Thomas County cat. [volume] (Colby, Kan.) 1885-1891, 1888-08-02
LOVELY WHITE SLAVES.

LOVELY WHITE SLAVES.
The Life Of t. Circassian Girl whe Il
Reared for the Egyptian Market.
The Circassian is little fair-haired
lass from far village in Turkestan.
Her father is robber or herdsman,
and she will perhaps be Princess.
The Prince Charming, whom the
governess is always looking for. but
who never comes, is a very strong po-
tentiality of the white slave girl.
One day bearded and venerable old
Turk arrives from STEAMBOAT, 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 ia kes every imagin-
able pains with her education and APP
pearance. She is taught 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 Writ
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
inspection.
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 eXquisitely-shaped nails
glow with henna, and her own luxuri-
ant hair is entwined with meshes of
silk QOr the prophet curses women
who join their own hair to that
of another or that of another to
their own') till it reaches her ankle
in an uneven number of tails, an
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 necklace 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 appendage rather than serv-
ant. A household such as one Of
these Circassians would enter would
contain a crowd of men servants ap1
black women to do the work, and per-
haps ten to twenty other girls like her.
self, and very gay time they have to-
gether.
The great ladies are very fond OF eS-
changing visits and giving musical
entertainments, at all 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 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 suitable husband and
gives rich dover, and many of
the marriages of slave girls eclipse
in magniticence those of even the
Weather classes. The erstwhile bare
footed, ragged little Circassian from
TurcOman land is now a 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 the 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 get punished. She may
be locked up for few hours, or if her
mistress is hot tempered, have her hair
pulled and receive a sounding box on
the ear. Perhaps in very rare or ex-
IRENE cases 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 present of new
dress or Enthusiastically Reciew.