976 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 15 



store. He lay awake with a loaded gun, 

 saw the man come in with a dark-lantern, 

 and then deliberately shot him dead. Then 

 he found out that it was a poor neighbor of 

 his. If I am correctly informed, this man 

 never found such happiness in life after 

 that, although the law exonerated him. 



There is another phase of this matter still 

 more serious. Friend Abbott, in the Mod- 

 ern Farmer, comments on it as follows: 



LET THIS AWFUL TRAGEDY TEACH FATHERS AND 

 MOTHERS A WHOLESOME LESSON. 



Justice is sometimes swift and awful in the way it is 

 administered, and there are times when men can make 

 of themselves judge, jury, prosecutor, and executor in 

 one, and still have the respect and approbation of the 

 law-abiding citizens of the land. Such a case occurred 

 in St. Joseph last month, when a married man commit- 

 ted a vile crime against the thirteen-year-old daughter 

 of a farmer who lived about two miles east of the city. 

 The man took the girl out for a buggy-ride, came back 

 with her after dark, and then took her to the laundry- 

 building where he and she worked, and spent the night 

 there. When the father learned from the daughter 

 what had happened, he came to the city, purchased a 

 first-class revolver, went to the laundry, made sure he 

 had the right man, and emptied the contents of his 

 gun into the body of the offender, who died at once. He 

 then went out and gave himself up to the officers of the 

 law, calm and cool, making no attempt to cover up any 

 thing he had done. He is now out on bail, some of our 

 best citizens being on his bond, and plenty of others 

 were just as anxious as these to do the same thing. 

 What will be the final outcome of the affair we are not 

 able to say at this time, neither are we fully prepared 

 to say that he was fully justified in doing what he did. 

 Suffice it to say at this point that the sympathy of 

 almost the entire community is with the man who did 

 the shooting, and there are probably very few fathers 

 who under similar circumstances would not do the same 

 thing he did; but there is another side to this affair 

 about which very little has been said. This is our 

 excuse and reason for mentioning the subject here. 

 There is a side which should lie very close to the heart 

 of every father and mother in this and all other commu- 

 nities—a side on which this father and every other 

 father should ponder with prayerful seriousness, and 

 see if he is entirely blameless. This father is strong 

 and healthy, has a wife and three children, two of them 

 being younger than the one mentioned above, has a 

 small farm of rich productive land near a thrifty city, is 

 possessed of other property, and is no doubt able to 

 make a fairly good living for himself and family. We 

 have no disposition to find fault or be a discordant note 

 in this song of universal sympathy, but we want to 

 introduce the other side by asking a few simple, plain, 

 but pointed questions. Why should a thirteen-year-old 

 girl from such a home come to St Joseph to work in a 

 laundry? Why was she not at home with her parents, 

 or attending school? What were her father and mother 

 thinking about when they let Kfer go out from under 

 their watchful care to be exposed to the endless chain 

 of temptations which run rampant in every large city 

 of the land ? What did they expect in return for taking 

 these awful chances? Only a mere pittance, not enough 

 to hoard the girl in a respectable boarding-house, if she 

 had been compelled to board instead of finding a home 

 with her aunt. It is all right and proper for the chil- 

 dren to be taught early in life to do their part toward 

 keeping up the home, but they should learn this lesson 

 at home, and not among strangers. We can not refrain 

 from saying to fathers and mothers who have pleasant 

 homes in the country, keep your girls at home if possi- 

 ble, and it is possible in most homes, until they have 

 reached mature life. Give them a chance to do for 

 themselves at home, and teach them to feel a sense of 

 security and contentment there which they can not find 

 in any other place, and then such a blight and sorrow 

 as this will never overtake them or you. It seemed like 

 putting it very strong, but a gentleman in Kansas City, 

 who evidently felt deeply on the subject, said to the 

 writer, " What right have parents to bring children 

 into the world, and then at the tender age of thirteen 

 turn them loose to be exposed to such awful tempta- 

 tions? Why," said he, "do they not keep them at 

 home ? I would work my finger-nails off before I would 

 let a child of mine at that age go out to work in a laun- 

 dry." I could not answer his question or meet his argu- 

 ment. 



I wish to give a hearty amen to what 

 friend Abbott has said, and then I want to 

 add a little. 



First, it is a good thing for a whole com- 

 munity to boil with righteous indignation 

 when one who calls himself a man, and a 

 married man at that, deliberately sets to 

 work as in the above case to ruin a child. I 

 admire the spirit that arouses a whole popu- 

 lace; but I deplore the lack of wisdom that 

 directs any one person or a community to 

 take the law into their own hands. This in- 

 dignation should turn in the direction of en- 

 forcing the laws we have already, or to giv- 

 ing us laws that are still more severe. 



Our older readers are pretty well posted 

 in regard to the law regulating the " age of 

 consent." But it is different in different 

 States. It seems to me this is very unfor- 

 tunate. I have not the tables at hand; but 

 if my memory serves me right this age of 

 consent of a girl runs all the way from 12 

 to 18 years of age. There is one State, and 

 perhaps more, in the South that fixes the 

 age of consent at 12. In other words, a 

 girl who is over 12 years of age, and listens 

 to some fiend in human form, has no redress 

 by law, the State where she lives deciding 

 that she is "old enough to know better." 

 If I am correct, Missouri places the age of 

 consent at 14. In that case the above-men- 

 tioned crime would come under this law, 

 but I do not know just what the penalty is. 

 Now, let these indignant people get to work 

 and raise the age of consent, and then make 

 the punishment the same as for murder if 

 they think proper, especially where the child 

 is so very young. It may be true that such a 

 man is not fit to live; but for God's sake let 

 the State in which he lives put him to death. 



In our own State of Ohio, if I am correct, 

 the age of consent is 16 years. In one of 

 our States it is 18. One objection has been 

 made to making it 18 all around; and that 

 is, it would give vicious women below the 

 age of 18 a chance to blackmail, etc If 

 this is true, there are two things to be done. 

 One is to insist on having better environ- 

 ments and a better education to give all of 

 our girls under 18. The other is to warn 

 mankind, old and young. Let them know 

 it is dangrerous business to trifle with girls 

 under the age of 18. 



There are some queer ideas prevalent in 

 regard to what is the proper thing to do 

 under such circumstances. Many professors 

 of religion— indeed, I do not know but I may 

 say ministers of the gospel— are so thought- 

 less as to say that the man was justified in 

 the case friend Abbott gives, and some go 

 even further, and say he did just right. 

 The father was in a terrible passion ; in fact, 

 we could hardly excuse him Jfor being other- 

 wise; but he should have called on his 

 friends to advise him. No one should think 

 of acting in such a matter when he is in 

 such a rage; and under no circumstances 

 should one think of taking life when he is 

 in a frenzy. Even in the matter of self- 

 protection it is dangerous business. Every 

 little while the papers tell us of somebody 



