Year: 1872

We reproduce the following from


the South ST. Louis, weekly paper


conducted by Mrs. Laura S. Webb


formerly Of this city


Sentimental newspaper correspon.


dents are wasting a great deal oI


sympathy upon the condemned muir.


deress Garrabrant, and speak of be,


as a youthful and charming person.


age. with pretty face, whom it were
a pity to hang. We are reminded
that Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton


was guilty of similar nonsense, when
after a short interview with Mrs,
Laura D. Fair in the San Francisco
Jail, she expressed the belief that it
was impossible that any jury could
find o verdict Of guilty against q wo-
man possessed of such mild blue
eyes and charming features without
mourning the guilt of perjury. In
the name of the homely, law-abid-
ing portion of the fair sex, we pro-
test against the attempt to adjust
the standard Of guilt by the con-
tour of the face and the color of the
eye.-&. Louis 2ln,es.


The above paragraph carries us
back sixteen years ago. 1t carries
us back to those happy days when
we were school girl in the Acad-
emy of the Visitation, Mobile, Ala
bama. It was there that we met
and stndied, qnarreled end "made
up" again, as school girls generally
do, with Laura D. Fair. We knew
her then. as a convent girl, by the
name Of Laura Hunt, although it
has since been made public that she
even then divorced from her first
husband. Grayson.


How strange does it appear, as we
look back over the lapse of years,
that one whose life seemed SO per-
fectly pure, should now be-a mur-
eress How strange that evil infu-
ences should have thus drawn her
down, step by step, until to-day she
is the inmate Of a dungeon Why
is this Why is it that the curse of
Cain is branded on the fair brow of
Laura D. Fair? Why is it that the
good influences that emanated from
her convent life could not save her
from this shipwreck of her immortal
soul Because the world, the flesh
and the devil" have triumphed over
a heart that was naturally good, but
alas, how frail Because her hopes
were not anchored beyond the stars,
where the pure of heart see God.


She looked lower than the stars !;
she anchored her hopes on man and
lost. Even then, lost and degraded
as she was, with her soul stepped in
the blackness Of crime even then
she could have been saved if she had
but looked upward to her God, and,
with her arms around the cross, pu-
rified her soul with tears and prayer.
Did she do this I? No. The evil inAu-
ence that had engulfed her thus far
but drew her still farther down, un-
til blood stained those beautiful
hands that, in schoolgirl days, we
saw sweep the piano, the guitar and
the harp.


The mild blue eyes and charm
ing features" are no excuse Of her
guilt. And neither do we, woman
like, say that she should be condemn
ed fol- having been so fatally charm
ing. We can but prey that the blood
Of Christ will wash the blood of
Crittenden from her soul, and the
Laura Of convent memory will yet
be plucked as a brand from the
burning.


How wildly do we remember the
last time that we ever saw Laura.
It was at the close of the session in
1856, and the day that she left school.
We have never met since, perhaps
hall never meet again, yet we shall
lever, never forget the queenly form
# that now terribly unfortunate wo-