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In a
letter dated Feb 24, 1909 to “Friend Sweet”, Charlie Russell, in his
own unique brand of English and spelling, wrote this:
..” . No dought you will
be supprised to here from an old night hawk like me but the older I get
the more I think of the old days an the times we had before the bench
land grabed the grass there
was no law aginst smoking sigeretts then an no need of a whipping post
for wife beeters the fiew men that had wives were so scared of
loosing them they generley handeled them mighty tender.
The scarcity of females give them considerbal edg those days
I never licked no women but Im shure glad I beet these morilests
to the country its
hard to guess what they would have don to me.
Chances are Id be making hair bridles now for smoking sigeretts
or staying up after twelve oclock.
But they got here to late to hed of my fun an as I am real good
now I aint worring much.”
And in TRAILS PLOWED UNDER, by Charles M. Russell, he had this to say : "..The
man who comes home drunk and licks his wife wouldn't fight a
chickadee when he's sober. ... The man that licks his wife ain't sorry
for nobody but himself, and the only way to make him real sorry is
to beat him near to death."
Spousal
battery was apparently as prevalent in the Old West as it is today.
While employed as an Assistant County Attorney, I saw women with faces
so battered they looked like they had been through a meat grinder. Yet
within a short period of time, many of them (including women who were
financially independent) would reconcile with their batterers. How could
this be?
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