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THE STATE
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liked him, he will feel the penalty quite as hard to bear as a death sentence.[1] A free community requires not only legal freedom, but a tolerant public opinion, an absence of that instinctive inquisition into our neighbors' affairs which, under the guise of upholding a high moral standard, enables good people to indulge
- ↑ Some very strong remarks on the conduct of the "white feather" women were made by Mr. Reginald Kemp, the Deputy Coroner for West Middlesex, at an inquest at Ealing on Saturday on Richard Charles Roberts, aged thirty-four, a taxicab driver, of Shepherd's Bush, who committed suicide in consequence of worry caused by his rejection from the Army and the taunts of women and other amateur recruiters. It was stated that he tried to join the Army in October, but was rejected on account of a weak heart. That alone, said his widow, had depressed him, and he had been worried because he thought he would lose his license owing to the state of his heart. He had also been troubled by the dangerous illness of a child. A soldier relative said that the deceased's life had been made "a perfect misery" by women who taunted him and called him a coward because he did not join the Army. A few days ago two women in Maida Vale insulted him "something shocking." The Coroner, speaking with some warmth, said the conduct of such women was abominable. It was scandalous that women who knew nothing of individual circumstances should be allowed to go about making unbearable the lives of men who had tried to do their duty. It was a pity they had nothing better to do. Here was a man who perhaps had been driven to death by a pack of silly women. He hoped something would soon be done to put a stop to such conduct (Daily News, July 26, 1915).
