Thomas County cat. [volume] (Colby, Kan.) 1885-1891, 1885-12-17
NEW YORK NEWSGIRLS.
The Tricks. Charms and Dangers
Of their Trade.

Sitting in comfortable downtown
restaurants on these chilly autumn
evenings. with the grateful fragrance
of a good dinner pertaining the atmos-
phere, the man Of business witnesses
an occasional sight outside OF the doors
and windows in the cherries street
that sometimes fills his heart with pity
and perhaps takes away some of the
eXuberance of his appetite. 1t is the
sad and Histful face of one of the in
Vulnerable little newsgirls who sell
papers in the lower part of the city,
and who now gazes wistfully and hun
grily from the outside cold at the
picture of good cheer within that she
may not share. Perhaps, if the wait
ers are not near the door, she ventures
to open it, come inside and offer her
papers to the Men at the tables: but
she is generally driven into the street
again before she is able to effect sale.
But he is a hard-hearted man, indeed,
who. coming out well fed and content
ed, can resist the appeal: "Mister,
please buy paper. I've only got two
left
Down at the ferries. about Park row
and the Post-Otlicc, in Nassau, Wall.
all the downtown business streets and
IN Broadway, scores of little girls are
engaged afternoon and evening in the
sale of the papers. They are in all de-
Grees of rags and tatters and they rep
resent almost every nationality fur
nlShed by the tencment-house popula-
tlon, with majority of Irish and Ital-
ian children among them. They are of
all ages and sizes, from tiny mites of
even four and five years. up to we'll
grown lassies of sixteen and seventeen
years. Many of them are careful and
tidy in dress and person, and some of
the older ones compare favorably in
appearance with the pretty New York
shop girls, but there are others who are
dirty. careless and abandoned. Not
lew of them are gentle, sweet and pretty
when they begin their career as news
vendors, but contact with the others
and the life they are forced to live in
the streets, soon rub off the bloom,
and in most cases harden them into
premature little termagants. They are
obliged to take their own part in the
struggle with the rough boys of their
own class; they fight their own battles,
regardless of sex; they frequent saloons
and bar rooms late at night and listen
to the vile jests of brawlers and roughs.
No wonder that they lose their gentle
manners and girlish traits and become
nnsexed and depraved; that their faces
hose the innocence of childhood and
Oftener than not become impressed
with the unmistakable stamp of low
cunning and vice. Nevertheless, there
are exceptions to this rule and few of
the little newsgirls retain their pretty
faces and modest manSers through all
the years they run about the streets.
The newsgirl is differently situated
from the newsboy. Not few of the
latter are homeless and fatherless little
Nomads who drift about from one city
to another, living at the newsboys'
homes, or sleeping in the streets. But
most of the little girls have homes to
go to, squalid and humble though most
of them are, and a few even attend
school in the morning and leave in
time to begin the sale of the afternoon
papers as soon as the first editions are
ISSUED. From this early hour many of
them remain out until midnight, in
ktorm or sunshine, heat OF cold, until
the last paper is sold.
The hackneyed story of the little girl
Wh0 is beaten when she returns home