Omaha daily bee., 1888-10-28

in the institution are women of natural
refinement. 1t is also significant that
with only n exception all the girls in
the home have grown up motherless.
The girls are all taught some self-sus-
tanning occupation, and a number have
proved excellent dressmakers. Homes
are found for the younger girls in some
remote locality, and for the older ones
positions are secured in some place
where they are unknown and the faint
of the buried past will not follow to dis
courage them in their efforts to lead
better lives.
At present there are ten girls in the
institution and homes have been found
for eight former inmates and three
babes. AT present there is a pretty lit
tie infant only four days old, with long,
black hair, awaiting adoption. The
girls at the Open Door do all the work
about the institution.
The building has not the capacity
that some people suppose. 1t was built
as a private residence, and contains four
rooms on the first floor, three upstairs
n three in the basement. The front
apartment on the first floor is used as a
reception room, the second as Mrs,
Clark's private room, the next as a sit
ting-room for the girls and a fourth as a
nursery or lying-in hospital. The three
rooms upstairs are all cOmmOdiOus and
are used as sleeping apartments, two
beds being in each ROOM. The rooms
in the basement are used for kitchen,
dining-roOm and laundry purposes.
Mrs. Lee is the matrOn of the %institu-
ton, and Mrs. Clark superintendent.
Forty dollars per month is paid for rent
tuition averages from 5000 to $3.50. All
this has been raised through the per-
sonal efforts of Mrs. Clark and has been
subscribed mainly by the women of the
various churches. Mrs. Clark makes it
a point to meet the ladies of a church
some Sunday after service and present
the matter to them. The result is al
ways satisfactory. Among the churches
which have been thus visited and have
responded are the First Baptist, the
Beth Eden Baptist, the Calvary Bap-
fist, st. Johns Episcopal, Southwest
Presbyterian, Park Avenue Methodist
tional churches. All have pledged
monthly contributions. Donations have
also been made by the local WOmen's
Christian Temperance union.
1t is the intention OF Mrs. Clark to go
before the legislature and ask that they
allow the monthly fines collected from
the houses of ill-fame in Omaha to go
toward building a permanent local home
for the unfortunates who wish to re-
form. il such a home is built it will be
so constructed that the reformed courte-
sans and girls who are to become moth
ers will be in separate wings Of the
building.
Many seem to think that the present
Open Door is a refuge for any and
everybody. Such is not the case. 1t i;
intended only for reformed cOurtesans
and ruined girls in Omaha. 1t is not
poor house nor home for the friendless
nor a state institution.
In a great and wicked city like Omaha
where immortality clothed in fine liner
haunts its finery in the face o
ragged virtue; where a grea
mass Of the male population
appear to do all in theiI
power to debase and demoralize veal
women; where the reward of shame i
gold and the wages Of purity hunger
an institution like the Open Door ha
become an absolute necessity. II is sus
tanned almost wholly by christian
women No persons get more OF IN in
sight into mans deprayity that tn,
ladies who conduct this institution.
number OF young girls who have BEEF
ruined nave wandered here, telling hoy
male friends had insisted that tn
only courue now before them was to lea