THE FREE LOVE MOVEMENT IN NEW YORK.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 148, 30 March 1872, Page 3

THE FREE LOVE MOVEMENT IN NEW YORK.

The New York correspondent of the Scotsman writes: —

It was only a day before the people of New York belied their own teachings that no less than four thousand persons crowded the great Steinway Hall in Fourteenth street, and took the liveliest interest in the lecture of Mrs Victoria C. Woodhull, who, in the course of her remarks on “Free Love,” attacked in the vilest manner possible, the institution of marriage, declared all those marital unions where love did not exist to be legalised prostitution, and finally appealed to the audience whether love did not stand above law. She held all children born from such unions up to ridicule, and described them as decrepit and weakminded. This brought a storm of hisses, which was, however, soon drowned by the applause of those who approved Mrs Woodhull’s sentiments, aud who were really in the majority. Thus encouraged, she cried out —“ Yes! lam a free lover? I believe I have an inalienable right to change my husband every day if I like. I trust I am understood, for I mean what I say and nothing else. I claim that freedom means to be free.” This pleased the audience amazingly, and lecturer and hearers were now of one accord —the little band of Conservatives in the hall being well aware that any further demonstration on their part would only result in a riot. The lecturer proceeded by declaring that illegitimate children generally turned out to be the noblest men in the world, and said that the late Admiral Farragut and Senator Fessenden were both illegitimate, and no other two men had received greater plaudits from their countrymen for the services rendered to the Republic. This somewhat stunned the audience, but they swallowed it, and listened attentively to the end of the lady’s discourse. On the next day, some of the New York journals called upon the police to arrest this Mrs Woodhull, owing to the nefarious doctrines she preached ; but ridicule w‘as the only answer to such demands, for the authorities themselves well kuew that, had there been a larger hall engaged by Mrs Woodhull, it would also have been filled, and more than filled, by the men and women, young and old, of New York.