The Chaplain and the Murderess
A former Baptist preacher has dedicated his savings and his time to the legal defense of Ursula Juanita Unfug, the woman accused of killing Thomas Henderson Boyd.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Ursula Juanita Unfug has found a friend in need, who is prepared to help her, not only with sympathy and spiritual counsel, but with money to employ lawyers for her defense. This friend is Rev. William Cairns, who was formerly a Baptist preacher and still acts in that capacity occasionally. When the woman who claims the name of Thomas Henderson Boyd was taken to the county jail after slaying him, her physician called Mr. Cairns in to administer to her spiritual wants. As he heard the story of her life from her own lips he became convinced that she was a deeply wronged woman and began to interest himself in her temporal as well as her spiritual welfare. He has already spent over $2,000 in providing for her defense and for her comfort. Mr. Cairns visited her frequently, and when a reporter called to see Mrs. Boyd, he found her engaged in conversation with the chaplain. Mr. Cairns gave vent to a fierce denunciation of those who had tried, convicted and hanged the woman in the court of public opinion before she had ever been brought before a jury. He claimed that she had been leading a pure life for the last two years and that the stories of her life were false. Mr. Cairns exclaimed, 'Though she was a prostitute before that time, is a female prostitute any worse than a male? I can find 500 men in this city who are consorting with other women than their wives. Yet nobody says a word against them.' Mrs. Boyd declined to talk of her plans for the future in case she was acquitted, but it is rumored that she intends to become a missionary.
“Though she was a prostitute before that time, is a female prostitute any worse than a male? I can find 500 men in this city who are consorting with other women than their wives.”
This 1893 account reveals the stark gender double standards of the Victorian era, where a minister felt compelled to publicly defend a woman's moral character against the city's judgment. While the 'scandal' and the 'fallen woman' narrative feel dated, the chaplain's blunt call-out of the hypocrisy of his male peers remains a biting, familiar critique of civic moralizing.
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