Daily press and Dakotaian. [volume] (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1875-1880, 1879-05-05

suspecllne that any one could possibly bear
her Ill. much less wish or seek TO wreck her
{ life. Aud yet Thousands of the best homes
and the kindest parents 10 the world turn
their daughters out into society TO drift,
about in the snares and traps lying so thick
young men of doubtful morality. going To
balls that take up nearly the whole night,
and keeping as late hours as they please
with whOmsoever they please. and are hor-
riied when they are awakened up to the
horrible fact that their girl, that they sent
out all innocence and trust to cope with the
world, has fallen a prey to some schemipg
but polite. genial and winning man who is
all guilt.
Can parents who are thus guilty curse a
daughter who has fallen into pits from
and saved her? 1t is the first wrong step of
q girl taken innocently. and not the last,
that ruins her. And nine times out of ten
the careful, watchful eye Of parents could
have prevented. Let not parents who know
how full Of temptation the world is to WON.
en-, blame too harshly the daughter who
has fallen by reason OF not knowing q tithe
OF the things Of which her mother might
have warned her.
Fol- 1t too often the over-indulgonce and
the mistaken kindness of parents that gave
the rein and license for the first step that
leads to the ruin of the girl and the sorrow
observer in a city, or town now, can see al
most every day sweet and lovely and limo
cent girls taking this fatal step. One
morning the past week the writer of this
heard two school girls on the street. peith-
or of them sixteen, talking with flushed
and too anxious faces of 'the boys" Ono
said, "Oh, we had just too good q time for
anything, didn't We? But if
my mother only knew that l was out till
3 o'clock in the morning with Charley, !
she would nearly kill me. l promised her
10 be home at H." That mother ought to
known that that promise was not I,
kept. For The minute that any daughter,
Of any age, much less one of an age so ten
der ttat she has just begun to be stirred by
the consciousness Of her sex, commences 10 /,
conceal anything from her mother, that
minute her feet are taking hold on the
way.
Other times girls are seen taking this
first step 10 handkerchief firtstions on the
with some men they do now-or, 1
they do, they ought not to know. Again
is seen in one step to far at the ball, in
some sacrifice of modesty or too great ia
miliarity, of which the young libertine who
vas her partner boasts 10 his chums the
next day. adding still more to it. Some t
lines it is taken In receiving and answer
ng a clandestine letter, at others in long
md late walks at night, in cluded places, :
erminating in a supper somewhere, at which \
vine adds further fire to q flame already but y
,erhapsunconsciously started. 1t istaken, too,
n a clandestine kiss at the gate or in a car.
kiss not of a brother or an accept
ID lover, but Of a pirate and his poison
in the secret reading Of an inhammatory
book, secretly and shrewdly loaned, and
many other ways which we need not men.
lion. 1t is taken with an innocence that a
prudent and watchful mother or father ought
to have warned, and 80 have prevented.
The sweetest, purest thing in all the
world is q pure girl when shs ia just emere-
ing from the daisy and violet field of youth
and blushing into all the beauty of woman.
hood. Standing thus in her purity, she
moves more a thing Of heaven than of earth,
and all heaven contains nothing that ought
to be more sacred from the touch of the
tpoiler. But the earth i. not heaven. and
that which good people would hedge about
as sacred, thousands Of evil hearted men
would trample down into the mire of the
earth and into the fires of hell for a moments
of their brutal lust. Let the
parents who know this, and who see their
daughters stepping out of their arms in all
The radiance Of girlish beauty, or ripeuing
look more closely to the safety
purity Of their jewels. Let the girIs,
90, listen more faithfully to the low-toned
of instinct tha, nature has placed
n every pure woman's breast, and not trust
g fair all that ssemeth to be fair, and there
will be fewer tragedies like this one at Gift
ord, and far fewer girls and women daily
alling to a depth that is below and beyond
wen the kindness of death.