Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1883-01-10
PRIZES OF THE HAREu.
How English Girls Are DecOyed Into
the SeragIiOs OF the East.

1t Is quite notorious, says the London World,
that every harem in the east aims at getting a
European tenant for it. Year after year girls
are reported to be missing from London or
Paris or Brussels without anyone knowing
what has become of them. In few days they
are forgotten; they may have drowned them
selves. become reformed 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 par
ticuar species of fraty. should cart Goals to It's
own Newcastle is not easy to explain. Mean
time it is impossible to pass along the streets of
London without seeing snaky-eyed Orientals
peering into the faces of millinery girls; and he
must be an unobservant traveller. indeed. who
has sailed in a Peninsula and Oriental steamer
for Alexandria or Port Said without meeting
the same rapscallions escOrting rosy-cheeked
damsels Cairo-ward. The supply is perhaps a
little less than it used to be when Ismail Pasha
ran special trains for the convenience of his con-
signment from Europe. But that in Egypt,
India, Turkey and the Orient, generally every
harem of any consequence keeps in it's gilded
cage one or more frail or foolish BritOns is a
fact which It is needless trying to deny, though
it Is humiliating to confess.
These wretched girls are TEMPTED by a life of
ease and Incidence. They are dazzled by a show
OF jewels, fine clothes and the stories of the
gorgeous east, and find too late that they
have entered q squalid prison, amid women as
heather as any whom the world can show, and
with whom it is impossible to exchange word
to while away the loneliness of 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 it their lot is unhappy
beyond conception. Such stray lambs are
seldom sought after, though to their relatives
they are as much lost as if they had plunged
into the sea. The harem rarely surrenders its
prisoners, and If it did they are too ashamed to
return, poor and disillusiOned. Again and
again have rumors reached Delhi of
General Wheeler's daughter and other European
ladies being kept in the harems to which
But soon the scent is lost. If there is any truth
in the gossip it is certain that the objects of it
are just beyond the chances of recovery, for
whoever the harem owner Introduces to his
guests he takes care to make an exception in
favor of his Ferringnees But If silly damsels
err through ignorance and love of laziness,
what is to be said OF women reasonably we'll edu-
Gated. who calmly-to crafty ambition, to spite
somebody, or from some vague idea Of 1.-The
romance of the thing'-sell themselves in cold
blood to an eastern pOtentate? The unhappy
Mrs. Digby. after a varied marital experience
espOused the dirty BedOuin camel driver
Mijuel Of the MiZrab. What her opinions were
she kept to 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 is shared by-and constitutes their
approach to happiness Of the weak-faced
women who have chosen to be harem Britons.