Anonymous - Raped on the Railway

She went quickly to her bed-room, and as rapidly as she could, smoothed her hair, and did away with all traces of the struggle in which she had participated. Then snatching a coverlet from the bed, she went down to the drawing-room, and threw it over his legs, thus hiding the wounded member.

She then called one of the servants and sent her for a doctor who lived close by. The doctor was an old friend of hers, and when he came, she met him in the hall, and in a few words explained what had occurred.

He examined Mr. Sinclair, and said he must be removed to the hospital at once, and calling his coachman they half led him, half carried him downstairs and placed him in the doctor's brougham.

At the hospital, they were unable to do anything for him except give injections of morphia to allay the intolerable pain. Several operations were tried by the Glasgow surgeons, who have the reputation of being amongst the cleverest in the world, but nothing was of any use, symptoms of gangrene soon manifested themselves, and in less than a week “holy Mr. Sinclair” was dead.

In England, a false regard for Mother Grundy hushes them up, but we know of many cases which are highly instructive. For instance, the Le Bien Public (May 22, 1878) gave the following account of a trial before the Court of Assizes (Department of Var, France):

The delicate operation that the learned Abelard was forced to suffer at the hands of Canon Fulbert is a well-known historical fact. Henri Latour, of Meones (Var) has narrowly escaped becoming the victim of a similar mutilation. This man had been acquainted for about a year with a young orphan girl, Claire Grimaud. She was a hard-working young girl. It was not long before she perceived that she was in the family way, and she informed her lover of it, who, she affirms, thereupon promised to marry her.

“But, on the 29'“ of last December, in the evening, Latour went to see Mlle Grimaud, whom he found alone, when she remarked:

“You have come at last.”

“The fact was he had been longer than usual without coming to visit her. After conversing for a few minutes they went to bed. The next morning, about eleven o'clock, Latour felt his mistress getting up; but she shortly came back, and again laid down by his side, but without entering the bed. Latour wanted to have connection with her; but he immediately experienced a violent pain and found himself deluged with blood. Nevertheless he had the strength to get up and to go to a doctor, who gave him prompt assistance.

“The medico-legal reports showed that the unfortunate man had undergone an attempt at castration, and it was for this crime that Claire Grimaud appeared on this count before the Assizes.

“After the reading of the indictment, and at the request of the prosecuting lawyer, the presiding judge ordered the case to be heard with closed doors. The public were only admitted at the judge's summing-up. The female prisoner maintained that, until the moment of her knowing Latour, her conduct had been irreproachable. She had always been faithful to him and had recently given birth to his child, a boy, while in prison. It was owing to the refusal of her lover to marry her and to recognize hey child, that, she stated: she gave way to a moment of indignation, which we may add, the poor devil of a wooer, for his part, must have found uncommonly smart.

“The jury returned a verdict of not guilty on the counts presented to them, and the Court therefore pronounced the acquittal of the accused, who was immediately set at liberty.

“It is to be hoped however, that this sentence will not encourage other young ladies to follow the example given them by the passionate, penis-hacking Southern woman.”

The fortitude displayed by some men who have received injury in their genital parts is simply amazing. Extenuating circumstances may of course, be pleaded in those cases where honest steady women or girls are set upon by force, and attempts made to mount them against their will and consent. The man has then only to thank himself for all he gets. But if a woman invites a man to visit her and then, out of revenge strikes a blow, as dastardly as unexpected, at his copulative organs, she should be birched on the bare arse in public twenty times a year, suffer excision of the clitoris and made to undergo the operation of ovariotomy. We cite a further case, showing that truth is stranger than any fiction.

“On the 1st of December. 1836, the Court of Assize had to judge one of those crimes which are so rare that but a bare mention is made of them in article 316 of the French penal code, and of which the XIIth century has transmitted to us a celebrated and lamentable example (1). But in this case it is not a man, but a young girl, who was able to conceive and to execute so atrocious a vengeance! It is not the jealousy of a rival, but the despair of an abandoned damsel, who came to resuscitate this sort of assassination forgotten by our new civilisation.

(1) Heloise and Abelard.

“Victoire Collet, of Thodure, attributed to Michel the paternity of two children to whom she had given birth, and Michel was seeking to contract other ties. After fruitless efforts to dissuade him from his purpose, Victoire, resigned to his marriage, was contented to ask for some pecuniary help. Michel, already affianced to another, and the banns about to be published, refused. Shortly afterwards he went to her place to claim some articles which she had taken possession of in order to oblige him to make her more frequent visits.

“He went there in the night of the 18th to 19th September, and the caresses of the discarded woman caused any misgivings of evil he may have harboured to vanish. Never had her reproaches been less bitter; Michel yielded. Victoire spoke of her legitimate fears of conception by reason of the already twice untimely results of their connection; and, when Michel, thinking of only sensual satisfaction, sought to press his favours home upon her, his mistress, armed with a knife, cut off his genital parts. Michel did not die from his wound within the next forty days. Victoire Collet who, at different times, had thrown out hints of her contemplated sinister vengeance, alleged in justification, that she had endeavoured to resist an attempt at rape.

“The argument presented to the Court, established pretty nearly the facts as related in the act of accusation, and revealed other intimate circumstances which made a deep impression upon the audience. The public was particularly affected when Michel being asked if he could not have taken hold of Victoire at the moment of her mutilating him, replied in a tone of the deepest emotion: Ah! sir, if I could have caught hold of her, we should not be here!.. I perhaps, but she would not!

“The prosecuting counsel maintained the indictment, not only with regard to the perpetration of the crime, but also as to its premeditation.

“M. Denantes, the defender of the accused, endeavoured to throw some interest on the case, by stigmatizing the cowardly abandonment by her seducer of this hot-blooded and revengeful female; and alleged in explanation and excuse for the crime the despair of the woman betrayed, and the anguish of the abandoned mother.

“He tried to invoke the protection of the legal-proviso offered in this case by article 325 of the penal code, to outraged modesty. Notwithstanding what the prosecuting counsel had said, he still alleged modesty of Victoire, in spite of her previous relations with Michel, the possibility of the outrage, and the right to resist it.

“With jesuistic quibble relative to the qualification of the offence, he maintained that there had been no physiological castration, therefore no castration in point of law. In fact, the mutilation does not interest the parts, the amputation of which constitutes castration. The crime imputed to Victoire must therefore be considered simply as cutting and wounding.