River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1884-10-09
A Rlighted Race of Women.


eff there was ever a blighted race of
women" said gentleman of this city,
recently returned from visit to Cape
Cod, cit exists in the peninsular villages
of Massachusetts,. villages which de-
pend on the fisheries, for the support of
their inhabitants. Nowhere else in all
New England will one see so high an
average of female beauty, especially in
sy mmetry of form and freshness of com
plexion, as is noticeable among the
young girls of these Cape Cod fisher
mems towns, girls ranging from 10 to 20
years of age. But it will not take one
long to discover the startling and mel
ancholy fact that if this girlish beauty
and freshness is unusual and unexpect-
ed, it is also only too apparent that its
duration is brief The change produc
ed in these girls by the lapse of few
years is painful in the extreme. No
matronly graces are to be seen among
them after their girlhood days are past.
The charming middle stage of matur-
ing womanhood, between the freshness
and buoyancy of the girl of 20 and the
woman of 35 or 40, is entirely absent.
The heightened color of the cheeks is
gone. The eyes are sunken and wear
look of sadness and anxiety. Gray hair
in heads over which score and a hall
of years have scarcely passed, and deep
are lines in faces which should show no
trace of age for % years to come, rather
the rule than the exception. These
women, besides suffering from all the
inevitable sorrows which fall to woman's
lot, no matter in what station she may
be placed, have an added intense and
perpetual sorrow all their own. Theirs
is life of continual suspense and anxi-
ETY., which is almost certain to be in
grief.
"The most obtuse observer needs not
to ask the cause of this lack of complete
matronly beauty among these women
whose budding days open with the
greatest promise of a superb physical
womanhood, and for the utter extinc-
ton of that light and
brightness which marked their girlish
life. The cause suggests itself at once
to one who sees the congregations of
women on the beaches and in the quiet
streets of the sleepy villages. He will
notice occasionally a feeble old man
among them, generally supported on
the arm of some female companion,
who, most likely, carries on her other
arm chubby faced child of lusty lungs.
But in these groups, or anywhere about
the village, the observer will look in
vain for the presence of males between
tOttering years of these relics of the
past and the prattling days of baby
hood. 1t is the fishing season, and
there are no men or boys on shore
Their smacks are tossing on the treach
er ous waters of the fishing banks, and
their return, if they return at all, is
as uncertain as the weather, which
forms the one grert subject of
conjecture and apprehension among the
villagers. Husbands, sons, fathers,
brothers and sweethearts are some
where on the bosom of the sea, proba-
bly, homeward bound, perhaps steering
for still more distant waters, perhaps
struggling for life among the waves.
Fair weather keeps hope warm in many
an anxious woman's heart; the bowling
northeastern chills it with doubt and
despair. Constantly Watching by day,
waking in the night to listen to sounds
from the sea, whether they may be the
roaring of the dreaded tempest or
merely the moan of the surf on the
beach, is it any wonder that the torture
Of mind and heart, and strain of nerve
and vital force that must follow this
perpetual suspense and longing should
destroy the fountains of youth and
beauty in these patient, suffering wom
en- and place upon them the marks OF
age while they are yet young?
Yet the girls grow up with but one
thought of what their future lot will
be, with but one object in view upon
which their visions of happiness are
based. Go among any gronp of these
bright, buoyant girls in any of the vii t
lagos of the class / am speaking of. and
you will find that 8 out of 10 of them
look forward to union with some one
who will spend his life fishing in the
summer and coasting in the winter.
The idea that there might be any other
future for them than the one which is
to come to them as fishermen's wives,
or that the life of fsherman's wife is
anything different from the natural Sc
quence of married life never seems to
occur to them.
Looking at one of these bright, happy
girls, chatting and romping amid half a
dozen sad-eyed Young wives and moth
ers on the beach or at the landing, |
where some one is always waiting and
watching for a sail in the offing, |
one cannot prevent his imagination
from seeking most melancholy chan
mel. There is the girl now. 1t will
not be long now before she will be a
wife. Imagine her two years married, |
sitting alone in her little home, her |
baby in the cradle, and the north wind
bowling without. She knows too well
that at that moment the one 1or whose
return she is longing and praying may /
be struggling with the breakers, while |
the highland light, which she can see,
is shining pitilessly on his agony, for
she has only to climb spur of land /
that rises behind her house to see the |
skeleton of ship which foundered only |
few months ago, and all her crew were |
lost in sight of home. The grave-stones /
in the little church-yard recall to her
every Sunday how, in one night, by the /
wreck of fishing craft homeward bound, /
over 20 women of her own village were /
widowed or those already widowed left /
ehildless, and nearly every home made
desolate. 1t Is to future attended I
with painful suggestions such as these,
and with increasing suspense and ever
present agony of mind, that these
bright, fair young girls sacrifice all /
their youth and beauty and buoyancy |
of spirits, pass voluntarily within the /
pale foa blighted womanhood.
SCRAMBLED E.GGs is a nice breakfast |