The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-02-21
IN A GIRLS LODGING HOUSE.
J, Proves a Place Of Safety to the
Neglected.
From The Nelg York Tribune.


From the NelC York Tribune.
"Well, maybe 1 am too fond Of going TO
Holiness meetings" said q working house
keeper to the writer, as she began search
for her umbrella one rainy Sunday after
coon; shut l hope YOU won't say, as another
person did awhile ago, VIXEN I asked her for
her company: 4 don't care for such goodv
goody affairs Well says I, 4 have seen
50 much badly badly in my life that 1 banker
after religious meetings, if 1t is only for a
change Where have I seen so much
Why, nobody knows better than
a young girl knocked around as
was, how muck wickedness
there is in a great city. think have told
you that il l have living relative in the
world l don't know it. My father died
when was baby, and the first thing can
remember was being held up to take the
last look at my mother as she lay in her
coffin. Then l was put in an orphan ASYLUM
where l stayed till was big enough TO 90
ont as child's nurse, at which time l said
good-by to schooling and to play. for as
YOU may guess, child's nurse in Door
family land it was to that sort that | was
sent) has lot to do besides carrying the
baby. NY, wasn't l beat and banged
around for the next five or six years!
"Of course, as soon as l was old enough
to do shop work left the folks who had
used me so roughly, and struck out for nv
self I was awful ambitious, and ready to
try anything that came along, and SO l
worked at bonnet frames and pocketbooks
and straw-sewing, and no end of otheT,
things, though at first l couldn't earn more
tlan 81 or So week. It was then learned
how hard 1t Is to earn money by honest
york, and how awful easy it is to earn it in
other ways; for though 1 never was more
than sort o good-looking, there was them
who wanted to drag me through the gut
ter before L was old enough to know
right from wrong. However, my natural
tanning Yves toward the right. and glad
enough was to find home in girls l0dg-
Ing house where could live decent and
feel safe. When I had mouey I paid 81 so
per week for board, and when was out of
work, which sometimes happened, though
not often, paid my board by making nv
self useful in the kitchen and laundry.
That didn't much like, as them kind of
boarders wasn't allowed to go out except
On Sundays, but l learned lot that has
been useful 70 me since. am a real good
cook, though | say 1t that shouldn't say it,
and L can do up shirts equal to
Wong Chong or any of them. You
see washing is took in there:
and so is dressmaklng and other kinds of
sowing; and 50 the girls are learnt to do
laundry work, and run sewing machines.
and to cut and fit, and do ever SO much be-
sides that nobody ever would have learnt
EN- in the tenement houses that most of 'em
came out of. How many boarders2 That [
doo't exactly remember, as it is fifteen years
since l left there, but | am sure the
house will hold considerably over fifty, and
in my day it was nearly always full, though
the girls were being constantly senU away,
some to the west, and some to take situa-
tons here in the city. How are they fed
Well, at that time they might have
been better fed. always said that,
after working hard all day,
those girls ought to have had
a !; stew for their supper, as the boys have in
their lodging house, instead of being put off |
with bread and butter and tea. Bread they |
have plenty of, but only butter enough for |
one slice. For breakfast there is-or. [ |
should say, there was-bread and molasses |
and tea, and there was no lunch given to |
them that worked out, though they wouldn't |
get none of the meat and potato dinner that
mat the stay-at-homes had in the middle of
lhe day. Things may have changed since
hen, and l suppose they have, for, as say,
I'm telling you of fifteen years ago. Did
.he girls clothe themselves? Not always.
out there was a lot of clothing sent
n from time to time by the Children's
AID Society and their friends, and
IS these rich people never half wear out
heir clothes, the girls that came IN without
nough on 'em to keep 'em warm were made
more comfortable than they ever were be-
ore. Between what ages are taken? Fif-
cen and 25 Now and then there will some
-ounger than ID be taken, but hardly ever
yer 25, as women at that time in life are
to earn enough and know enough
o keep 'em out of mischief Sometimes
iris will be sent in by police justices, who
mink that all they need to set 'em in the
light road is little discipline of the kind
heir own folks amt fitted to give 'em. Some
'em has fathers on the island, and some of
I'M has mothers there and it does look at such
lines us il the girls lodging house is all
hat stands between them and the gutter.
It's my opinion that half of the girls who 20
D the'bRd are sent there by the fault of
hem who ought to have brought em up
itferentN a young girl-and real pretty
ne, too-came to the lodging house one
light when I was there, and saws she:
Mamma told me this morning that wasn't
D come back to her if l didn't get some
york to do, and l can't get it, because l
ever have been taught nothing. If was
D go home now, just as like as not I'd find
er fighting drunk, and then she'd beat me
Ike the dicKens.'
THAT girl was took in, and the last l
card of her she was first-rate laundress,
citing all the work she could do. If she
ed been turned away don't like to think
what she would be now. There amt
mt few young girls that are vicious by
allure, and that's the reason why homes
Ike the girls lodging house mas been the
avlng of so many of them"