Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1888-11-14
MARKETS FOR WIVES.
The -Four Great Matrimonial Marts Of
New York.

The four great markets for wives in New
York, writes . correspondent, are the Sunday
school, the big stores and factories, the street
and the boarding houses. I have purpoeely
arranged them in the order above because the
greatest matrimonial markets are the Sunday
schools and the least are the boarding houses
Marriages are made in boarding houses, but the
averages clearinghouse keepers daughter ID
more apt to end an old maid than a wife
The reason is that it seems not to be good
Tor the girls for men to see them too much
or in too varied a range Of employment. L,
takes the romance and poetry out Of the wife
hunters head and the charm from a girls per.
sonality for her to be seen on her knees scrub.
ping, or with her head in towel sweeping, OF
sitting ashes in slovenly wrapper. OF course,
there are girls who can do every sort Of house.
work with such an air and grace that even a
level-headed lover will try to steal the broom
or ash-sifter she has held in order to have il for
keepsake, but those girls are not apt to be de.
veloped in the dull and cruel grind of board.
ing-house routine
In the Sunday schools the girls look their
very best. Not only do thousands of tender
hearted young fellows attend them in order Ia
develop circle of lady friends for themselves
but just so do the myriad of young women, who
are either here without their families or who
are shut up in factories all day and live in
parlorless tenements by night seek the same
religious resorts for similar ends. II is q curl
GUS function that New York Sunday schools
perform. They are resorted to by about zoe
Cinnamon, who 60 there simply to learn Eng
lish, and by thousands Of Christians who &c
there to get mated.
matrimonial markets I do not mean to have il
inferred that the girls who stand behind the
counters are given to wedding the male Gus
toners they wait upon. Such things do happen,
1 suppose, but not frequently enough for con-
siderstion, the fact being that nothing could
store than for her to be courted while on duty.
II her employers did not discharge her the
other girls would torment her beyond endur-
ance. Meetings between the girls and their
beaux on the way home from work are
not to be taken into consideration, for the
lasses go home in troops, and are mer-
CHESS teasers, SO that this is also rare oc-
currence. One Of the big shopping stores, by
the way, employs detectives to see that no
young fellows hang about the store at closing
time to meet the counter girls But there is a
field for matrimony that is directly in the
stores. and is exceedingly fruitful. The male
employees, buyers heads Of departments, men
clerks, cashiers, and even the members of the
firms get very many wives among the girls
whom they meetevery day and grow to admire, If
their qualities are such as to recommend them.
Aoquaintances thus made lead to visits at the
girls homes, to evening companionship and to
wedlock. These same men and women in the
big stores, by. the way, are among the hosts
that attend the Sunday schools.
There are actually streets set aside for court
ship by the parlorless poor. Upper Eighth
avenue, where the little shops are; Lower
Second avenue, past the houses Of the old fogy
rich, and the bottom Of Broadway, where all
the great shipping and express offices are
closed and dark-these are great Irritation
promenades of the tenement boys and girls.
There are stupid folk, who see the long process
sion Of giggling girls in their best bows and
streamers, and imagine them to be off the
path OF virtue, or slipping off. But these are
not the places where such girls are found and
he who thinks i'll Of these girls had better not
presume upon his ignorance or he will find
them well able to take care Of themselves.
No; they have put on their second best gowns,
and the young mechanics and porters have put
on their best coats and plastered their locks
with oil, and both sexes have sailed out to
meet and flirt and pair off and walk home.
They don't know it, but they cannot help doing
so. It's nature.