Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-07-31
LOVELY WHITE SLAVES.
Fhe Life of Circassian Girl Who Il
 Reared for tho Egyptian Market.


 The Circassian is little fair-haired lass from far village in Turkestan. Her father is robber or a herdsman, and she will perhaps be Princess. The Prince Charming, whom the governess is always looking for, but who never comes, is very strong po- tentiality of the white slave girl.
 One day bearded and venerable old Turk arrives from Stamboul, and picks out our little girl. She is not carried away by force, but gold is counted out and she is perched on a mule, and bids goodbye forever to barbarism.
 The purchaser ta kes every imagin- able pains with her education and ap- pearance. She is tau ght to read and write, to dance and sing, to embroider in silk and play the guitar, and further initiated into all the mysteries of the toilet. When she has grown into budding womanhood the dealer lets his best customers know that he possesses a treasure almost priceless, and her virt- ues and beauties are detailed with the usual Oriental exaggeration. Finally. some royal Pri ncess or rich Pasha's wife expresses wish to see her, and extra care having been taken with her bath and dress she is presented for insp ection.
 From long preparations and jealous guarding from the sun she has skin white as milk and her naturally beau tiful type of face is adorned with the usual tints of kohl to the eyebrows and eyelashes and rouge to the full red lips. Her Nquisitely-shaped nails glow with henna, and her own luXuri- ant hair is entwined with meshes of silk for the prophet curses "wOmen who join their own hair to that of another or that of another to their own'O till it reaches her ankle in an uneven numb Der of tails, an even number being forbidden. She gives samples of her. accomplishments musical, gymnastic and otherwise. Accepted. she is at once clothed with a rich silk dress, and receives a present of neck lace or bracket, as an earnest of favor before she joins her fellow slaves.
 Beyond assisting her mistress in the toilet, accompanying her in her drives, and handing her coffee and cigarettes, she has little to do. She is an orna- mental ap bondage rather than serv- ant. A household such as one of these Circassians would enter would contain a crowd of men servants and black women to do the work, and per haps ten to twenty other girls like her self, and a very gay time they have to- gether.
 The great ladies are very fond of eX- entertainments, at ah of which some of the slave girls attend. When she goes out with her mistress in the natty. little brougham, almost the only difference between the lady and her maid lies in the former taking the right hand seat.
 The girl is dressed in a way to do credit to the house she belongs to, and often sparkles with jewels, chatting freely with every body at the place she visits, and enjoys herself as fully as any of the emancipated. When the time comes for her to be married her owner chooses a suitable husband and gives a rich dover, and many of the marriages of slave girls eclipse in magnit7tence those of even the wealthier classes. The erstwhile bare footed, ragged little Circassian from Turcoman's land is now Princess or Pasha's wife, with slaves of her own; but she would laugh if you suggested to her that there was any thing de- grading in their position or had been in her own.
 The degradation and the hardship are simply ideas formed in ignorance of tho facts and conditions of Oriental domestic life, and have no place in reality. Of course, there is another side to the picture, but even that is not a very dark one. The girl may fall under the displeasure of master or mis- tress, and will getpunished. She may be locked up for few hours, or if her mistress is hot tempered, have her hair pulled and receive sounding box on the ear. Perhaps in very rare or ex- treme cases a severe beating may be administered; but the same might and would often happen in the case of a paid servant. A reconciliation, how ever, shortly takes place, and the peace is cemented with a present of a new dress or trinket.-Sdturday Rerie,0.