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

\
The Iowa State Register, taking the recent
tragedy at Clifford for its tex, 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 wickedness OF the press
have a better one at their hands just now.
Let them take az a text the action Of the
Iowa preacher, found 10 be at the bottom OF
the tragedy at Clifford, in this state, the past
killed q girl he loved, and then tried to kill
the deed by discovering that a preacher, a
married man, and who bad jus, 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 q 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 c%autioning them to keep
close watch and ward of their daughters as
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 q still more dangerous weakness of low
ing to airt and toy around the edges of prec-
ipices whose dangers at first che did not
know, and at last ehe 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 nor
the weakness and the hidden tides of their
nature, MOI wen dream Of, much less know,
the innate meanness and never relaxing de-
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
Iurk like hidden serpents about it before
they know what such perils are, or in what
form aud time they come, and before they
have either the knowledge to know or the
moral stamina to resist them. Indeed, often
the crime Of q young girl is - much the
crime Of her parents. For the parents know
the enares and pitfalls along which her IN.
conscious feet 20 tripping and dancing IN
all the bounding gsyety Of complete and
Joyous innocence. She has been kept back
from all knowlege of the world as it is. it,
dangers, temptations and deadfalIs. Hel
whole life has been on 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 confdlng trust
equal to . young girl. All that 10 dark ha,
been copcesled from ber; oil who have mel
her have been friends; oil she has seen Of
society has bsen pure, and oil Of the world
charming. She hes been always 20 bedged
about with love and 20 armed With limo
cence aud faith that she arrives st the on
whea her ripesing charms begin 70 attract
abe attestios Of social parties. without evei