Daily press and Dakotaian. [volume] (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1875-1880, 1879-05-05
TRAPS OF RUIN FOR GIRLS
A Warning that should be Read In Ev
cry Family in tho Land.

A Warning that Should be Read in Ev-
cry Family in tho Land.
The Iowa State Register, taking the recent
tragedy at Clifford for it's te1', has printed
that which should be read in every family
in the land where there are young girls and
foolish or too confident mothers. 1t says:
"Some of our preachers who sometimes
take texts from the w%ickedness of the press
have a better one at their hands just now.
Let them take as a text the action of the
Iowa preacher, found 10 be at the bottom OF
the tragedy at Clifford, in this state, the past
week, in which a jealous lover shot and
killed a girl he loved, and then tried to kill
himself. The young lover was fred into
the deed by discovering that a preacher, a
married man, and who bad just concluded
a large revival, ending with fourteen bap-
tisms, had been poisoning the girl into an
alliance with him, and into meeting him for
. week at a time at Cedar Rapids and other
points-against the protests and prayers of
her parents. Preachers could we'll make
use of this tragedy as a text for warning
parents, and of cautioning them to keep
close watch and ward of their daughters az
against the social wolves that are prowling
through all grades of society to prey upon
young and innocent girls.
The giddy girl who met so sudden and
terrible All end in her career of reckless
Irritation, beginning with that and ending
with worse, has nothing left Of her now in
the world but her grave, with a heart-broken
father and insane mother mourning over
her fate.
The papers or correspondents at her home
saw she was a bright, lovable girl, but with
q dangerous love of admiration and ~fattery,
and a still more dangerous weakness of Low.
ing to airt and toy around the edges Of prec.
ipices whose dangers at first she did not
know, and at last she did not care.
The sad story Of this girl, alive last Sun
day, in her grave to-day, may be told on
many hearthstones where the Register goes
to q result of great good. For undoubtedly
there has latterly come to be too much free
dom given to girls at too early an age,
while they yet do not know themselves mol
the weakness and the hidden tides of their
nature, nor even dream Of, much less know,
signs of men whom they think the very souls
Of honor: Girls 60 too early into society
and are beset by the dangers that always
lurk like hidden serpents about it before
they know what such perils are, or in wha,
iOEm SuU tAm0 lucy COme1 1nu DelOle tuey
have either the knowledge to know Or the
moral stamina to resist them. Indeed, often
the crime Of q young girl is as much the
crime Of her parents. For the parents know
the snares and pitfalls along which her un'
conscious feet 60 tripping and dancing IN
all the bounding gayety Of complete and
Joyous innocence. She has been kept back
from all knowlege of the world as it it,, its
dangers, temptations and deadfalls. Hel
whole life has been or the sunny side Of the
world. All she has heard has been kind.
q ees all she has seen has been purity.
There is on earth no other symbol and
type Of trusting faith and con6dlns trust
equal to . young girl. All that is dark ha.
been copcesled from her; oil who have mel
her have been friends; oil she has seen OIL
society has bsen pure, and oil Of the world
charming. She he's been always 20 hedged
absut with love and 20 armed with limo
cence and faith that she strives ct the sGl
when her ripestpg charms begin to attract
The attsstIon Of social parties. without svel