Litchfield enquirer., 1878-05-30
A Failure.

If Judge Hilton, executor of the magnificent estate of the late A. T. Stewart, had lived three and half centuries ago, and had been l left in charge of several millions with which to start Reformation, the project would most certainly have failed. The work of Martin Luther is not to be done by an execu- tor; least of all by an executor who has no 1 faith in Reformations. Hence we are not sur prised to learn that, after few weeks trial, the grand project in the prosecution of which Mir. Stewart was so muchinterested, has been utter ly abandoned and that the Working Women's l Home has been turned into first-class hotel. We might even be inclined to compliment the l Executor on the shrewdness with which he has secured such an amount of gratuitous ad- vertising of his new hotel from the press of the country. What we object to, is the in- sulting arrogance and injustice of the pronun- ciamento with which he announces the diver sion of several millions of the Stewart estate from the charitable uses for which they were intended, to the meaner purpose of money making. In this pronunciamento the Execu- tor coolly throws the entire blame for the al- legged failure of the project upon the women he was set to assist. He accounts for it as l follows:
 I'll tell you why. It is very simple and | very natural I believe you cannot get wo- l momen to accept any help based on the condi- tion of separation from the other sex; you can't run hotel for women successfully, and keep away the men. Women will not be kept from | the other sex. 1 am convinced that they can not be tempted by any comforts and luxuries to stay or live away from the other sex. You can run hotel for men exclusively-but for women, you can't believe that the major ity of women not over fifty years of age, en- certain hopes of . union, and great many over that age do and you cannot do anything for them if you make the condition impair their chances in the least. The failure of the ! Woman's Hotel will be worldwide example for philanthropists. It is terrible disappolnt- ment to all interested. am not greatly sur prised at tte. failure But / haoe done may JaN duy t' the taoe ef oo"o''t'9, ct ''eT'tsSs ,as. couldn't be coaxed to the hotel, simply because they wouldn't sacrifice male company. They would rather stay at the boarding houses, and put up with hall bedrooms, poor fare, and scrimp furniture, and have their gentlemen than take the luxuries of Stewart without them. Of course MT. Stewards idea about excluding men from the Women's Hotel was most cor rect. They couldn't be freely admitted with out subjecting the house to gossip and event. ually to scandal.
 Note the italicized sentences! The Execu- tor has not only no faith in the project of his Testator In lieu of faith he has "a convic- tion of inevitable failure" Was ever any real reform started in such spirit?
 Wa confess that we do not know quite what construction to put upon the somewhat coarse language of the Executor There is consid erable class of working women in New York who receive such salaries as would enable them to board at his hotel, but who evidently prefer to board elsewhere. Does the Execu- tor mean to say that their conduct where they now board IS such as would bring scandal up on decent hotel? If not, and they rebel against his conventual rules because they like to associate with gentlemen in an entirely re- putable way, looking perhaps towards matri- mony whose fault is it that they shun the Stewart Hotel? Plainly the fault of the rules, not of the women.
 We do not believe MT. Hilton has at all hit upon the true cause of his failure. He has | planned hotel for working l1dies not for work | ing women. Hear his own words:
 The scheme has been misunderstood. Some have thought the hotel was to be working girls home. It was for the very class we tried | to get and which wouldn't come. MT. Stewart | expressly provided that the place shouldbe for ladies who earned their own living. What other class would have appreciated such place, with porcelain from Pilivuyt, glass ware l from Bacarat, plate glass from St. Gobain, and Professor Edward Scheischer for cook! The class of working ''ladies" even in SC large city as New York is not large one. The few who are really earning good deal of money have little time or inclination for the luxuries of the gilded prison MT. Hilton con- | trived; and those who are not earning good deal of money cannot afford it. Undoubtedly there are many women who would submit to his rules and restraints for the sake of his Pill ivuyt porcelain, his Bacarat glass, and his cookery which is not merely the work of an artist, but of Professor. Those, however, are not working women.
 The simple truth is that the Stewart Work ingwoman's Hotel wasb built for class of work ing-w women that does not happen to exist. The existing working woman, with sense of the fitness of things which does her credit, prefers less splendor. fewer luxuries, and more free dom. We honor her decision. Plainly the Executer has nobody but himself, or his Tes- tator, to blame. He may be right in with ! Ls r. 9n srla fA it with libel
 I A destructive fire occurred at Kohns Block
 in Hartford on Friday morning of last week.
 Shortly after o'clock the fire was discovered
 and the alarm given. It spread rapidly and
 the streams of water poured upon it had little
 effect. In about half an hour it had reached
 time firemen had gone up the front on ladders.
 and were at work also on side roof. As the
 fire reached the upper floor it evidently reach
 ed some unusually combustible matter and
 burst out from the top of the building with great
 violence and an intense white fame An ex-
 plosion followed almost immediately, carrying
 away portion of the north side of the build
 ing and the coping and cornice of the front.
 Three fremen were crushed under the debris
 and killed instantly, while five more were bad
 ly injured The loss of property seems to
 have been about $100, 900; heavily insured
 It is pleasant to notice any improvement in . the habits of our city people regarding the use
 of spirituous liqnors. Temperance has never been able to get any firm hold of the people of New York city. Its population is 80 large.
 ly foreign in it's composition, and it's native
 American population has so little sympathy with any mere moral movement, that we are , glad to read the following in the New York
 correspondence of the Springfield Republican
 The use of wines is greatly on the increase, , while lager beer is really quite popular bev- , craze with Americans as we'll as Germans The change in the drinking habits of the city