but the evidence against her,
particularly the medical evidence, was
| overwhelming, und ultimately she con-
fessed, telling the full and pittful story
| of her sin, her crime, and her great
temptation.
awakened in the girls favor the At
| unfairly took charge Of her defense, and
when she was brought to trial a con.
spiracy Of mercy on the part OF judge.
fury, and prosecuting counsel for the
Grown, reCulted in her acquittal.
| Such were the facts Of a rather or.
dinary, case Of child murder q crime
Of frequent occurrence), but ] found
my Imagination strongly stirred by It.
According to the law Of England the
girl had been guilty OF willful murder,
and was therefore deserving OF death,
and though the judicial practice OF the
past fifty years has been TO- regard her
commute the death sentence to penal
servitude for many years, perhaps las
| in q recent case) for life, the enormity
of the offense against humanity which
the law allowed Of seemed to me to be
terrible.
And when ! brought 1t into the
scheme Of my story, and saw 1t as q
SEQUEL to the transgression OF my judge
who had to sit In judgment upon his
own victim, and might have to con-
denim her death, the power OF SIN to
And out the sinner and to punish him
became almost frishtful.
Pain and Tears
After the trial was over and the girl
was made 40 happy % could be, pre-.
vailed upon the Attorney General to
permit me (for = good purpose. - l
thought, the service OF humanity to
look over the official papers: They
the charge, the depositicns,. the evi-
tern written In prison, 80 full Of con-
| triton, OF shame, Of remorse, OF for
giveness for those who had cast her
| on, and even Of love for the absent man
at the other end Of the world from.
whom no word came TO her In time Of
trouble. was deeply moved by all
this, and determined to make It the
foundation Of the story Of Bessie COL
| lister.
But in. doing I'd speedily became
aware that over the same ground two
great writer's had gone before me-. One
Of these was George Eliot. who in the
story Of Hetty Sorrel In adam Bede.
had described the tragedy of the girl g
forlorn position with a poignance !
could not hope to exceed. But l thought
1 I saw that there was something to do
which George Eliot had not done.
Never for a moment has she ques.
toned the justice of the law which
charged Hetty with murder and con-
demncd her to death. Her whole con
Germ was with the falsehood which the
girl had told at the trial in denying
her crime and In adhering to her denial.
The light was cast almost entirely on
the soul about to 60 before God with
q lie on her lips, and hence the intro
duction Of the woman preacher, Dinah
Morris, and the marvellous scene In the
cell In which the guilty girl Is made to
confess.
The other great writer who had gone
before me with a case Of infanticide
! was no less person than Walter Scott,
whose shoe -latchet I well knew wal
unworthy to unloose. But neither had
Scott questioned the law and its sen
tence. His criminal, Enie Deans. In
the "Heart Of Midlothian" had mol
killed her child at all, but had only
concealed the birth of It, the assump-
tion Of the law being that where
woman had not revealed her condition
to any one, and the child she had given
birth to was not to he found, she must
have made away with It.
Hence the marvellous scene In court
in which Jeanie Deans tout OF her un-
bending truthfulness) finds herself com
PEELED TO deny that Eme had told he'
that she was about to become mother,
when ono word OF admission, only hall
a word. might have saved her sisters
But I felt then. and now. with all
humility I say II. that neither OF these
great writer's have touched the central
heart OF the terrible situation. which
seemed to me to be this: When an un :
married mother has killed her new
born child, Is she guilty Of murder and
therefore deserving of death!
Unmarried Mothers Status
4 say she Is not, and in the story Of
neSsie COllister ] have set myself to
i show that under the storm OF shame,
perhaps OF poverty, certainly OF uncOm'
fOtted paiR, the unmarried mother who
4 vivee hirth tn her child in sOlltudA n