Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 122, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 May 1911 — GIVEN RIGHT TO SPANK HIS WIFE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GIVEN RIGHT TO SPANK HIS WIFE

ST. LOUIS. —On Fourth of July, at harvest home dinners, when a new railroad is completed, or a canal is dug, or a new mayor inaugurated, florid-faced men get up and talk eloquently of the nation's great progress. “We are living in an age of marvelous deeds," they exclaim, and we truly are, for in St. Louis a jury found that a man had the right to spank his wife. Rebecca Yowell, the mother of six children, sued Jacob Yowell for a divorce, charging that he spanked her. He confessed to the crime, but claimed as a mitigating circumstance that she talked from ten one night till two the next morning, and he couldn't deep. ... Mr. Yowell did not tell the court what she talked about and the court

didn’t ask. Had there been a woman judge and jury at the trial Mrs. Yowell’s reasons for talking four hours at a stretch would have been made known. But this is sure: Those four hours were not devoted tp singing Mr. Yowell’s praise. Time files rapidly when one is hearing compliments; in no other circumstance does time fly so fast, and had Mrs. Yowell beep praising her husband there would have been no spanking. She talked four hours. That wasn’t long if she had chosen the right subject. But she ‘talked of the six children, the house, the hard work, the growing needs of a growing family, and in that particular she did wrong. For the more she talked, the angrier he grew. Had she spent those four hours in a Ipllaby of his praise he would have dropped off to a sweet sleep and handed her his pocketbook next morning. Everyman who complains that his wife talks too much makes the admission that her soliloquy isn’t a song of praise.