od with respect to
the interment of the convicted dead were not so strict as they are at
present, the body was restored to his friends, in order that they might
bury it when and where they wished. The crime of the unhappy man was
deep, and so was that which occasioned it. His daughter, a young and
beautiful girl, had been seduced by a gentleman in the neighborhood who
was unmarried; and that act of guilt and weakness on her part was the
first act that ever brought shame upon the family. All the terrible
passions of the father's heart leaped into action at the rain of his
child, and the disgrace which it entailed upon his name. The fury of
domestic affection stimulated his heart, and blazed in his brain even
to madness. His daughter was obliged to fly with her infant and
conceal herself from his vengeance, though the unhappy girl, until the
occurrence of that woful calamity, had been the solace and the sunshine
of his life. The guilty seducer, however, was not doomed to escape the
penalty of his crime. Morrissey--for that was the poor man's name--cared
not for law; whether it was to recompense him for the degradation of
his daughter, or to punish him for inflicting the vengeance of outraged
nature upon the author of her ruin. What compensation could satisfy his
heart for the infamy entailed upon her and him? what paltry damages from
a jury could efface her shame or restore her innocence? Then, the man
was poor, and to the poor, under such circumstances, there exists no
law, and, consequently, no redress. He strove to picture to himself his
beautiful and innocent child; but he could not bear to bring the image
of her early and guiltless life near him. The injury was irreparable,
and could only be atoned for by the blood of the destroyer. He could
have seen her borne shameless and unpolluted to the grave, with the
deep, but natural, sorrow of a father; he could have lived with her in
destitution and misery; he could have begged with her through a hard and
harsh world; he could have seen her pine in want; moan upon the bed of
sickness; nay, more, he could have seen her spirit pass, as it were,
to the God who gave it, so long as that spirit was guiltless, and her
humble name without spot or stain; yes, he could have witnessed and
borne all this, and the blessed memory of her virtues would have
consoled him in his bereavement and his sorrow. But to reflect that she
was trampled down into guilt and infamy by the foot of the lice