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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (July 20, 1901)
isisssx I THE COURIER. I' ' 1 i X" J i . 11 h m iH! Nil . rf W i - i ' Ml! ill I-4 H : 'I 1 bit the luxury of crime. Their trial will last a long time and they will be put to much inconvenience, but their lives will probably not be seriously jeopardized. Some communities are more easily and deeply shocked than others by certain crimes. It would not be safe for a very rich man to commit a crime far J rorn the neigh borhood of a large strong jail and a determined sheriff. For the com munity's indignation once aroused would only, under such circumstan ces, be appeased by his swaying or charred body. The community sense ignores personal considerations of gain in order to protect Itself from the lawless. The community is made up of individuals, but in detestation of an atrocious, unnatural crime it is like one absolutelyuninfluenced by gain. The community on rare prov ocation is a giant, aroused and re vengeful. If the fugitive be rich the social sense is still more indignant and his shrift is short. Not so very long ago it was an un written law, but none the less effec tive, tLat a father might slay his daughter's seducer and escape with his life, or that a husband might kill his wife's paramour and still go un punished. Recent trials have shown that the sentimentality that excuses murder and lets the murderer go free no longer affects juries. Men have so stiffened themselves in regard to the sacredness of life that even a woman is not allowed to shoot her betrayer. That old superstition that a woman is better than a man is losing its hold upon juries. And if upon juries, then upon men. In Kansas a jury has recently demonstrated its ability to recognize a brutal murderess and to recommend punishment, severe, if not adequately severe. In New Jersey a wife's belated tale of an assault incited her fatuous husband to com mit a murderous assault upon a prob ably innocent man. The husband was arrested but was secure in the belief that no jury would punish a man for resenting an attack upon the holiness of his home. The upright judge who tried the case, refused to admit any testimony as to why the husband assaulted the minister and the long-suffering, sorely tried sense of justice which has had to yield for so many centuries to this anoma lous sentiment in regard to an as sault upon a woman justifying mur der, was, at last vindicated. These two trials are no small satisfaction to men and women who hare impo tently contemplated this leng injus tice, this 'etting a murderess go free, and hanging a no more brutal mur derer. Good men are tender to wom en. They idealize them and a de signing woman plavs upon the chord of female helplessness until, what with her tears and the hysterics of relatives, the jury is no more than twelve sympathetic and deeply moved men. In such an emotional condi tion it is not difficult for a clever and magnetic lawyer to convince them that the prisoner at the bar is a wronged woman whom it is a mis take to punish for murder though the flesh she made clay has been rotting for a year. Men have long threatened woman that that if she insisted upon her rights they would deny her the cour tesies they are used to grant her. Rights are more satisfactory, more continually applicable to all ages and to all degreesof beauty and plainness than courtesies. A woman in the enjoyment of all human rights is quite able to dispense with courte sies. The latter cannot be reckoned upon. Some men are courteous to their acquaintances, and discourteous to their families; some are courteous to wives, sisters, cousins, aunts and all their lady friends and brutal to all unknown, plain women. There are so many of this latter type, that it is really more comfortable and safer for woman not to depend upon courtesies but to enjoy the certitude of her rights which can compel a cer tain legal civility not at all a bad subsitute for a seat in a crowded car and a very artificial deference in pub lic. This modern tendency to try a murderess as if she were a man is perhaps a manifestation of the treat ment which men have threatened to apply to the new-woman. If so it is a wholesome result of the struggle for individualism. The perversion of justice on account of eex is silly. It has lasted long enough. It makes law contemptible by interrupting its universal application, and it encour ages crime by excepting some people from the consequences of crime. This latest and unexpected result of the entry of woman into business, the struggle for the same wages and the demand for professional recognition, is altogether desirable. If woman is to receive the same reward for her activities and attainments she sliould be punished for her crimes with, the same severity applied to her brother criminals. The consistent new wo man is satisfied to keep step with her brother along all his paths. In many ways she is handicapped, but she is willing to take her place, without favors, either for herself or any other working member of her sex. Courage and certainty of her election to labor baffles criticism and unmanly, un chivalrous ridicule, and the new wo man is far on her course. She has gained the right and just increased her likelihood of being hung, if she murders, like a man. I like to call attention to these progressive stages in the march of woman to complete emancipation. A Colored Woman's Federation. In Buffalo last week three hundred and fifty delegates to the National Association of Colored Women of the United States met and discussed means by which colored women may assist in the m6re rapid development of their race. It was the second bien nial meeting of the federation and was an example to white women in the orderly transaction of business. Over one hundred organizations of colored women claiming a membership of over 10.000 persons were represent ed, chiefly located in the south. The association was established five years ago to aid in the advancement of col ored women's interests. The presi dent of the association said in her address to the delegates: "The dens er the ignorance and the greater the degradation of the masses of a people, the harder should the more favored portions strive to illumine the minds and improve the morals of those whom it is in their power to uplift. The work of inspiration and illumination in the south has been directed almost entirely upon the negro man. Even white men are somewhat difficult to civilize from the outside. Take the manners and morals of a mining camp composed entirely of white men for example. The insistent effort of a good and refined woman upon a man is the quickest civilizing energy yet applied. When the colored women of the south learn the latest system of child culture, when they make daily use of the tooth brush and the bath tub and of the few other essential tools of civilization, the regeneration of the southern negro man is in sight. For the law