River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1875-04-09
Only Ballet Girl,

The following incident is related in
Boston letter to the Providence Press
A sad incident happened at one Of our
theatres last week. A young and beauti-
full girl connected with the ballet corps
died suddenly Of diphtheria. Three
nights previously she appeared on the
stage full of life, and in an apotheosis
scene had personated an angel. The in.
telligence of her death reached the the.
atre at night, just previous to the per-
Torrance, and was it strange that gloom
was spread over all With the fresh
recollection of their departed com.
panion, and the strains of Handel's beau
tiful air, "Angels Ever Bright and Fair"
which accompanied the apotheosis, still
ringing in his 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
were hollow mockeres. In the thropg
who participated III the village dance, full
of assumed jollity and levity, was young
man whose inward grief was mconsolable,
for the girl was al 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 an
air of gayety they could not feel How
those forced bursts of laughter
must have wrung their sympa-
thetic hearts To make this
sudden grief all the more poignant, came
the discovery that the poor girls death
had been fastened by poverty. She had
not even summoned a physician; she
could not pay for one. She Rad managed
to live and to aid her mother on the
scanty salary of six dollars week. She
had borne the highest moral character
among her companions, and the circum-
stances 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 companion to those golden palaces
OF sin, the midnight supper rooms,
from whose portals many
young girl has departed in shame, she
wendell 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 that she became i'll. 1t should
be said to the credit of her associates in
the theatre that she was not known to be
actually in want. A feeling of pride and
selt-dependence had prevented her
from making her privations known. As
| literally as the money to defray the ex-
penses Of her funeral was subscribed by
the people in the theatre, tenfold more
generously would it have gone forth to
have relieved her suffering. What
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, Hea.
ven knows; but here was girl, who with
stood temptation and lived life of spot
less purity in the face of want, hunger
and privation. She was young and hand
some, and her society was much sought
after, but in vain, by the class of men
who, profting by the teachings of
Talmage and the rest, imag-
inc every girl upon the stage
susceptible to the arguments contained in
purse full of money She was "only
ballet girl, but she could starve on SO
week rather than luxuriate on the
wages Of sin. Talmadge might gather up
his garments lest they become contami.
mated by brushing against the dress Of
the wicked stage player, if she should
chance to pass him in the street, but the
whole line af Christian martyrdom affords
no truer instance of real heroism than
this.