Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1878-05-31
Whole Number 1882.
On the Brink.

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One night not long ago a woman wss
| found on q comparatively deserted street
in Chicago with her offspring in her arms.
The woman was attired in the remnants
of what once swept with magnificent
rustic over the floor of a richly furnished
mansion. But the face had been turned
up against the sky so many nights that it
hadn't single mark upon it to tell that
it had ever felt the touch Of summer
day. The child had Just enough about
its tiny form to protect it from the heart
less March wind that made a pandemo-
MUM out Of the surroundings whenever
there was anything it could swing
The woman had seen enough of the
world to know that an appeal for b
penny would only subject her to a
rebuff There are 50 many such pictures
hung up in this life that it is not to be
wondered at if the better portion of hu-
manity closes its eyes so often. She did
not even solicit a crust of bread. She
never asked for q shelter for her own
poor emaciated and absolutely worn
out frame. She did not wait under the
flickering gasjet that appeared to be
mocking her misery. She did not seek
the step of the mansion and deposit her
treasure there and then steal around the
corner to wait for the hand of God to
touch the hand Of charity, and take the
homeless one out of the shadow. One
might have found some kind ofan excuse
for this utterly homeless woman if she
had strangled the only living thing that
was left her to love-the only thing
which to her was untainted-the only
thing that existed to her to remind her
that there was ever such thing as inno-
cenee. For her own life was so deeply
buried under hopelessness and sin and
misery that it is impossible to be charita-
BILE enough to think that she had the
slightest recollection of her childhood.
But her mothers instinct remained. No
storm ever washes that away; no bitter
ness ever chills it; no ingratitude ever
hardens it. It is one Of the types which
has been given to men to prove the ex-
istence of a God, and it is higher and
hoiiet, and contains a stronger appeal to
prompt men to better things than all of
the theology and theories that can be
dug out of the bible. She kissed it, and
talked to it, and called it by some tender
names. Maybe she sang to it a scrap of
a cradle-sOng. Several times she stopped
passers-by and offered them the child,
provided they would be kind to it and
she could come to it and love it. But
the passers-by had no time to consider
her exactions, or else they had flowers
of their own to care for and bestow their
affections upon. Once a man did con-
slider her appeal, looked at the face of
the child, which did not even then have
a trace of reproach upon it, and ques-
toned the woman. But she turned back
from him, and walked away with her
idol as if she could not give it up. She
went down to the river, and walked un-
der the shadows of the naked masts that
lined its decks like ghastly things in
want. The night overhead was not so
cheerless as to be without its 'grove of
stars" and these unwound their silver
threads until they seemed to trail in the
water and play with the ispings of the
waves. But there was nothing else in
the shadows except the church-steeples
and the mansions of city, and these
were left untouched by the glow of the
starlight, and contained no empty era
dies.
Once the woman united the excuse of
a bonnet she wore, and pulled down her
hair. She pressed the treasure in her
arms and kissed it again. Then she came
closer to the water, and looked into its
depths. She turned back, coiled her hair,
and turned her face again to the streets.
She met an officer, and told him she was
a vagrant. He hesitated as to his duty
as policeman, and then the duty ofman-
hood came to him, and at the risk of
being discharged, for an act of charity,
by his chief, he took the child in his own
arms and led the wrecks of a life to the
Madison street station, where he pre-
sented them to the captain, who also
risked his position at headquarters, by
sheltering two things, one of which was |
pitiful and the other helpless. This |
woman has been stripped of q fortune IN |
less than two years by trio of hardened |
wretches. She has been abducted and |
left utterly pennilesS upon the Canadian |
border. She has been chased from garnet !
to cellar by q few men who, having !
robbed her of all that home possessed, |
besides running her daughter, who is at |
the bridewen to-day, have hunted her |
night and day, In order to get her out of |
reach of the court before which they will /
shortly appear. They have dragged her !
up and compelled her to sign all man |
ner of documents which criminate her |
SELF They have used every device to |
steal her child. They have so poisoned |
the mind of her daughter that she curses
the poor old wreck of q mother when
ever they meet. TheV have made over |
lures to certain officials to have her sent !
out Of the city. Maybe ifthey had made |
thess overtures at the proper place" and |
in the proper manner" they might have |
And now she is the most help |
less and apparently God-forsaken crea-
ture that exists in the city. But this |
child, this waif that is being nursed in |
the shadows and under the mists of night, |
(which is the proof of God, Of eternity, |
and the duality of destiny" as some one
has said, forms one of those pictures of
SORROW which are curtained by the dark
ness of every great city, which touch the |
chords of sympathy, and which make
people question the future, and tremble |
for It's revelations.