Year: 1872

Bond, the offense being that the reverend
| gentloma, kissed repeatedly the woman to
whom Bond wss betrothed. According to
some accounts, the lady is q rosebud of seven
teen, while Others state that she is a fully
| opened flower of over forty. In any case we
| fancy the kiss was hardly worth the hatchet-
| chopping to either affectionate priest or bis
assaiant. Thompson, the clergyman, is re-
ported fatally injured, and hence the current
of public sympathy has all set in his favor.
Now, while we regret to see any respectable
man butcherod for what he probably esteemed
a minor fault, OF, very likely, no fault at all,
| 1t seems to be only fair dealing to look at the
| other side of the case, with the justice of
which Thompson's living or dying has nothing
whatever to do


There is not day in which the newspapers
do not carry to every breakfast-table in the
country some horrible tale of jealousy, seduc-
ton or murder in which the actors by no
means belong to the dangerous classes, but to
| families as refined and often as piOusly guarded
as any in which the story is read to be shud-
dered over. In most instances, too, married
man OF woman is one of the guilty parties.
| Now, we do not believe that the standard of
purity is lowered one degree IN the minds of





the respectable classes in this country by all
the preaching or practice Of the FreeLOve
apostles; if any change has been produced it
has rather been raised! We do not believe
that in nine cases out of ten these guilty
husbands or wives had IN the outset
any intention Of dislOyalty to their marriage
VOW. They began with an innocent friendship,
a familiarity at which angels are alleged to
smile; a kiss like that for which the Rev.
Thompson has been so summarily punished,
and which other ministers in Cincinnati, we
regret to see, justify as perfectly proper and
matter -of-cOur A minister or teacher
naturally feels a protecting affection for the
young girls and women whom he instructs,
and knows in grief and joy as no other man
can know them; the affection is apt to become
near and personal, and if both natures are
pure, remains not only innocent but elevat-
ing. But natures are not always pure;
lovers may have tendency toward
jealousy and hatchets,--ecce Thompson.


Again, q husband is overworked. wants re-
creation; he finds at home a tired, faded
woman he has all his old regard for her in
its integrity; he would guard her honor or her
safety with his life if she were to die he
would think of her as the angel of This home,
and leave her place untitled perhaps for years.
But he has some unused ideas, some nervous
energy for which he must have vent; some
whim or taste which she is too busy with the
babies or the kitchen TO notice or to sympa-
thize with; whereupon he goes out solitary
and morbid, bemoaning his fate that he Is
uncomwehended" has "nO companion in
"his higher nature.n Now if the fellow
be q manly man, he will betake
himself to hard work or hard play, and so rid
himself Of his megrims, or, if he must have a
companion, ten to one he can find in the next
club or shop or counting-room another young
fellow with the same taste or sentimentality
as himsef. But unfortunately be finds in
stead young woman she has neither babies
nor kitchen to tire her she has youth, fresh
ness, ant plenty of time, and, more than all,
any amount of unused emotions and passion
(pending the arrival of her own husband)
wherewitl to warm and spice her intercourse
with the husbands Of other women. Could
anything be more nicely fitted by Fate
to his peculiar needs Here is all he lacks
in his wife given to him in perfect inno-
cence becalse he is married Just there lies
the fatal error. Young women and old ones
(for the further removed girls chances of
matrimony are the more greedy is she for
platonic frendships) are held by their friends
to be perfectly safe in the companionship of
any man 50 long as he has a drag-weight at
home TO hold him to virtue in the shape of
wife. Often they remain safe. The man grows
haggard and old, takes to drink, goes about
with the young woman's photograph secreted
in his pocket, but really loves the girl too
well to harm her by saying that he loves
her. Their friends watch her unconscious
ness with amazement and credit her
with either the Stiffness Of fool or the purity
of an angel. Presently bona tde husband
comes along; she marries, and whistles the
platonic lover complacently down the wind
He goes back to his home, to find it distaste-
full and noxious to him ever after. AS for the
wronged wife and her wasted life, SO long as
there has been no crime, what right has she
TO complain Now that is the story when it
ends happily. But sometimes the man Is more
selfish, or the woman less so, and the crime
comes; or sometimes, when It is wife who
goes about thus, seeking her affinity, the hus-
band, not having babies and housework to
make him patient, comes on the scene with
hatchet and pistol, and then death and the
newspapers have their gil of food.


The moral of all which is that American
women should drop the innocent role of fools
and angels, and practice common sense in
stead. Our manners are too free, and IL is not
Christian teachers who should relax them fur
A IA 4. l.. Al ~ 4