Raped on the Railway

DUDLEY WOMAN'S EXTRAORDINARY STORY

At the Dudley Police Court, seven powerfully built and intelligent looking men, all of about 20 years of age, were charged with feloniously assaulting Sarah Adams (40), Newhall Street, Dudley.

Mr. S. defended.

Prosecutrix stated that she had lived apart from her husband for eleven months, but they had resumed cohabitation. On Saturday night, at about eleven o'clock, as she was walking from-Tipton to Dudley, on the right-hand side of the road, she saw prisoners coming down on the opposite side, singing and shouting. She met them between the Guest Hospital and the goods station. The tallest of them left his companions, saying: “Good-night, kids,” and crossing over to witness, placed his arm round her neck and observed: “You have got to come with us and dance us upon your belly.” Witness said: “For God's safe let me go home.” Her assailant however, replied: “Yes, when we've d… d well rogered you,” and dragged her across the road to his companions, who called out: “Bring her here.” He then dragged her about 150 yards down the Tipton Road, to the turnstile from which the footpath goes to Fisher's Bridge. At the turnstile, the others laid hold of her, and she was violently pulled into the field, where she was thrown down behind the hedge adjoining the main road, her clothes thrown up over her head, and her drawers literally torn off. Witness, who had repeatedly called out while being dragged down the road, now pleaded for mercy, asking them if they had mothers and sisters. The reply was: “We would do the same to them if they were here.” She continued to struggle, and one of them remarked: “If you don't shut up, we will shut you up for ever.” Feeling faint, she said: “Let me have air; I think I am dying,” but they paid no attention to her entreaties, and each, she alleged, criminally assaulted her. She also alleged that Smith put his hand into her pocket and took her purse. Hearing footsteps, she again called for help, and two men looked through a gap in the hedge and said: “It's a woman; let her go.” Only one of her assailants was then molesting her, he being on the top of her body, and executing a series of violent movements, the others being engaged investigating the contents of her purse. The men who had come on the scene assisted her into the road, and conducted her as far as the railway station. Here they met a police officer, to whom she made a complaint, and to whom the two men who had befriended her gave their names. The men who had maltreated her followed them up the road, using foul and threatening language; but directly they saw the policeman they ran away.

Replying to Mr. Ward, witness said she had been visiting a Mr. and Mrs. P. at Tipton, but refused to give their address. She admitted having been in more than one public-house in Tipton before she met her friends.

A man named Job Langford said he and a companion heard a commotion in a field near the Guest Hospital, and on looking through the hedge saw prosecutrix sitting, on the grass with a number of young men round her and her clothes tucked up in a most indecent way. She took his companion's arm, but neither in the field nor on the way to the railway station did she make any complaint of having been cohabited with against her consent.

The magistrates said no jury would convict on such evidence, and dismissed the charges.

It is not our intention here to go further into the law of this highly interesting subject. If any of our readers wish to do that, we would recommend them to read up the various textbooks, and particularly “Untrodden Fields of Anthropology,” (Paris, 1898, 2 vols of 520 amp; 380 pages respectively). In this work he will find the whole subject handled in a most edifying manner, and, there is no doubt that he will become very interested.

Cases are given of a “White Woman violated by a Negro;” the “Trick of a Negro to get a White Woman;” and also, an “Account of the Little White Girl who was Deflowered by a Negro.

From the anthropological standpoint, there are cases of “Arab Criminal Assaults and Rapes;” “Rapes amongst Creoles and Negroes;” “Cases of Women who have Raped little Boys;” and other matters which we believe are not generally known.

For the erotic and eulogistic side of the subject, we can recommend the student to consult several, works described in “Bibliotheca Arcana,” (1 vol. of 65 pages, Paris, 1898), where he will probably find all he may desire to know.

Now and again cases of rape on girls and women occur in railway trains.

Most people now living, who have passed life's meridian, will recall the famous case of Colonel Baker and the Fascinating, Finely-made, Talkative, Coaxing, Venturesome, Frightened, Inquisitive, Warm-blooded, Voluptuous, Cock-teasing, Young lady, whom, it is reported, he attempted to ravish. The gallant Colonel, no doubt liked, what is called, “a bit of skirt,” or in other words, was, an ardent woman-hunter, and took his pleasure wherever he could find it. But many men, who knew Baker intimately, did not believe in his guilt. There are many girls, especially those of a fashionable, know-all kind, whom a little healthy slapping on their lovely, plump buttocks, would do infinite good; who delight in working a man up to a pitch of erotic paroxysm, and when he draws his sword to strike, shrink back in terror at the sight of the gleaming blade. Be all this as it may, we are happy to record that other cases have come before the Courts, where the woman was a willing, consenting, and most delighted victim.

But the two actors have nevertheless been held up before the Law to answer a charge of “public Immorality.”

In a curious little pamphlet printed on very thin paper, we remember to have read “a most scandalous case” which took place in a Railway carriage between a strongly-built Jesuit Priest, and a live, lovely, fornication-loving, pretty little Viscountess.

The persons implicated were the Rev. Father J. Dufour d'Astafford, boasting the vigorous age of 44 years, and living in the seaport-town of Brest, and Louise-Marie-Gabrielle Carpentier, widow of the Viscount of Valmont, who had arrived at the charming and tantalizing age of 22 years. This coition-loving little lady was described in the charge sheet as “small, of lively manner, displaying in her physiognomy a great freshness of colour and, besides her youth, a certain diabolical beauty”. The worthy Jesuit was her spiritual director.

