The evening world., 1890-07-05
WHERE POVERTY REIGNS.
Nell Nelson's Letter to q Woman oi
Wealth and Fashion.

Nell Nelson's Letter to q Woman oil
Wealth and Fashion.
DEAR Mas. LANBIRr, Certainly you
may accompany Free Fund Physician
nny day you are ready for glimpse Of
low life." Send noto 10 Chief of Corps,
DR.. NJ. L. Foster, SO West Thirty fifth
street, designating the time md place Of
meeting. and the hnndsomest and most
affnble gentleman on tho staiI will be at
your service as guide and guard.
Let me prepare you for an early engage
ment, as the doctors arc on the alert at 0
O'Clock and visit from 75 to 100 families a
day. You will need your seven. league
boots to keep up with the most deliber.
ate members Of the corps and pungent
deodorizer Of some sort as sanitary pre-
caution. Wear your coolest, simplest
clothes; leave all your jewelry at home,
to escape being hooted rather than robbed,
and fill your pockets with aims and call
ing cards. for you cannot make trip of
this sort without increasing your list Of
proteges. feeding those who hunger and
helping TO piece out tho rent for the un-
fortunAtes who have been rendered al
most desperate by threats of eviction.
II is only by degrees that the dire dis
trsss Of tho east aide Ia brought to the
notice Of the west-siders, md 1 do not
think you have dreamed even Of such
miseries as are suffered daily by our sis.
terra At the other end Of this vast city.
The black border Of your note tells me
that 0 bereavement has saddened your
homo. and the tender reference to the
poor alex babies leads me TO think of a
loved and lost child. Iwould not open
with remembrance the wounds in YOUR
heart further than 10 say that the woes of
others will soften your SORROWS.
know you have suffered, but not as
those east-side mothers do.
Your prosperity surround ed you with
comforts, beauti6ed your home, glad
dened your eyes, fed your soul. delighted
your senses and charmed your very exist
ence; 1t brought you solace, friends,
ideals Your little one was fostered and
pampered with love. Soft flannel, fine
linen. delicate lace and the sheerest of
silk enhanced tho loveliness OF infancy.
The precious wealth that gave you will
ing and skilled service multiplied tha
blessings Of Fortune and the bounty of
Nature.
Ny dear, your holrt would break with
pity could you go with DIR. Hallwood into
Forsyth street and see the destitut on OF
young mother and babe not yet a
week old. Can you, remembering the
beauty and sumptuous appointment of
your bassinet. believe that a little one
could be born heir to nothing at all but
the breath of lifeS
Actually nothing.
Not a garment in readiness, not a wrap
or shawl ht TO touch the tender body
and not so much Is a yard OF clean, soft
cloth available.
Would you believe that DIR. Lsppa could
take you through Five Points and show
you hundreds of little babies swaddled in
coats, carpet, dish-towels and pieces of
bedticklng, or that among the - double
dNckers OF Cherry HUI there are dozens
and scores OF teething chi dTen so near,y
naked that sickness Is inevitable and
death almost . certainty
And will you doubt the ability of DR..
Gillespie to take on through district in
Poverty Flat where the parents have
been rendered desperate by starvation
aud the children imbeeile by hunger,
disease AMI nsglsctl
1t viii not be hard task, depend upon
il, but the spectacle may make you faint
and sick, Rasping poverty is horrible to
contemplate, hut when il Is coupled with
physical deformity and disease it is sick.
enIng.
II you make the trip you will meet dis
tress and sorrow in every. stage. You
will find empty larders. empty fuel boxes
and empty purses; you will Aud homes
without beds and beds without any cover.
ing or pillows; YOU will hnd whole fami.
lisS zleep'ng on the roofs and praying
that 1t may not storm you VIII
hhd sick children pillowed on hre-esclpes
and tiny babies crailed in a cracker
box, char or a dolls wagon;
you will meet soIely wasted old
people, palsied and hacEard. kesnly
susceptible to scrutiny. making heroic
Efforts to Subdue any expression of i'm
patience or suffering; you will meet brave
mothers stripped OF all womanly gar.
ments. whose very SHOES aud bonnets
have been forfeited for the purchase OF
bread aud milk; you will hud the suuken
eyes, no low cheeks. wasted forms and
ivory hands Of approaching death. and in
the faces Of the living the palloF Of hunger
and despair. which u more RhAstly than
- the touch Of 10y hREsTL" Worse than