Daily Circulation, 1660. The Oamaru Mail. TUESDAY, AUGUST 13, 1895.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XX, Issue 6332, 13 August 1895, Page 2

Daily Circulation, 1660. The Oamaru Mail. TUESDAY, AUGUST 13, 1895.

The Winton episode culminated yesterday when the bolt was drawn which sent Minnie Dean into eternity. All curiosity, doubt, and hope were similarly cut short. It was a melancholy occasion. There is something awfully pathetic in the cool despatch in such a manner of even the most hardened criminal; but when the victim is a woman the pathos is immeasurably enhanced. It has been urged that womankind cannot expect a continuance of that profound respect which men naturally feel for them because their mothers were or are women, now that they are mixing with men in the political arena. Is this the price women are to pay for taking the only steps which could effectually secure for their sex social rights that have too long and unreasonably and selfishly been denied them, and the granting of which would be productive of great physical as well as social blessings ? But what has this to do with the hanging of Minnie Dean ? will be asked. Minnie Dean, we reply, was the victim of a system of immorality to condemn which is considered to be a sign of effeminacy. She was one of the necessary adjuncts of a state of things which results in bringing into the world children who have no really responsible parents, and who are, therefore, too often looked upon as nuisances. These unwelcome little creatures —as much human beings as any of us, and possessing the same attributes and senses are waifs tossed upon the social sea, no matter whither, till mahap they find a haven in the lap of such a she demon as Minnie Dean. Are women to be viewed as unsexing themselves because they seek to efface this moral stain—the cause of innumerable crimes—from our social life by making men to feel that they must accept all the .responsibilities of their deeds and share the disgrace ? Where are the fathers and mothers of the children who were despatched by Minnie Dean? Did they make arrangements with Minnie Dean by which their offspring were to be put quietly out of the way, or did they hand them over to her tender mercies careless of what might become of them, and with a tacit understanding that they hoped never to see them again ? We fear that the worst construction must be put upon the intentions and. motives of those who trusted their children to this strange woman, and that some at least of them are as guilty of murder as was the wretched creature who was put out of the way yesterday. Then, so far as Minnie Dean's offence is concerned, the root of it is to be found in the evil which led to the unhappy birth of her unwelcome

victims; and the noble-minded women who have left their domestic hearths to fight in the political arena f ot laws which would tend to lessen this evil or which would, at least, make parents duly responsible for their chance off. spring, are doing more to abolish the crime for which Minnie Dean suffered the extreme penalty than can possibly D(! accomplished by the shocking and brutal legalised murder of a murderer. It is cne law of the land that we should put out 0 f the way those who take life by taking their lives; but this law is a barbarous relic of days when a fond mother, having taken from a shop bread to feed her starving babes ffa s hurried off to Tyburn and there choked by a rope. The execution of a woman fc therefore not without a precedent, though Minnie Dean was the first victim of the Christian plan of State murder in New Zealand. Let those who feel any symptoms of horror at Minnie Dean's dreadful crime, think a little deeper and tell us what they think of the worse than murder of those who supply such women with the victims of that other lust, the lust of gain, or of an incomprehensible and a morbid brutality. Those who argu e that murderers must be put out of the way because of the expense of maintain. ing them convict themselves of the crime of valuing money more than human lif e , If human life should not be taken, no monetary consideration, or any other consideration, warrants tho taking of it. By law and custom hanging has been prescribed for the critrio of murder, and if ever tho carry, ing out of the extreme penalty was justified, it was justified in tho case of Minnie Dean. But it behovea ug all to do our utmost to abolish that other crime which led to hers. This is a more pressing duty than hanging the handmaidens of such criminal folly. Let Minnie Dean's judges search their own lives and ask themselves whether or not they have ever contributed, indirectly or by example, or by lack of it, to her horrid crime. Let our Legislative Councillors ask thenfselves whether they have not cruelly checked the moral aspirations of the community by again reducing the age of consent to 15, and thus leading to the creation of subjects for the homicide's operations. Bad as Minnie Dean was, there are many contributors to tho crime she committed whose villainy is none the less abhorent because it does not come within the law's clutches, or because it may be sanctified by wealth and position,