The evening world., 1889-07-22

slips and nightgowna to costume . founding
asylum, aprons Of dimity and gingham, lit
tie Carrie coats and long pettlcoats, n noun
tain OF white napkins. shoes Of kid and
morocco, soft MS a lady's glove and all care
fully tied in pairs ; coats Of wool and fleece
lined merino. and here and there q rubber
doll, a rattle and q ring with cap and bells.
The piano is stacked with dresses--of dim
ity, muslin, bombazine, cambria and calico
for infants and r~unabouts, all nearly new.
nicely Numbered and SO p~rettilv made that in
giving them away the baby gets a frock and
the mother a pattern for innumerable
dresses. This is by nc means an insignificant
item, for In the majority of cases the women
have grown up without any knowledge what
ever of keeping house or raising a family.
1t is not wholly their fault that they are
cursed by ignorance. At the age OF fourteen
and less the girls are sent out to run checks
in n store or roll cigarettes in II factory. They
remain at the work year after year shaving
from 7 o'clock until Z o'clock, many
of them six days in the week. for the bare
means Of subsistence, aud when at the age OF
maturity the young men in the shop offer to
marry them they gladly accept, hoping that
the change will better their condition. The
day after the wedding they go on with their
worA to help procure the needed articles for
the humblest fiat. aud no time is found for
serving. cooking or the study of domestic
science.
Children are born. the factory work has to
be abandoned. thus reducing the income, and
the slender earnings of the young husbands
scarcely pay the rent and grocery bills.
Mother md children exist.
A work-basket is something unknown, o
spool of thread is rarely seen in the house,
and. unable TO sew, there Is no use for q needle.
Anything that will cover the nakedness OF the
child is regarded as q suficiency.
For the first year the garment Is as desti-
tute Of design as a table cloth, and the tiny
sheeting quite as often as in n slip. The
young children are put in shop dresses,
bought at great inconvenience. and the
parents clothes are used as makeshifts by the
large children.
Ignorance in caring for the chlldten, in
preparing food, keeping house and buying
provisions, is even more lamentable, for in it
is involved the ambition of the husband, the
welfare of the family and the happiness of the
home.
In less than tho two weeks work of TIE
EVENING WORLDS corps of free physicians the
doctors have made q list of not less than 700
names of families in the very depths of
misery and families in which the
father is unemployed, the children sick and
the mother insensiDle to everything but her
need of food, drink and medicine.
One case is particularly pathetic. The
father has a fractured ankle that will keep
him from work for another month. The
mother is IN a delicate condition, her young
est child has whooping cough, the two cider
have been very i'll from cholera morbus and
are not yet out of danger, aud previous to
this al were sick with scarlet fever and
measles during the early Spring, and the
medical attendance that saved their lives
depleted the family purse. Now the home is
cherries and the Gang is the deeper because
pride-wrapped, and there are hundreds and
hundreds of Just such cases in the route of
every physician in The EVENING WORLD
corps, to whom q kind-hearted mother or
friend would seem a ministering angel sent
from anove.
But the good work of The EVENING
WoRLp's Baby Relief Fund goes bravely on,
and If the doctors are not able to stop and
comfort a %sorroNing mother, II they cannot
detail the pre- paration OF a Lroth. a piece OF
toast, o plaster. u bath or cooling fruit drink.
they do the best that can be done with the
material and time at their disposal, and that
is all tina can be expected.
II at they are doing much good there isn't
a question that they could do moro with the
generous ass. stan ce of the New York women
who are mothers and know what sickness
anu suffering mean, is as certain a. the
splendor of the noon sun. NELL NELSON.
NO RUDTIIED JTCE EOD M0CT