The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1865-03-10

was driven to the slopshop, making her mis-
erable pittance by sewing. One Saturday she
took her work to her employer and asked for
her pay. He looked at it, and tearing it apart
and flinging it back to her, told her to do it
over again. She carried it back and the next
week bringing it home, received no pay, but
was told to carry 1t back again and so for five
weeks she received no money. She had sold
or pawned every thing she had for bread, that
she could live and have little fire, beside
which she might work, and she stood before
her employer with clasped hands and tears
trickling over her face begging for the money
she had rightfully earned, and it was still
withheld from her, and "You are beautiful
and young, and need not labor for such q
price as this, you might get plenty of money
If you would" She did, mother, what your
daughter would have done; she left the store
indignant and outraged, and wandered up and
down that city hour after hour, and went up
one street and down another, into store after
store, pleading for work, and some kind
hearted people said to her, 1--WE would give
you work, but we have five hundred such ap-
plications every day; or, perchance, they
would ask from her certificate from her last
employer, and she had none to show others
turned away carelessly, and Others insulted and
outraged her as her old employer had done;
and 80, she said, at 10 o'clock that Saturday
night she found herself standing without work,
without money, in front of her old store.
There she stood, in the night, the storm, and
the cold; there she stood, the gloom gathering
about her, the wind driving the rain in gusts
into her face, and through her torn garments.
Oh she said, do not think / hesitated then.
She looked up this long street, dark with the
night and tempest, up narrow alleys and pas
sage ways up winding flights of stairs, into .
little garrct room, all poor and empty, into the
fireplace-no fire there-not stick of wood
not cent to buy any with; into the little
corner cupboard, all bare and empty, not even
crust Of bread, not q cent to buy any with. "
All, she said, don't think that heeitated then!
Don't think so meanly of me as that! But
looking into this little room, poor, starved,
wretched, miserable; looking round it into
one corner, there, she said, / saw my poor
mother, dying of hunger and cold. Oh.
what marvel, what marvel that she fell |!
And 80 she had gone on lower and lower,
step by step. I said, "You must stop this
life; you shall go with me; may be I can
you something to do. You shall stand an
honored and respected woman once more. "
No, no, she said, ''don't try it; you need
not talk to me SOL have tried it again and
again, and am always discovered and driven
back. You need not try to help me. There is
no hope, there is no help for such woman as
l; and then turning and looking at me-O
men! o women! careless and Indifferent; oh
that you could have seen the girls face, and
could have heard her say: you are young,
you are Handsomely dressed, may be you have
wealth. may be you have position, may be in
huence-Oh, beg you, pray you, to use
them all to save other young girls. They are
coming into this life, live it as live it, suffer-
ing 1t as suffer it. dying in it as shall some
day die" And so promised her, and to keep
that promise come and put the matter before
you tonight.
The speaker said: That girls history had an
ending. One Christmas eve not long ago, in
one OF our elegant streets, in front Of beau
tiful palatial dwelling, blazing with light
from the garret to the basement, stood this
girl
with amazement-
Houseless by night"
And the officer that testified afterwards said
that looking in at those beautiful windows.
into this rare and elegant room, there stood
the young man who had been her employer,
with young girl resting her hand in his,
promising to love and honor him for life; and
it is said that up and down, up and down wan
dered this poor wait, this miserable outcast
still; and when the Christmas morning sun
rose and streamed up the street, there she rest
ed dead and at peace. And the day thereafter
this girl-daughter of clergyman-gently
and tenderly reared with a mother who had
loved her-this poor girl was carried out and
buried in the potter's field, with four miserable
abandoned women following her as her only
mOurners.
Oh, poor, tired, wronged, outraged, soul (!
thou must have found the justice of God more
infinitely tender than the mercies of men
And so, / ask you, father and mother, with
daughters at home; ask you, young man,
with generous heart, loving sister; ask you
young girl, remembering the thousands of
other young girls, whose innocence and purity
and womanhood are as dear to them as yours
to you; :! ask you all, simply and only, to carry
a lesson home with you tonight, to think of
1t as it deserves; not carelessly, not indiffer-
entity, but with the weight of those lost souls
pressing upon me, I make this last plea, put
this last query, offer this last prayer in their
behalf, putting it to you, and I ask you to de.
eide, as it should be decided, for them. for
yourselves, for the world, with the dear Lord
you will give for these, His poor lost little
ones.