Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-07-11
THE LIBRARY TABLE
By the B0okl0uer.

H6 uedlH OH JUNE dl her
Norton Park. Tewksbury. England, of
Mrs. Victoria Clafln Woodruff Mar
tin. at the age of &c. recalls the fact
that two books published within the
past year have given considerable at
tention to her long, and in its earlier
part sensa tional. career. The books
are THE Dreadful Decade" by Don
&. Seitz, and Anthony Comstock,"
by Haywood Broun and Margaret
Leech. Don SeitZ says: America
never produced two more extraor-
binary women than Victoria Claflin and
her sister Tennessee. When
IA, Victoria married doctor. Can
ming Woodruff, and remained his wife
II years: then divorce parted them.
The two sisters now started on their
adventures, in 1863 turning up at
Ottawa, Illinois. where they took over
an old hotel, the Fox House. and set
up cure-all sanitarium. the treat
ment at which was based on several
varieties of the plentiful isms' of the
day, including spiritualism." After
adventures in Cincinnati, they APP
peared in New York during the spec
ulative fever engendered by Fisk and
Gould and the DreWVanderbilt con-
flicts, setting up a brokerage shop at
Al Broad street. They contrived
to create the impression that Commo-
dore Vanderbilt was behind them, and
while it is doubtful if the brokerage
business was ever large, they claimed
great profits in Erie and caused a
deal of commotion."
X x X \
In 1872 Victoria Woodruff was NOM
mated for the presidency on a ticket
with Frederick Douglass, the negro
leader. The movement for woman
suffrage was then in its earlier stages,
and Ito this cause the two bold sisters
addressed themselves, establishing
Woodruff and Claims Weekly with
their Wall Street gains. 1t not only
advocated equal rights at the polls,
but in everything else, including mat
rimony, or love life without it.
In the process of proclaiming free
dom for their sex, the sisters took to
printing the scandals of double life
that were plentiful enough in New
York at the time. They declared for
the single standard. and saw no rea
son why women should be condemned
for ways for which men went I'M
scathed. The Weekly requiring a
managing editor, the ladies engaged
Capt. J. Fl. Blood late of the 9Th Mis-
souri, Regiment, to assist. Suisse
quently Victoria took him on as a
husband" Trouble ensued with her
mother, who charged her with having
in her home both Capt. Blood and
her former husband, Woodruff, at the
same time. Victoria admitted this in
a letter to the New York World, with
the explanation that Woodruff was
sick, ailing and incapable of self
support" and that she had felt it her
duty to care for him, and in this had
had the cooperation of her husband.
Capt. Blood. Shortly after Woodruff
and Claflin's Weekly printed an ex-
pose of the Beecher-Tilton scandal and
In the same issue rumors affecting the
reputation of a we'll known broker.
For this the two women were ar
rested on a charge of sending improper
matter through the mails and locked
up in Ludlow street Jail in default of
$4,000 bail each. The prisoners
were kept in durance for six weeks,
but the case fell to the ground" Don
SeitZ continues the story of the later
life of the sisters: THE luck of Mrs.
Woodruff and Miss Claflin did not
fail them being possessed of
considerable money, it would appear,
the two shrewd sisters went to Eng
land. Here, in 1873, Mrs. Woodruff
married John Biddulph Martin, a
wealthy London banker. They
resided on a great estate in Worcester
shire, where, after the husbands death,
Mrs. Martin carried on many philan-
thropic activities. Miss Clafiin.
with equal success in the matrimonial
market, married Sir Francis Cook,
who possessed the Portuguese title of
Marquis of Montserrat and a mar
velous estate at Cintra, in Portugal"
Haywood Broun and Margaret
Leech in their book tell how Victoria
Woodruff and Anthony Comstock
came into conflict. When Woodruff
and Claf1in's Weekly printed the
scandals concerning New York
broker, it was at the instance of
Anthony Comstock that the two
sisters and Blood were arrested.
when Comstock was testifying DUR
ing the examination of Col. Blood, he
had occasion to refer to Miss Clafiin.
He spoke of her as an individual
Counselor Howe, in a brilliant Scotch
plaid waistcoat, sprang up to inform
the judge that when he represented a
lady in court of law, he would like
to have her treated as such! 1t was
very trying case. But Comstock
was determined to see justice done.
Dour. irascible. he stalked through
the disreputable scene, a Puritan at
the circus"
To retain a single minded view of
any question, it is better to remain
away from the scene of action; this
seems to be the opinion Of John Dos
Passos in his recent book. Orient
Express, as regards the question of
Armenian persecution. At Erivan he
was told by a Persian Mussulman that
the Armenians had massacred and
driven out the majority of the Mo-
hammedan inhabitants. AT a ruined
town on the frontier of Armenia and
Adjerbeidjan he was assured by the
Muslims that the destruction was
wrought by the Armenians, and by
responsible for it, Each national
group poured into his ears tales of it's
own sufferings and of the atrocities
of the other group. On a steamer on
the Black Sea six Turkish army doc
tors reproached him for the hypocrisy
of Europe and the United States:
when Turkish soldiers get out of
hand and kill Il few Armenians who
are spies 'and traitors, you roll your
eyes and cry massacre, but when the
Greeks burn defenseless villages and
murder poor fishermen it's making
the world safe for democracy" But
there can be no difference of opinion
about the starving thousands; he
saw many of them himself-"little
ragged children, tiny wide-eyed skele-
tons with hideous swollen bellies
There are lat one freightyardD dozen
of these little children, in all stages of
starvation. crawling about under the
cars. looking for scraps; they are not
like animals, because any other
animal than man would have long
since been dead. Some are of
Muslin parents from Erivan; some are
Christians from the Lake of Van;
some don't know whether their par
ents were Christians or Muslin, and
seem to remember nothing in all their
hungry lives out this freightyard and