Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1882-02-09
The Pretty Treasury Girls.

George ". feck. In Peckb Sun
l suppose it is as well for me to do
1t as anybody, and / might as well do
it now, and relieve the minds of thous-
ands Of people In regard to the girls
that work in the treasury department.
The impression prevails all over the
west that there are hundreds upon
hundreds OF the handsomest girls in
the world at work in the treasury de-
partment. "The pretty treasury girls"
have been talked about so much, and
their beauty extolled by the illustrated
papers that do not wonder the idea
has got abroad that the world has been
Iansacked for beautiful women, and
that it is as much as a susceptible
mans life is worth TO 60 among them.
That their beauty is so dazzling as to
injure the eyesight. 1t is said that
congressman are mashed on the treas
ury girls, and that they look over their
districts with an eye for beauty and
give places to the handsomest of Gods
creatures. Well, consider me on nv
oath now. / was walking up Penn
sylvania Avenue Saturday afternoon
with Congressman Gunther-(You will
see that l am lightning on congress
men. In fact, don't associate here
with anything less than congressman,
and printers, and messengers, and the
rest of the fellows that 1 knowl-and
he said, "Now the girls are out of the
treasury department, and we will meet
them all" 1 wanted to go on a side
street, but he said for me to come
along. told him 1 had promised to
be good, and not look upon the girl
when she was cunning. He said there
was no danger, as he wouldn't be afraid
to turn me loose in a fair ground full
Of them. Gunther had been here long
er than l had, and 1 thought he knew
what he was talking about, so 1 went
along. We met about eight hundred, 1
should think. 1t might be that saw
double. Anyway there were six hun
dred, and won't fall another girl.
And 1 hope to be teetOtally shot with
a cannon, If there was one of
them but what would cause
child to strike its father. If
there was good looking girl in the
whole lot you can take her out of
my wages. Girls! Why, there were
not twenty girls in the crowd. They
were mostly middle-aged, many care
worn. many evidently widows with
families to support. They were a very
respectable looking lot of women who
evidently worked hard for what they
got, and when the procession had got
by felt such a respect for treasury
girls as 1 had never felt before, and l
want The Sun to be placed on record
hereafter as defender of hard-work-
ing, deserving class of women who
have been abused and traduced by
newspapers whose editors have been
as ignorant of what they were talking
about as / always have. When work
ing women, armed with an empty
lunch basket, walk two miles to a
boarding house, or poor home, after
days work, stared at by thousands who
believe them to be bad from what has
been said of them, and show such evil
dences Of poverty and responsibility as
hose women showed last Saturday, l
want to take off my hat to them, even
If do show that bald spot on my head.
OF course there may be some girls in
the treasury, and some may be hand
some, which they are not to blame fer,
and they may have been kept after
school by the teachers in the treasury,
for whispering or cutting up, and there
may be once in a while one that is not
as good as she ought to be to get to
heaven and no questions asked, but
take them as a class and they average
pretty well with the rest of the human
family in morals, but some of them are
homely enough to stop clock. There
may be some girls that old senators
like Christiancy are going to pick when
they get ripe, but the experience of the
poor little lady who married the human
string of Michigan dried apples. will
always be a warning to them, and here
after we shall see less of the May and
December business.