Boston, Feb. 24, 1865.
Satisfied as I was that there was no legal redress for me in the laws, and no hope in appealing to Mr. Packard’s mercy or manliness, I determined to do what I could to obtain a self-reliant position, by securing if possible the protection of greenbacks, confident that this kind of protection is better than none at all. I concluded, therefore, to publish the first installment of “The Great Drama,” an allegorical book I wrote while in the Asylum, consisting of twelve parts. But how could this be done in my penniless condition? was the great question to be practically settled. I accordingly borrowed ten dollars of Mr. Z. Hanford, of Manteno, a noble, kind hearted man, who offered me a home at his house after the trial, and went to Chicago to consult the printers in reference to the expense of printing one thousand copies of this book, and get it stereotyped. I found it would cost me five hundred dollars. I then procured a few thousand tickets on which was printed—“The bearer is entitled to the first volume of Mrs. Packard’s book, entitled the Great Drama. None are genuine without my signature. Mrs. E. P. W. Packard.” And commenced canvassing for my unborn book, by selling these tickets for fifty cents each, assuring the purchaser I would redeem the ticket in three month’s time, by giving them a book worth fifty cents. When I had sold about eight or nine hundred tickets, I went to Chicago to set my printers and stereotypers, engravers and binders, at work on my book. But I now met with a new and unlooked for difficulty, in the sudden inflation of prices in labor and material. My book could not now be printed for less than seven hundred dollars; so that my first edition would not pay for itself into two hundred dollars. As the case now was, instead of paying for my book by selling one thousand tickets, I must sell fourteen hundred, besides superintending the various workmen on the different departments of my book. Nothing daunted by this reverse, instead of raising the price of my tickets to seventy-five cents to meet this unfortunate turn in my finances, I found I must fall back upon the only sure guarantee of success, namely: patient perseverance. By the practical use of this great backbone of success, perseverance, I did finally succeed in printing my book, and paying the whole seven hundred dollars for it in three months’ time, by selling four hundred tickets in advance on another edition. I sold and printed, and then printed and sold, and so on, until I have printed and sold in all, twelve thousand books in fifteen months’ time. Included in this twelve thousand are several editions of smaller pamphlets, varying in price from five to twenty-five cents each.
At this stage of my Narrative it may not be inappropriate to narrate my interview with Mayor Sherman, of Chicago, since it not only discloses one of the dangers and the difficulties I had to encounter, in prosecuting my enterprise, but also serves as another exemplification of that marital power which is legally guaranteed to the husband, leaving the wife utterly helpless, and legally defenceless.
I called upon him at his office in the court house, and was received with respectful, manly courtesy. After introducing myself as the Mrs. Packard whose case had recently acquired so much notoriety through the Chicago press, and after briefly recapitulating the main facts of the persecution, I said to him:
“Now, Mr. Sherman, as the Mayor of this city, I appeal to you for protection, while printing my book in your city. Will you protect me here?”
“Why, Mrs. Packard, what protection do you need? What dangers do you apprehend?”
“Sir, I am a married woman, and my husband is my persecutor, therefore I have no legal protection. The husband is, you probably know, the wife’s only protector in the law, therefore, what I want now, Sir, is protection against my protector!”
“Is he in this city?”
“No, Sir; but his agents are, and he can delegate his power to them, and authorize them what to do.”