On the 11th of July 1872, on his return from Quimperle, where he had been preaching, he met Mme de Valmont at Chateaulin, where they took the train together for Brest. Familiarities in their conduct being observed at the station, the guard of the train, Kergroen, was directed by the station-master to keep an eye upon them. This he did; and passing along the train whilst it was in motion, he surprised them in the following equivocal positions. I quote Kergroen's deposition.

I recognised the priest; he was on the left in a corner and the lady was in front of him, in the opposite corner. The lady had taken off her hat, the shade had been drawn over the lamp. The priest had his legs stretched out on the seat in front of the lady. When, later, I passed again before the carriage, the positions were changed, the lady holding the priest round the neck and kissing him. The priest no longer had his legs stretched out, the lady was seated on his knees, and was kissing him continually, whilst he was holding her round the waist.”

It seemed to me that it was time to interfere, and, I therefore entered the carriage, and told them they should not behave like that on the railway. The lady turned quite pale, but the priest replied: “We beg to offer you our excuses, we certainly are like children; after all, it is quite permissible for a brother and sister to kiss each other.”

“Yes,” I answered, “but even between brother and sister it is hardly correct to kiss each other like that.”

Kergroen demanded the priest's card, which was refused, so he laid the matter before the station-masters of the two next stations at which the train stopped. This apparently plain statement of the case did not satisfy the president; he required more details, and the following dialogue took place:

The Judge: “You said at Quimerch and Landerneau that the lady was seated upon the knees of the priest. Before the examining magistrate, you made this statement far more grave by modifying it. You assert that she was seated astride, that is to say with her legs wide apart, and in a most improper position. These variations are of importance, with regard to the category of the offence, because in your statement you declared that you had witnessed an act of public immorality.”

The Witness: “Yes, and I maintain, that in my view there really was an act of public indecency, if a woman is seated on a clergyman's knees, and when I was obliged to warn them by tapping the naked thighs of the lady.”

The Judge: “Such an act on your part was very reprehensible, and in itself an offence against modesty. It would have been sufficient to warn them by the voice alone, and your voice is loud enough to do that.

The Witness: “I beg your pardun, the train was in motion and the evidence of the fact was more than complete when I was thus able to verify the lady's nakedness.”

In answer to questions put to him by the station-master of Landerneau and others, the Rev. Father Dufour replied in a strain worthy of his order.

After haying given his name, this gentleman stated that he had not persisted in affirming that his travelling-companion was his sister; he had simply said that he had known her for a long time, that she had rendered him certain services and that, out of gratitude, he had kissed her.

“Where is the evil?” added the priest, “If we had been brother and sister, we could have done so. Suppose,” said he again to the Police-Inspector, “ two young married people who are travelling by rail, can they not kiss each other and even do something else? We had not done any evil. Every day people newly married allow themselves certain liberties while they are travelling; where is the wrong?”

At his trial Father Dufour excused himself in the following unmanly, hypocritical manner:

“If I have once on the railway drawn the curtain over the lamp, — which I do not believe I did, — it would be only because I am a great sleeper when travelling on the line.

“I was wrong to stretch myself out upon the seat, although in travelling, one is permitted to enjoy this license. Madame de Valmont, seated at first at the other end of the compartment, drew nearer to me, because the noise of the train prevented us from hearing each other. She thanked me for having stopped for her at Chateaulin; and in the expression of her gratitude, she approached her head near to my breast to such an extent, that her face may have touched my chin.

The case was tried on the 4th and judgment given on September 10th 1872. The Judge, a liberal broad-minded Man of the World, evidently considered that, law or no law, a dainty lady with burning thighs, and separated momentarily from her husband, might very well be allowed to give refuge to the flaming priapus of a vigorous celibate priest. It must also be born in mind that the Messalinie tendencies of many a high-born voluptuous lady are satisfied by the kind priests, who think that while working for God, they may also do a little on their own account.

Again, many a lady of high society is wedded to an old and impotent husband who is not able to do more than tickle and tease, or rub and poke them about, until they succeed in rousing the woman's passionate Nature to an extent they are themselves unable to cope with it. In such cases, if the lady does not take the footman or a strong-backed coachman or some lecherous friend of her husband, she has recourse to her spiritual adviser.

Think of the consequences, if this lady were to take some man in the street. She would be liable to catch some hideous disease or, apart from that, be subject perhaps to blackmail by her Paramour, whose honesty might prove to be less strong than his tool.

We are happy to record that the Priest and the Viscountess were acquitted, and we can only hope that this skirt-loving priest, threw his to the winds, and married the charming little lady whose white thighs had been made a public spectacle for the sake of his love.

Other men, before now, have honourably espoused women they have been the cause of bringing into public shame. Some scoundrels, we know, have deserted the sweetheart whom they had gotten with child, or abandoned the woman who has been divorced for having yielded herself to her lover's lust. But this does not prove they were right. Of course, we do not say that a man is bound to marry every woman he gets down upon her back, but there are cases where he is obliged and in duty bound to do so. The following instance, recorded by some unknown Byron, illustrates our point: