New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-04-26
Glass RUBIES.

In the case of woman now In the TOmDS
on charge of robbery, the reporters call at
tention to her efforts to gain her living by
honest means among which was the study of
medicine with view to practicing. Finding
these fail she was driven, we are told, by
"absolute necessity, TO her last course, that Oh
"entering different houses as chambermald
"and robbing her employers. She Is a pretty
and educated woman, and deserves the con-
"sideration of the philanthropist rather than
"the police" Which may be all true enough,
although chambermalds, in such families as
she served, are generally supposed to earn
sufficient livelihood without the neces-
sity of stealing, and even to have time
enough for the moderate pursuit OF medical
knowledge under difficulties. We have no
doubt however that this girl is fit subject
for the consideration of the philanthropist
rather than the police, and the more fit be-
cause she has beauty and education, or what
passes for both in the eyes of the vulgar.
Of all types of Indebtedness that ask for aid
in this city, the most pitiable and nearest akin
to crime is that shabby gentllity which asks
it most seldom. The beggar, clamorous at the
door of the soup-hOuse, is rather vain of her
street beggar, her rags are an indispensable
part of her capital. But to young girl like
this gentle burglar, with face which
makes her think herself the equal of
every woman who drives past her in her
carriage, with enough snattering of knowledge
to make her attempt or chatter about attempt
ing the role of wOman-doctor, with not
sense enough TO do honest work and take
honest pay for it-what misery and temptation
lie in every shabby garment and social slight.
There are thousands and tens of thousands of
such women in New-YOrk and in every city and
town through the country. 1t is from their
ranks, not from those of !the beggar woman,
that the steady supply comes to fill our
brothels and the wards set apart in our jails
for female sharpers and thieves.
We do not mean to argue from this that
beauty OF education, however coarse or poor
in quality, is to blame, or to put premium
on rags or dirt The fault lies quite apart
from these. Yesterday we saw a middle-aged
woman apparently the wife of respectable
mechanic, in sleazy, rufied silk and hat
piled high with Spring roses, stop as she
passed an alley, and, glancing hastily around
through the gathering twilight, pick up two
or three pieces of wood and, hiding them un-
der her shawl, go strutting and swelling on her
way. There was no guilt, surely, in the fire
less crate at home, nor in the genteel woman
picking up sticks if she needed them like any
ungenteel beggar. But the berufiled gown,
and the red fowersf All over the
country, in town or farm-houses, there
are symptoms of the same disease-the fever
of o most puerile, mean ambition-the effort
to cope with the man who ranks Just above
us in the income list, and if we cannot cope
to initiate. IL the great man of the VILLAGE
comes to New-York and envies his friends
Persian rugs, which he cannot buy, he HES
home with cheap Turkey carpet, and all his
poorer neighbors throw aside the rag carpets
which their mothers cut and woye, and cover
their floors with painted Brussels, which is q
fluffy, dirty rag at the end of year, and has
carried away with its bright colors their self
respect and their money. Look at the crowd
of shop girls filling the street cars at seven In
the morning, and, for one that is neatly ana
plainly dressed as q lady would be ut her
work, you will find dozen with frayed and
dirty skirts, while the head which shows above
tho counter ia heaped high with curls ard
braids, and heavy earrings Of imitation pearls
OF glass rubies dangle in the cars.
Every class Of American society has caught
the Fictitious splendOr of glass rubies =
sham, glitter noise, instead of reality truth,
and quiet. Fish, who being dead, yet
speaks as the melodiamatio typo of a
largo and mclodramatic class of American