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

suspecting that any one could possibly bea'
her IN. much less wish or seek to wreck be
( life. Aud vet thousands of the Best home'
!, and the kindest parents in the weird turI
= their daughters out into society to dr!'
about in the snares and traps lying SO thick
y about them, letting them go at will win
!. Young men of doubtful morality. gong "a
halls that take up nearly the whole night,
and keeping as late hours as they please
with whOmsoever they please. ana are nui'
, riied when they are awakened up 70 .nc
horrible fact that their girl, that they SEM
mt all innocence and trust to cope WIN tue
wnrid has fallen a prey tn some scheming
M, nn,;te GENIAL and winning man who Is
all guilt.
danrhter who has fallen into pits from
which they could and should have warned
and saved her? 1t is the first wrong step OF
4 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 1.-THE
of the things Of which her mother might
have warned her.
For 1t too often the over-indulgence 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
and woe of all who love her. ANY close
observer in a city, or town now, can SEQ 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. Meth
or Of them sixteen, talking with flushed
and too anxious faces of "the boys" One
said. "Oh, we had just too good a time for
anything, didn't We? But if
my mother only knew that l was out till
2 o'clock in the morning with Charley.
she would nearly kill me. l promised her
to be home at H." That mother ough. to
have known that that promise was not
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 to
conceal anything from her mother, that
minute her feet are taking hold on the
downward way.
Other times girls are seen taking this
first step 10 handkerchief firtations on the
streets, with some men they do now-or,
if they do, they ought not to know. Again
it 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
was her partner boasts TO his chums the
next day, adding still more to it. Some
times it Is taken In receiving and answer
ing a %clandestine letter, at others in long
and late walks at night, in sec luded places,
terminating in a supper somewhere, at which
wine adds further fire to q flame already but
perhapsunconsciously started. 1t istaken, too,
in a clandestine kiss at the gate or in a car.
riage-a kiss not of a brother or an accept
ed lover, but of a pirate and his poison
in the secret reading Of a n inhammatory
book, secretly and shrewdly loaned, and
many other ways which we need not men,
ton. 1t is taken with an innocence that a
prudent and watchful mother or father ought
to have warned, and so have prevented.
The sweetest, purest thing in all the
world is q pure girl when abe ia just emerg-
ing from the daisy and violet field of south
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 ough
to be more sacred from the touch of tn,
tpoiler. But the earth ie not heaven, ant
that which good people would hedge abou
as sacred, thousands Of evil hearted me.
would trample down into the mire of thi
earth and into the fires of hell for a moment
qualification of their brutal lust. Let III,
parents who know this, and who see ,hei
daughters stepping out of their arms in al
the radiance Of girlish beauty, or ripenine
w%omanhood, look more closely to the safety
and purity Of their jewels. Let the girls,
too, listen more faithfully to the low-toned
monitor Of instinct tina, nature has placed
in every pure woman's breast, and not trust
as fair all that seemeth to be fair, and there
will be fewer tragedies like this one at Gift
ford, and far fewer girls and women daily
falling to a depth that is below and beyond
even the kindness of death,