The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1884-09-04
Cane Cad Women.

Cape Cod Women.
"If there was eyer q blighted race Of
women" said a gentleman of this city.
recently returned from q visit to. Gaps
Cod, sit exists in the peninsular vii
lagos of Massachusetts,, villages which
depend on the fisheries for the support of
their inhabitants. Nowhere else in all
New England will n see SO high an
average of female beauty, especially in
symmetry of form and freshness OF
complexion, as is noticeable among the
young girls Of these Cape Cod fisher
mems towns, girls ranging from fifteen
to twenty years of age. But it will not
take one long to discover the startling
and melancholy fact that if this girlish
beauty and freshness is unusual and
unexpected, it is also only too apparent
that its duration is brief. The change
produced in these girls by the lapse of
q 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 maturing womanhood, between the
freshness and buoyancy of the girl of
twenty and the woman of thirty-five or
forty, is entirely absent. The height
ened color of the cheeks is gone. The
ayes are sunken and wear q constant
look of sadness and anxiety. Gray hair
in heads over which a score and a half
of years have scarcely passed, and deep
lines in faces which should show no
trace of age for twenty-five years to
come, are rather the rule than the
-rzz-As1- Trlo,o o~oa hacfAAc erf
fering from all the inevitable orrows
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 a life of con-
tinual suspense and anxiety which is al
most certain in time to be embittered
by an overwhelming grief.
1.-THE most obtuse observer needs not
to ask the cause of this lacko complete
matronly beauty among those women
whose budding days open with the
greatest promise of a superb physical
womanhood, and for the utter extinc-
ton of that light-heartedness and
brightness which marked their girlish
life. The cause suggests itself at once
to one who sees the congregations OF
women on the benches 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 q 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
the lettering 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-
erous waters of the fishing banks, and
their return, if they return at all, is as
uncertain as the weather, which forms
the one great subject of conjecture and
apprehension among the villagers.
Husbands, sons, fathers, brothers and
sweethearts are somewhere out on the
bosom of the sea-, probably 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 northeaster
chills it with doubt and despair. Con.
stantly 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 mus
follow this perpetual suspense and long.
ing should destroy the fountains o.
youth and beauty in these patient,
suffering women and place upon them
the marks of age while they are YET
iyoungp
"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 n based.
Go among any group of these bright,
buoyant girls in any of the villages Of
the class / am speaking of, and you'wil
find that nine out of ten of them looE
forward to q union with some one who
will spend his life fishing in the sum
mer and coasting in the winter. The
idea that there might be any other flu
ture for them than the one which is Il
come to them as fishermen's wives, OF
that the life of a fisherman'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, hap
by girls, chatting and romping annie
half dozen sad-eyed young wives and
mothers 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 a most melancholy channel
There is the girl now. It will not be
long before she will be a wife. Imag.
inc her two year married, sitting alone
jim her little home, her baby in the era.
| die, and the north wind bowling with.
out. She knows too well that at thai
moment the n for whose return Shelf
longing and praying may be struggling
I'm the breakers, while the Highland
light, which she can see, is shining pit
ilessly on his agony, for she has only tc
/ climb a spur of land that rises behind
her house to see the skeleton of a ship
which foundered only a few months
ago, and all her crew were lost in sight
Of home. The gravestones in the little
churchyard recall to her every Sunday
how, in one night, by the wreck of fishing
craft homeward bound, over seventy
women of her own village were wild.
owed, or these already widowed left
childless, ard nearly every home made
desolate. 1t is to a future attended
with painful suggestions such as these,
and with unceasing suspense and eve1
present agony of mind, that these
bright, fair young girls sacrifice all
their youth and beauty and buoyancy
of spirits, and pass voluntarily within
the pale of a blighted wo1nanhood."-
N. ?. Sun.
n-l- Oh