The case of this lady, which has attracted so much attention and excited
so much interest for ten days past, was decided on Monday evening last and
resulted, as almost every person thought it must, in a complete
vindication of her sanity. The jury retired on Monday evening, after
hearing the arguments of the counsel; and after a brief consultation, they
brought in a verdict that Mrs. Packard is a _sane_ woman.
Thus has resulted an investigation which Mrs. Packard has long and always
desired should be had, but which her cruel husband has ever sternly
refused her. She has always asked and earnestly pleaded for a jury trial
of her case, but her relentless persecutor has ever turned a deaf ear to
her entreaties, and flagrantly violated all the dictates of justice and
humanity.
She has suffered the alienation of friends and relatives; the shock of a
kidnapping by her husband and his posse when forcibly removed to the
Asylum; has endured three years incarceration in that Asylum--upon the
general treatment, in which there is severe comment in the State, and
which in her special case was aggravatingly unpleasant and ill-favored;
returning to her home she found her husband's saintly blood still
congealed, a winter of perpetual frown on his face, and the sad dull
monotony of "insane, insane," escaping his lips in all his communications
to and concerning her; her young family, the youngest of the four at home
being less than four years of age, these children--over whose slumbers she
had watched, and whose wailings she had hushed with all a mother's care
and tenderness--had been taught to look upon her as insane, and they were
not to respect the counsels or heed the voice of a maniac just loosed from
the Asylum, doom sealed by official certificates.
Soon her aberration of mind led her to seek some of her better clothing
carefully kept from her by her husband, which very woman-like act was
seized by him as an excuse for confining her in her room, and depriving
her of her apparel, and excluding her lady friends. Believing that he was
about to again forcibly take her to an asylum, four responsible citizens
of that village made affidavit of facts which caused the investigation as
to her sanity or insanity. During the whole of the trial she was present,
and counseled with her attorneys in the management of the case.
Notwithstanding the severe treatment she has received for nearly four
years past, the outrages she has suffered, the wrong to her nature she has
endured, she deported herself during the trial as one who is not only not
insane, but as one possessing intellectual endowments of a high order, and
an equipoise and control of mind far above the majority of human kind. Let
the sapient Dr. Brown, who gave a certificate of insanity after a short
conversation with her, and which certificate was to be used in aid of her
incarceration for life--suffer as she has suffered, endure what she has
endured, and the world would be deprived of future clinical revealings
from his gigantic mind upon the subject of the spleen, and he would, to a
still greater extent than in the past, "fail to illuminate" the public as
to the virtues and glories of the martyr who is "watching and waiting" in
Canada.
The heroic motto: "suffer and be strong," is fairly illustrated in her
case. While many would have opposed force to his force, displayed frantic
emotions of displeasure at such treatment, or sat convulsed and "maddened
with the passion of her part," she meekly submitted to the tortures of her
bigoted tormentor, trusting and believing in God's Providence the hour of
her vindication and her release from thraldom would come. And now the
fruit of her suffering and persecution have all the autumn glory of
perfection.
"One who walked
From the throne's splendor to the bloody block,
Said: 'This completes my glory' with a smile
Which still illuminates men's thoughts of her."
Feeling the accusations of his guilty conscience, seeing the meshes of the
net with which he had kept her surrounded were broken, and a storm-cloud
of indignation about to break over his head in pitiless fury, the
intolerant Packard, after encumbering their property with trust-deeds, and
despoiling her of her furniture and clothing, left the country. Let him
wander! with the mark of infamy upon his brow, through far-off States,
where distance and obscurity may diminish till the grave shall cover the
wrongs it cannot heal.
It is to be hoped Mrs. Packard will make immediate application for a
divorce, and thereby relieve herself of a repetition of the wrongs and
outrages she has suffered by him who for the past four years has only used
the marriage relation to persecute and torment her in a merciless and
unfeeling manner.