Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1858-04-08
SAD HISTORY OF A YOUNG LADY.
From the Milwaukee wisconsir

FROM the Milwaukee Wisconsin
We have some painful facts to narrate about
woman who was recently found in this city
IN most degraded and wretched condition.
simple sketch of her antecedsnts will show
how rapid is ones going downward after the
hrst step IS taken, and how mercilessly retribu-
tiOn follows after wrong doing and crime.
The woman I'm question was few years since
young lady in the seminary ot Professor Crit
tenden, in Brooklyn, N. Y. She was then a
prOtrge OF Henry Ward Beecher, lived with
his family, and was being educated by him.
OF course, she was placed under the most favor
able circumstances and had her every want
that was reasonable gratifed. She was sur
rounded by the very best of associations and
had been adopted by Mr.. Beecher, because of
her natural brightness Of disposition and intel
lect. In the school, though she was regarded
as an eccentric and wayward being, yet she
was admired by all of her companions for her
superior quality OF mind.
No young lady in Prof Crittenden's school
lone of the best in the East could write so bril-
liant and beautiful n composition M she, and
all had to yield To her In intellectual superior
ity. We have this from one who was a school
mate OF hers, that all her compositions were
gems Of thought and language, and she prom
ised To become prominent rs female writer
Now comes the first circumstance that poisoned
her happy heart.
She became a passionate admirer of one who
10 tender his hand in marriage. He was al
ready married to another. This first dsap-
pOintment Occasioned violent brain fever
which completely Frustrated her, and in the
course OF her recovery she was obliged to resort
to stimulants, by which she acquired a taste for
what has since plunged her into the depths of
degradation.
Atterward she went to Boston, and became
teacher in House of Refuge. 1t was an ad-
SantageOus station for a lady Of education and
character, and she is said to have filed it at
first with great pro mise of usefulness Soon,
however, she yielded to the appetite which she
had planted within herself when recovering
from her previous illness, and she was picked
up IN the streets of Boston one night in state
of intoXlcatiOn. FdcjiIS acsc6tdaS Arerni.
Efforts were made to redeem her, but it vas
almost Impossible to reclaim a woman once dis
graced. She soon married, and, as we have
been informed, married against the wishes of
those who had been her former friends and pro-
tectOrs. From this time she links rapidly and
whether by means of an avenging Deity or
from the natural laws of cause and effect others
may decide for themselves.
Three or four years elapSe, and she came
with her husband to Chicago last wear lie
found employment there, but in the great fire
last fall his situation was lost to him. Pretty
much all winter long he remained destitute Of
work, pawning away his household goods and
clothing meanwhile and when spring came
they determined to come to Milwaukee. They
had one child, and on their way here that was
taken away from them at Kenosha. Their
poverty had now become lamentable indeed
but undoubtedly their situation might have
been much better but or the accursed article
of rum, to which they had both now become
addicted. Having buried their child at Keno
sha, they came on here and hired "A miserable
room In the Third Ward of this city. few
days passed and the wretched woman whose
Va have hRen skptehipU forcad
go out aud beg from door to door. In the
course OF her aIms-seeking she chanced upon
one who had been her schoOlmate in Brooklyn,
and upon another who had known her in Bos-
ton Fearing the worst, but still ignorant of
what n wretched creature she b ad become they
went to her room where she and her husband
were almost freezing and starving. She con-
fessed to them that she had had nothing to eat
for three long days, and on their rickety old
bed there was but single sheet to protect
them from the cold. There was a single chair
with but three legs to it in the room, and
scarcely any other articles of furniture cum
bered the room.
These friends at once began to exert them
selves in her behalf, got others interested to
aid her and her husband, gave clothes and
food, promised them both plenty of work,
and 1t seemed now that her destiny was taking
favorable turn. The woman wept over her
poverty. manifested touching tokens of rean-
lmation, but here too, the fire was only being
smothered few days, to break out again the
first favorable opportunity. The money that
was given her to buy bread, was spent at the
rum hole and when she was next visited she
was found all demented by intoxication. From
that time she turned her back upon all friendly
Ofers Vi assistance, abandoned her first quar-.
tiers, was afterward found By the authorities in
low houses Of prostitution, and has now again
probably left the city in company with her
husband She las almost reached the lowest
round Of misery, and this once gifted young
lady, an adopted daughter of Henry Ward
Beecher, will find that peace in death
which she had been unable to find in the cup
and in the corruption of licentiOusness.