The National Tribune

TROUBLE IN VIRGINIA CR.

While homicide is never defensible, the verdict of the Virginia jury in the Strother case will meet with general satisfaction even by the most law-abiding. Bywaters, a young man of good family, and an intimate with the Strother family, betrayed and shamefully used Miss Strother, a young daughter of an excellent family. Her brothers compelled him to marry her but on the wedding night, while the young bride's arms were about his neck, Bywaters broke away and tried to escape from the house, pretending that he had to see his mother and tell her of the marriage. His object undoubtedly was to take advantage of the technicality in the Virginia law to the effect that unless a husband remains with his wife for 24 hours after the ceremony the marriage is null.

The Strother boys were quite as well aware of this technicality as Bywaters, and they warned him that if he left the house they would kill him. They did so. The whole history is intensely pathetic and stands out in strong distinction from the Thaw case. Miss Strother was a young woman of pure life and, with the exception of her relations with Bywaters, without reproach. She wanted to be a good, true woman, and would have made Bywaters a faithful, loving wife. Bywaters on the other hand, was a miscreant with much of young Thaw's disposition in him, and absolutely regardless of the ruin of a life which he had caused.

The Strothers are relatives of Col. Strother, of the staff of Banks and other Generals during the civil war. He was one of the loyal Virginians and was very popular with the older generation from his bright, graceful writings and also his charming pen sketches of people and things. His pseudonym was "Porte Crayon."