The Labor enquirer., 1883-01-20
soPHY PEROFISKY.
a Condensed Sketch Of Her suHerings
From an Able and Unbiased
Pen.

q,
the dumb, patient oxen, lived the heroine
of this tale.
Tall was she and marvelously sweet,
with soft white shoulders, and eyes like
Alpine lakes, with a voice of strange
music, witha facefof lofty beauty, with a
mind free and open asa child, "a maiden,
snowy souled. .}I" i.
She kept her iather's humble cottage,
thatched with straw, and set out for him
daily the wooden platters filled, alas, too
scantily, with the coarse black meal and
goats milk, that was his daily food. She
too titled the soil and tore hersoft hands
with hard and brutal labor. ~. F
Still every day wearily rose the sun ;
still day y'by day, endless toll went on.
That was the common lot of all the
workers of the land. Endless labor and
endless woe.
For far above these lonely men dwelt
the great, the rich ), the powerful, the free.
Pale browed and naughty in the dignity
of jeweled swords, ,iof blazoned arms, of
kingly crowns, rich in knowledge, great
in name, colossal in idleness and iniquity
they above las God is above) the humble
producers of this mighty wealth, but
used their power for their own, selfish
ends.
1t was the same oldstory that we know
80 well: of the robbery by taxation, by
profit by interest, by war, by debauchery
and crime, of the utter degradation of
the people that the mobiles and the king
might live without the stain of earthly
toll.
Twenty was she with shining eyes, and
fifty was her father, with snowy hair,
when one day, besides them in the fields
came new form, pale faced, white
handed but serene, taking his part in the
husbandry, until the bronze Of sunshine
and rain had dispelled antagonism and
the kindness of self4sacrifcing devotion
won confidence and love.
The new friend became teacher,
first of democracy and then Of love.
Divine conjunction of divine ideas
All, quick did those patient hearts
thrill to the ever new story, to the mas
terful lessons of liberty, fraternity,
equality. Then weres the gospels of
labor and love joined in dissoluble mar
riage.
But on another morrow the stones of
the field and the weeping girl and old,
old man, all missed their friend, Some
spy of infamy, some secret whisperer had
done his task, and the law and the pow
ers above had reached out their shadowy
hands and taken him by the throat.
YEARLY, oh SO wearily dragged on the
days. But they saw him never again.
Then the old man died and the maidens
heart was doubly sore.
Alone in the vast inhuman merciless
world. Without bread, without father,
without love, e,-robbed of them all with
out cause or right, the poor child left her
hovel and journeyed on,the highway to
that city where dwelt the king, bent
solely on asking of him his mercy.
How for twelve long weeks she jour-
neyed, of her dangers and escapes, of her
arrival, of her jeering reception 1 have
not the heart toteil. But she had speech
with him at last and on her torn and
bloody knees with hands clasped wildly,
with disheveled hair and in a voice
broken by sobsthat shook and tore her
mortal. frame, she told her tale and
prayed for5help.
This was his answer not to her but to
the guards in glittering steel that gath
cred close around:
"The knout"
I can see her torn by brutal hands from
the palace to the Jail. jeered at by beasts
not member clothing wrenched from
her shrinking, blushing, shuddering
form,-the cruel, cruel lash whistling
through the air and cutting great purple
welts in the soft, white skin, the brutal
and beastly stripping of her innocent
body in the market place, her cries anC
means of pain and shame and at last the
uplifting of those woeful eyes in dumb
entreaty before at last nature gave mercy
and she swooned away.
Then came months of imprisonment
then release. But stone walls had awak
ened thought. Shame had reused ange
and patriotism. There was sequel.
With eyes cleared fr ON the blindnes