Fair Play from Valley Falls, Kansas • 6

116 FAIR FLAY. Vol. II. for seven years in a penitentiary at hard labor. Ibsen escaped punishment by a shrewd action of the manager of the paper, who, as the police entered, cast a quantity of Ibsen's incendiary documents on the floor and pretended to be busily secreting some innocent papers in a corner.

The police were thrown off the scent, and failed to examine the papers on the floor. Thus Ibsen's complicity escaped observation, but Thrane and Abildgaard were imprisoned, on general principles as well-known advocates of political progress and the rights of labor. After his release from prison, Thrane sought American soil and has breathed the air of freedom in peace. The work he did in Norway has borne fruit and to-day such utterances a those for which he was imprisoned are free as breathing. After coming to America, he for a time published Nye Tid New Era) at Chicago.

The news of Marcus Thrane's death sped eastward over the wires to-day, and, ere this, the ocean cable has borne it to the scenes of his early struggles. The following document was found among the papers of the deceased MY LAST REQUEST. 1. I wish to be buried without ministerial service and without religious ceremonies. No-funeral sermon must be delivered either at the house or at the grave.

2. Only outspoken Freethinkers can follow me to the grave. 3. My coffin shall be of the plainest and cheapest kind. 4.

Inasmuch as many of my friends have assured me that after my deat a large and mag-nificent monument will be erected to my memory, and inasmuch as monuments have been erected for many more unworthy than myself, so to prevent such honors post festum, I here-by declare it my most decided wish that no such monument in memory of me shall be erected after my death. A very plain iron slab, upon which my name, date of birth and death are inscribed, is to be placed at my grave. The above is to be published in Scandinaven and Budstikken. Marcus Moeller Thrane. Born Oct.

14, 1817, Died IS IT A CRIME TO CRITICISE SUCH CRIMES AS THIS "Coast Seamen's Journal," San Francisco, Cal. On Wednesday last one of the most disgraceful scenes and wo have seen many it has been our misfortune to witness occurred in the court over which Judge Lawler presides. We refer to the Judge ordering his officers to tear from its mother's breast a little tot of a boy and give it to some strangers. It seems that the heart-broken mother had been compelled by her husband to sign a document handing over the child for adoption to these people. The poor woman, who is encientc, fought desperately for the control of her child, while her inhuman husband endeavored to help give it to those who had adopted it.

Is there anything in the annals of San Francisco court records that can equal this brutal proceeding? -x But we also blame the Judge for allowing cr making such a ruling as he did in this pitiful case. Had he not common sense enough to know that a man and woman who could tear from a mother's breast her child are not the ones that should have control of it People of their blunted feelings should never have the slightest consideration. We speak about our Christianity and Christianizing the Chinese, Negroes and such people, but the proceedings in one of our courts last Wednesday shows that are badly in need of Christianizing ourselves. No judge has any right to order a mother to give away her child. If it is law then it is too bad a one to have on our statute book.

Wipe it out. The woman suffered for her child, and suffered as only women can why should she be robbed of her children? Such law as Judge Lawler delivered in this case last Wednesday may be suitable for Russian-Siberia but it will not do for the United States of North America. "VARIOUS "VOICES. AN UNSPEAKABLE OUTRAGE." I ivas overjoyed at the way things shaped themselves for you at the trial, but to think of the iniquity of your being tormented in "mind, body and estate all this time makes one feel the next thing to furious. Just as I am sending away my letter the latest Fair Play has come.

Its news of Mr Harman makes me ill no words of mine can do justice to such an unspeakable outrage. J.P. WITH AN EYE SINGLE TO LIBERTY. Dear Brother Walker Inclosed I send you P. O.

order for five dollars, to aid Mr. Harman. It makes the heart bleed to see that man can be so corrupt as to persecute his fellow I know not what Mr. Harman sent through the mail, neither do I care. AU the right that any one had to interfere, was for Post Office servants to see that the postage was paid.

The mails ought to be free from all espionage, and men like Mr. Comstock ought to be in the penitentiary or lunatic asylum. With best wish to yourself and Lillian I am, fraternally yours Clinton, Iowa. James A. Greenhill.

NOTHING BUT A HOAX. "American Sentinel," New York. The eight-hour movement is just now attracting considerable attention but here is a bit of attention that it does not yet seem to have attracted One of the great objects proposed to be accomplished by it is to furnish employment to those who now have no work. That is to say, there is such a vast number unemployed that the work-day must be shortened, thus making it necessary to employ more men to do the work there is to do, and so secure work for the army of the unemployed. But here are the American Sabbath Union and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union carrying on a campaign to secure laws "to prevent people from being forced to labor." If now there is such an immense number of people who have no work and if it is necessary to make such an effort as is the eight-hour movement to give them work then how can it be that so many are being forced to labor as to make it necessary to enact laws to prevent it and how can it be that there is such an Egyptian bondage of enslaved toil as the Sunday-law advocates so lamentingly describe In the proposed efforts in behalf of the workingman, these two movements do not fit together at all.

And the reason is that one of them the Sunday-law effort is a fraud. It is true they claim that those are "forced to labor only on Sunday. But, in view of the vast army of the unemployed, is it not true that there are a multitude of men who would be only too glad to have the opportunity to work on Sunday for proper wages The fact is, that poor plea in behalf of forced labor on Sunday has not solitary item of merit to support it. It is nothing but a sheer hoax. A MONSTER WRONG." Ironclad Age," Indianapolis, Ind.

