Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1883-01-25
PRIZES OF TIRE HAREM.
How English Girls are Dccoyed Into
the ~eragiios of the Enst


1t is quite notorious, says the Lon
don World, that every harem in the
east aims at getting a European tenant
in 1t. Year after year girls ars report
ed to be missing from London, Paris
or Brussels, without anyone knowing
what has become of them. In a few
days they are forgotten; they may
have drowned themselves, become re-
formed, or died their usual death.
Sometimes the story is that the girl
has been decoyed to Belgium; though
why Belgium, which is blessed with
plethora of that particular species of
frailty, should cart Goals 70 its own
Newcastle is not easy to explain.
Meantime it is impossible to pass along
the streets of London without seeiag
shaky Orientals peering into the
faces of millinery girls; and he must
be an unobservant traveller indeed who
has sailed in Peninsula aud Oriental
steamer for Alexandria or Port Said
without seeing these rapscalhons escort
ing rosy checked damsels Cairoward.
The supply is perhaps II little less than
it used to be when lsmail Pasha ran
special trains for the convenience Of
his consignment from Europe. But
that in Egypt, India, Turkey and the
Orient, generally every ~harem of any
consequence keeps in its gilded cage
one or more frail or foolish Britons ia
a. fact which it is needless trying 70
denv. though it it humiliating to CON
TESS.
These wretched girls are tempted by
a life of ease and Incidence. They are
dazzled by show of jewels, fine clothes
and the stories of the gorgeous east,
and find too late that they have en-
tered squalid prison, amid women as
heather as any the world can show, and
with whom il is impossible to exchange
a word TO while away the loneliness of
Il life which has lost its novelty. So
long as they keep the favor OF their
lord they are objects of persecution
and plots; when they lose il their lot is
unhappy beyond conception. Such
stray lambs are seldom sought after,
though to their relatives they are IS
much lost rs they had plunged into the
sea. The harem rarely surrenders its
prisoners, and if it did they are too
ashamed TO return, poor and disillu-
stoned. Again and again have rumors
reached Delhi of General Wheeler's
daughter and other European ladies
being kept in the harems to which
they were dragged during the Indian
mutiny. But soon the scent is lost. If
there is any Truth in the gossip, it is
certain that the objects of il are beyond
the chances of recovery, for whoever
the harem owner introduces TO his
guests he takes care to make An excep-
ton in favor of his Ferringhees. But
if silly Gamsels err through ignorance
and love of laziness, what is TO be said
of women reasonably well educated
who calmly-to CRAFTY ambition, to
spite somebody, or from some vague
idea of "the romance of the thing
sell themselves in cold blood to an
eastern potentate2 The unhappy Mrs.
| Digby, after varied marital expert
rience, espoused the dirty Bedouin
camel-driver, Miguel of the Mlzrab
What her opinions were she kept 10
herself; for, pariah among her kin
dred, Lord Ellenborough's quondam
bride felt sour to all the Christian race
1t may be that this hatred il shared by
and constitutes their approach to hap
piness Of the weak-faced women who
have chosen to be harem Britons.