Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 October 1889 — Aid For Mrs Maybrick. [ARTICLE]

Aid For Mrs Maybrick.

More than a hundred thousand signatures have been obtained to a petition praying the home office to commute the sentence of the American, Mrs. Maybrick, the date of whose execution for the murder of her husband, the Liverpool cotton merchant, is set for the near future. The impelling motive in this general interest in the woman's behalf ’irises in the main from consideration for her sex. Mankind, Revolting more mid more against the barbarism of capital executions but not yet prepared wholly to abolish it, is unwilling that, the hangman shall do his office upon a wowan, even though she be a murdersr. On this point, too, the public mind is not fully satisfied. In any general view there is no substantial grounds for sympathy with the accused. She was guilty of infamous breach of her marital obligations without even a pretext of infatuation for a seductive paramour. A single intrigue did not satisfiy her vicious propensity. Maybrick had more ground than the Moor to complain of the “general camp, pioneers and alt.” While this conduct was gross it is not punishable by death. Though it had no lodgment in the mind of a severe court or a harsh jury the doubt that the woman was guilty of poisoning her husband obtains popularly, and this, with abhorrence of hanging, contributes to the sentiment of sympathy with a woman who is not ingIn England the course of justice is not easily diverted by popular clamor, bu t as Mrs. May brick is not a political prisoner and as the movement for executive clemency is widespread she may be saved from the gallows.—Chicago Times.