of selection will leave the dirty man mateless. A neat, clean woman, white or black, will not love a dirty man when she has the choice of a clean one." The association did not consider this point. It will prob ably be ignored in all future meet ings. Nevertheless such is the source of enlightenment for the southern negro. Religion and State. The Roman catholics of England are demanding that when King Edward VII takes the oath on his coronation day it shall be so revised as to omit de nial of the doctrine of transubstan tiation, which it now contains, and which every king of England has tak en since the Test act in the reign of Charles I. The protestants of Eng land were at first not disposed to re sist the demand. A select committee of the bouse of lords was appointed to consider if a revision of the denun ciation of the doctrine contained in the oath were practicable. The com mittee has reported and it is recom mended that the report be referred back to the committee again. In that event the correspondents are of the opinion that no revision of the oath will be made this year, and if not before the coronation of King Ed ward VII, then the agitation is not likely to be renewed until the acces sion and coronation of the next king of England. The protestants of England and Ire land are not concerned about the doc trine of transubstantiation. Not that at all. Whether the king of England believes in that or any modern mira cle is not the question. The protes tants are afraid of the civil relations which a catholic king might establish between England aud Rome or be tween England and the Pope. Prot estants are civilly, not religiously, jealous of Rome. The doctrine of transubstantiation is insisted upon by the Pope. Therefore when King Edward asserts that he does not be lieve in it, it is essentially a declara tion of independence of Rome. Since the publication in the news papers of the litigation between Bish op Bonacum and a priest who is. seek ing in the law courts to retain a parish which desires him to continue his ministration, in spite of the Bish op's excommunication, Nebraska pro testants comprehend better the feel ing which makes it impossible in England to substitute any less em phatic clause rejecting Catholicism in the coronation oath of the kings of England. In the trial it developed that the Bishop sent a priest from Lincoln to inform a witness that if he testified on the side of the excom municated priest he would shut the gates of heaven against him. The Bishop sincerely believes that he is justified in threatening an earth-dweller with everlasting punishment. He is convinced that while dwelling on earth he has jurisdiction in heaven. No one from above has ever claimed lack of jurisdiction in his trials, but the defendants have fled to the Ne braska courts. And the judges pro fess entire ignorance of the Bishop's district. It is this persistent claim of supercedence of the church over the law that creates protestant jealousy. The latter are afraid of civil aggres sion on the part of the Pope, and divided loyalty is treason. To shut the doors of heaven, so far away, upon a mortal whose tired feet have not yet paused at the brink of the river which divides noise from silence, is an act the possibility of which it is impossible for a protestant to com prehend. In the light of this stupendous claim it is easier to comprehend the no-popery riots of England and the increased excitement of the protestant majority in England and Ireland caused by the demand of the catho lics for the excision from the oath of the declaration of independence. Twenty-seven protestant associa tions in England, Scotland and Ire land called "The Council of the Im perial Protestant Federation" have issue! a petition to the house of lords asking that no change whatever be made in the oath without the ex plicit assent thereto of the British people expressed by means of a gen eral election. Colonel Sandys, M. P. who present ed the memorial, admits that, if the King's declaration were intended as an insult to Roman catholic subject of the British Crown, it could not be justified. Colonel Sandys, however, insists that it is not intended as an insult.but as a neccessary safeguard of England's civil and religious liberties. The Imperial Protestant Federation holds that, if Englishmen are to re tain their civil and religious liberties uninjured, "it is absolutely essential to have a Protestant king, who must be one, not in name only, but in re ality, and, therefore, It is provided by the Bill of Rights that he shall do some public protesting against Rome as a specimen and an evidence of his Protestantism." This public protest ing against Rome is done in the King's declaration, as it stands at present. It is pointed out in this petition that the Tablet, the Roman catholic newspaper owned by Cardinal Vaughan, lately described the rejec tion of the dogma of transubstantia tion contained in the royal declara tion as, so to speak, "the Hag of pro testantism nailed over the threshold of the throne, and on the very apex of the British Constitution." Ac cepting the correctness of the de scription, the Imperial Protestant Federation says, "Let us keep the good old protestant flag waving!'' And it goes on to demand that "No papal gag shall be placed in the mouth of the King of England. A Humour Test. A man with a reputation for hu mour strong enough (the reputation) perhaps to last a decade, recently con tributed a story to one of the maga zines. It was a successful story judg ing from the number of exchange editors who clipped it from the maga zine and reprinted it in their papers. It is now pronounced a test for a sense of humour. The individual who cannot see the point is adjudged lacking in this sense, a quality most essential to sanity and sound judg ment. The sentence which the fun ny man thought of, the point to the story, is contained in this sentence: "Nothing looks worse on a rainy day than a walking skirt." A specialist in detecting the presence of a sense of humour says that the point of this is so deftly concealed that no one.,, possessing an undeveloped sense of v humour is able to see it. and that very few women can appreciate it. It is gratifying to be offered an in fallible proof by which we may dis cover whether we belong to the large, comfortable average or to the un comfortable, cranky oddities who can do one or two things surpassingly well by ignoringiome ties and rou tine work of all kinds. Any kind reader of these pages who sees the fun in the rainy day joke is invited to write this department. I shall be very glad to publish a key to this joke. To be sure It can then no long er be used as a test in assaying a sense of humour, but the genius who invented this one might be driven by the necessities of the case to invent another. As soon as the interpreta tions are received they will be print ed and it is sincerely hoped that among them will be some which are the work of woman's unassisted intellect.