Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1875-03-01
aONLY A BALLET GIRL
Something for Talmage 10 Use IN
his Next sermon on the stage,

Something for Talmage 10 Use IN
his Next sermon on the stage.
A Boston correspondent writes:
A sad incident happened at one Of our
theaters last week. A young and beau
tiful girl connected with the ballet corps
died suddenly Of diptheria. Three nights
previously she appeared on the stage
full Of life, and in an apotheosis scene
had personated an angel. The intelli-
gence OF her death reached the theater
at night just previons to the perform
ance, and was it strange that q gloom
was cast over all2 With the fresh recol-
lection Of their departed companion, and
the strains Of Handeps beautiful air,
Angels Ever Bright and Fair" which
accompanied the spotheosis, still ringing
in their ears, all went to their labors
with heavy hearts.
How little did the audience suspect
that the laughter and merry making ON
the stage that night we're hollow mocke-
ries In the throng who participated in
village dance, full OF assumed jollity
and levity was a young man whose grief
was inconsolable, for the girl was all the
world to him. To commit her to the
tomb was to bury heart and hope. To
take part in this scene weeping men and
women had hastily sought to dry their
eyes and assume gaiety they could not
feel. How those forced bursts of laugh
ter must have wrung their sympathetic
heartsl To make this sudden grief more
poignant, came the discovery that the
poor girls death had been hastened by
poverty. She had not even summoned
physician. She could not pay for one.
She had managed to live and to aid her
mother on the :csnty salary of six dol.
lars week.
She had borne the highest moral char.
acter among her companions, and the
circumstances of her melancholy death
and her enforced poverty told plainly
enough that she had chosen the paths OF
impoverished virtue rather than those
Of gilded vice. Instead Of turning her
steps with some male companions to
those golden palaces Of sin, The midnight
supper rooms from whose portals many
a young girl has departed in shame, she
wended her way, pinched with want and
hunger, and poorly clad, to her home in
the suburbs, for she could not afford to
live in town. Sometimes she had been
compelled TO walk through cold and
storm, and it was through exposure in
this way she became i'll.
It should be said to the credit Of her
associates in the theater that she was not
known to be actually in want. A feeling
Of pride and self-dependence had pre-.
vented her from making her privations
known. AS literally as the money to
defray the expenses of her funeral was
subscribed by the people in the theater,
iten-fold more generously would it have
gone forth to have relieved her suffer
ings. What q commentary the going out
Of this young life furnishes upon some
of the attacks made upon the stage and
stage people.
There are black sheep in every flock,
and the dramatic profession contains
enough OF them, Heaven knows; but
here was a girl who withstood temptation
and lived a life of spotless purity in the
face Of hunger, want, and : privation.
She was young and handsome, and her
society was much sought after, but in
vain, by the class Of men who, pro6ting
by the teachings of Talmage and the
rest, imagine every girl upon the stage
susceptible to the arguments contained
in purse full of money.
I She was only ballet girl" but she
could starve on six dollars aweek rather
than luxuriate on the wages of sin.
Talmage might gather up his garments
lest they become contaminated by brush,
ing against the dress of the wicked stage,
player, if she should chance to pass
him in the street, but the whole line Of
Christian martyrdom affords no truer
instance Of real heroism than this.