New-York tribune., 1874-04-11
IN NRRAN MYSTERY.

Mr.. Bergh has handsomely answered tho
sneers Of those who have, been In the habit
of saying that he only protected the lower
animals at the expense of the higher. The
little girl whom he brought before Judge
Lawrence on Thursday was the best witness
that could be called to prove his active and
intelligent benevolence. We are apt to con-
clude that the stories Of lost or stolen
children which form so large q staple of the
English romancers are mere conventional
fictiOns, or at least are impossible
in this country and time. But the half-starved
and shamefully maltreated little waif who was
thus rescued from the hands Of her keepers and
brought for the first time into the light and
under the protection of the laws of her country,
is the center of a mystery as deep as ever puz-
zled the reader of Mrs. Radcliffe, and the
heroine of q story of suffering as pathetic as
even the pen Of Dickens could have
framed. Some Of the critics of Mr..
Bergh imagine they have abolished him with
fash of wit when they have called him Don
Quixote. He has probably enough apprecia-
ton of the really noble qualities of Cervantes'
Cavalier of La Mancha to bear this fling with
perfect equanimity. There is something of the
fantastic chivalry Of the valOrOus Don in the
spirit which induced Mr.. Bergh to take up the
whispers of the neighbors of the
Connolly man and woman, and to-
assume +. the cause of the unseen
child kept in durance by them. But the
measures taken to carry out these good i'm
pulses were thoroughly modern and Anglo
Saxon. He did not mount his steed and set
his lance in rest against the tenement of the
~ - h.
Supreme Court, and sent detective with it
to bring the injured little victim before the
Judge.
Her own appearance, while it fully justified
the Intervention Of the philanthropist, only
deepened the mystery which surrounded tho
case. If she were an enchanted princess given
over for time into the hands of wicked
fairies she could not have been subjected to
more singular and capricious cruelties She
was thin and pinched with hunger and cold
not the momentary deprivation of food and
warmth which is all that most of us know
of those words-but the long-continued
habitual want Of sufficient food ant'
clothing which ends in dull unconscious
ness of the lack, and a gradual wasting OF the
powers of body and mind. She was too small
for her age-stunted by her %retched life
and her poor little wits had had so scanty
cherishing that she possessed harTuy more
than speech and fear. Yet to prove that she
was not naturally depraved, she had quick
sense of kindness and q ready and tmid
gratitude. The most pathetic thing about
her little story was its matter-of-fact
statements of sufferiDgs which evidently
seemed to her nothing remarkable.
There was no resentment against those who
had used her so i'll. She knew nothing of the
world outside the lodgings of THE Connollys;
she was never allowed TO see other children,
much less to visit or play with them. She
was never out of the house except at night,
and finally, she had no recollection of ever
having been in the street! If there is any
record of so dismal q childhood in the world
we have never heard of it, The first Joy OF
children is in each others company. They
will run away from the tenderest parental
care TO play with those of their own age.
This little waif. eight years old, never had
known a child. Kisses and soft words are as
necessary to children as air and bread, but
this little woman never knew what they were
the soft grass in their favor Even the dirC
little Arabs of New-York take GER
tain pleasure in the cutters of the busy
and lively streets where they 1--we.
This Mary Ellen, aged eight years. hsd
never. to her recollection. been ~ tne stroes'