with the daughters, and
was specially attentive to the older one. The uncle disapproved of the
conduct of his nephew, and failing to control it by honorable means,
resorted to the circulation of the vilest slanders against mother and
daughters. He was a man of wealth and influence. They were almost
unknown. The mother had but recently come to the village, her object
having been to secure to her daughters the educational advantages which
the academy afforded. Poverty, as well as perhaps an excusable if not
laudable pride, compelled her to live in obscurity, and consequently the
assault upon their characters fell upon her and her daughters with
crushing force. Her employment mainly ceased, her daughters were of
necessity withdrawn from school, and all were deprived of the means,
from their own exertions, of sustaining life. Had they been in fact the
harlots which the miserly scoundrel represented them to be, they would
not have been so utterly powerless to resist his assault. The mother in
her despair naturally sought legal redress. But how was it to be
obtained? By the law the wife's rights were merged in those of the
husband. She had in law no individual existence, and consequently no
action could be brought by her to redress the grievous wrong; indeed
_according to the law she had suffered no wrong_, but the husband had
suffered all, and was entitled to all the redress. Where he was the lady
did not know; she had not heard from him for many years. Her counsel,
however, ventured to bring an action in her behalf, joining the
husband's name with hers, as the law required. When the cause came to
trial the defendant made no attempt to sustain the charges which he had
made, well knowing that they were as groundless as they were cruel; but
he introduced and proved a release of the cause of action, signed by the
husband, reciting a consideration of fifty dollars paid to him. The
defendant's counsel had some difficulty in proving the execution of the
release, and was compelled to introduce as a witness, the constable who
had been employed to find the vagabond husband and obtain his signature.
His testimony disclosed the facts that he found the husband in the
forest in one of our north-eastern counties, engaged in making shingles,
(presumably stealing timber from the public lands and converting it into
the means of indulging his habits of drunkenness,) and only five dollars
of the fifty mentioned in the release had in fact been pa