Moses Harman is thoroughly impressed with the magnitude of a monster wrong existing in organized society -the slavery of woman in her sex relations in the married state. This degrading and oppressive slavery is real, not imaginative. It is sanctioned by God, by his book, by priestcraft and fcy custom. It is of such a nature that tyranny and brutality may in many cases revel unrestrained and with impunity upon the spoils of helpless beauty and timidity. NO GODS NEED APPLY.

The Christian religion is the religion of believe or be damned. No self-respecting man or woman could subscribe to such a religion. I do not believe in a religion that has a crown and harp at one end and a lake of fire at the other. I do not believe in a theology that has a kind god's goodness handicapped by the wickedness of a devil. I could accept God without the Old Testament and the devil, but without the devil there could be no Christian religion Christianity is based more upon the idea of a devil than a god.

Without a god a motive would still be left in the Christian religion take away the devil and Christianity would go. Hell, not heaven, is the prime motive in religion. Not to get into heaven, but. to keep out of hell, is the main object of the Christians. Religion is a good thing.

I prefer mine in original packages, however. There is no theological Anarchy. Nq god or god-like person need apply for fellowship, among the Anarchist fraternity. We are against all theology. The religion that Anarchists believe in is the religion of humanity.

That religion has no hell of fire and it needs none. Rhomc, Texas. Ross WlNN. AN EQUIVALENCE OF EXCHANGES. Friend Walker In commenting upon the article by W.

G. Scott, in No. 70, you say "If Mr. Scott, Mr. Wood, and others can show us how to establish an equivalence of exchanges between the various classes of producers they will have solved the greatest problem of the centuries." We believe we have formulated a plan that will enable those who adopt it to establish an equivalence x)f exchanges between themselves.

But whether wo shall "be enabled to show you, and others, how to establish such an equivalence depends upon whether you are receptive, and also upon what you understand by an equivalence of exchanges. To explain our plan in Fair Play would require considerable space, which we would not ask for, and will not use, unless you think it be to your interest and the interest of the readers of your paper for us to do so. Sioux City, Iowa. C. S.

Wood. "AS GREAT AN OUTRAGE AS WAS EVER COMMITTED UNDER. COVER CF LAW." Woman's Tribune," Beatrice, Neb. An exchange says that Moses Harman, publisher of Lvcifer, at Valley Falls, Kansas, has been convicted in the United States Court for sending obscene articles through the and sentenced to pay a fine of $300, and to serve five years in the State penitentiary. If this is true it is as great an outrage as ever was committed under cover of law.

The Tribune does not indorse many of the views held by Lucifer, but these extreme radical views concerning the church and the marriage relation have, as far as has come to our knowledge, always been advanced in chaste language. Mr. Harman's hobby is the right of a married woman to the control of her own person, and it was for publishing a letter that characterized an outrage committed upon a wife, in plain language, that he has been for some time under indictment, and now it seems is convicted. It did not seem possible that there was any serious intention of prosecuting Mr Harman. So the Tribune did not feel called upon to speak of this matter.

But now that this old man of blameless life, so far as shown, and always a true defender of woman, is actually under the ban of the law, we can not but express the belief that there has been a serious mistake, and that Mr. Harman has been the victim of prejudice. THE W. N. L.

U. ONCE MORE. Dear Mr. Walker The last number of Fair Play at hand. The outrageous sentence of Judge Foster has completely prostrated me.

Do we live in the Czar's dominions? Why do Liberals tamely submit to such infamous laws as that of Comstock and his accomplices? I hope still an effort will be made to rescue Mr. Harman. Can not anything be done I fel more than I can express on the subject. The letter of Voltairine de Cleyre is unsatisfactory. I hope you will come to the rescue and show her, better than I can, that I am not guilty, if I infer what may unfortunately be inferred from the name of the association, that it is based on sex exclusion." Moreover, I can not very clearly see how the major portion of it being suffragists," they have given up-the suffrage plank.

It occurs to me that a Roman Catholic, a Quaker, a Universalist, A NOTED MAN IS GONE. "Evening Free Press," Eau Claire, Wisconsin, April 30th. mJnnfrVt be auble t0 before our readers this sketch of the life of one of our customers, a Irequent purchaser of Freethought and Radical bo.oks. Eds. F.

P. Marcus Thrane, father of Dr. A. D. H.

Thrane, died this morning at the residence of his son, a stroke of paralysis being the cause of death. Marcus Thrane was a. man of no common order and of no common history. He was seventy-two years of age, and years ago he passed from active life; but forty years ago he was a power not only in Norway but by indirect influence in all Europe. He was the originator of what is known as the labor movement in Norway, and was an ardent advocate of republican institutions.

Not only have his labors and sufferings in the cause of human progress enshrined him in the Scandinavian heart, but his name stands as one of the foremost in the roster of brave men who made the intellectual history of the stirring times of '48 and the years immediately succeeding that eventful period that time of popular ferment, of awakening to new mental life and to new political aspirations. About the year 1850, Marcus Thrane and the reformer Abildgaard were the editors of a labor organ in Norway. Henrik Ibsen was a contributor to the paper, and none of the trio were in the habit of mincing their words. "Incendiary" utterances brought down the police upon the office, and the sacred-ness of monarchial institutions was "vindicated" by incarcerating Thrane and Abildgaard.