The evening world., 1890-07-05
WHERE POVERTY REIGNs.
Nell Nelson's Letter to a Woman of
Wealth and Fashion.

| Nou NELSON'S q Letter TO a woman OIL
Wealth and Fashion.
DEAR Mrs. LAMBERT; Certainly you
may accompany n Free Fund Physician
any day you are rendy for glimpse of
low lfe." Send note TO Chief of Corps,
DIR. NJ. l.. Foster, SO West Thirty-ffth
street, designating the time and place of
meeting. and the handsomest and most
atIable gentleman on the staff will be at
your service az guide and guard.
Let me prepare you for an early engage
ment, as the doctors are ON the alert at 0
O'Clock and visit from rs to 100 families q
dnv. You will need your seven. n.league
boots to keep up with the most deliber-
ate members of the corps and pungent
deodorizer of some sort as q sanitary pre-
caution. Wear your coolest, simplest
clothes; leave oil your jewelrv at home,
to escape being hooted rather than robbed.
and I'LL your pockets with aims and call
ing cards. for you cannot make u trip of
this sort without increasing your list of
proteges, feeding those who hunger and
helping to piece out the rent for the un-
fortunates who have been rendered al
most desperate by threats of eviction.
It is only by degrees that the dire dis
tress Of the east side is brought to the
notice Of the west-siders. and do not
think you hnve dreamed even Of such
miseries as are suffered daily by our sis.
ters at the other end of this vast city.
The black border Of your note tells me
that bereavement has saddened your
home. and the tender reference to the
poor sick babies leads me to think Of
loved and lost child. would not open
with remembrance the wounds in your
heart further than to say that the woes of
others will soften your SORROWS.
know you have suffered, but not Us
these east-side mothers do.
Your prosperity surround ed you with
comforts, beautifed your home, glad
dened your eyes, fed your soul, delighted
your senses and charmed your very exist
ence; it brought you solace, friends.
ideals Your little one WAS fostered aud
pampered with love. Soft flannel, fine
linen. delicate lace and the bheerest of
silk enhanced the loveliness of infancy.
The precious wealth that gave you will
ing and skilled service multiplied the
blessings of Fortune and the bounty of
Nature.
My dear. your Eslrt would break with
pity could you go with DIR. Hallwood into
Forsyth street and see the destituton of
young mother and babe not yet
week old. Can you, remembering the
beauty and sumptuous appointment of
your bassinet, believe that little one
could be born heir to nothing at all but
the breath of life2
Actually nothing.
Not garment in readiness, not wrap
or shawl tit to touch the tender body
and not 30 much as yard of clean, soft
cloth available.
Would you believe thar DIR. Leppa gould
take you through Five Points and show
you hundreds of little babies swaddled in
coats, carpet. dish-towels and pieces OF
bedtickng. or that among the double
deckers " of Cherry Hill there are dozens
and scores Of teething children 30 nearly
naked that sickness is inevitable and
death almost certainty
Aud will you doubt the ability of DR.. |
Gillespie to take ) GU through district III
Poverty Flat where the parents have
been rendered desperate by starvation
aud the children imbecile by hunger,
disease and neglectg
1t will not be a hard task, depend upon |
it, but the spectacle may make you faint
and sick, Rasping poverty is horrible To I
contemplate, hut when il is coupled with /
physical deformity and disease it is sick /
ening,
If you make the trip you will meet dis
tTess and soTrOw IN every stage You |
will hnd empty lsTders, empty fuel boxes |
and empty purses; you will fud homes
without beds and beds without any cover
ing or pillows; YOU will and whole fami-
lies sleeping on the roofs and praying
that it may not storm you will
ind sick children pillowed on fre-escapes
and tiny babies eTadled in cracker
box, char or dolls wagon:
you will meet sorely wasted old
people, palsied and haggard, keenly
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
Inents, whose very shoes aud bonnets
have been forfeited for the purchase Of
bread and milk; you wall find the sunksn
syes, hollow cheeks, wasted forms and
IVORY hands Of approaching death. and in
he faces Of the living the pallor Of hunger
md despair, which is more RhAstly than
. ths touch Of icy 6ngsES" Worse than