The Bossier banner., 1891-10-29

Alexander Smiths tragedies, but
never read a tragedy more thrilling
than that case, and similar cases by the
hundreds and thousands in all our
large cities. Young women with
out money and without home and with
out work in the great maelstrOms of
metropolitan life. When such case
comes under your observation how do
you treat it. Get out of my way; we
have no room in our Establishment for
any more hands. l don't believe in
women anyway; they are lazy, idle,
worthless set. John, please show this
person out of the door" Or do you
compliment her personal appearance,
and say things to her which if
any man said to your sister or daugh-
ter you would kin him on the spot?
That is one way, and it is tried every
day in the large cities, and many OF
those who advertise for female hands
in factories and for lgovernesses in
families have proved themselves unfit
to be in any place outside of hell But
there is another way, and saw it one
day in the Methodist Book Concern
III NEW OTh, WAtICs .b 5OuIlS
woman applied for work, and the gen
tleman, in tone and manner, said in
substance: "My daughter, we employ
women here, but | do not know of any
vacant place in our department. You
had better inquire at such-and-such
place, and l hope you will be success
full in getting something to do. Here is
my name, and tell them / sent you" The
embarrassed and humiliated woman
seemed to give way to Christian conf
dence She started out with hopeful
look that l think l must have
won for her place in which
to earn her bread rather think
that eonsiderate and Christian
gentleman saved a woman. New York
and Brooklyn ground up last year
about thirty thousand young women,
and would like to grind up about as
many this year. Out of all that long
procession of women who march on
with no hope for this world or the next,
battered and bruised and scoffed at,
and flung off the precipice, not one but
might have been saved for home and
God and Heaven. But good men and
good women are not in that kind of
business. Alas for that poor thing!
nothing but the thread of that sewing
girls needle held her, and the thread
broke. ~ +s ''~~ .-s- -t
There is another exploit you can do,
and that is to save a child 4 child
does not seem to amount to much. 1t
is nearly year old before it can walk
at all For the first year and halfit
can not speak word. For the first ten
years it would starve if it had to earn
it's own food. For the first fifteen years
its opinionon any subject is absolutely
valueless. And then there are so many
of them. My, what lots of chill
dren! And some people have. con
tempt for children. They are
good for nothing but to wear out
the carpets and break things and keep
you awake nights crying. Well, your
estimate of "a ehild'is quite different
from that mothers estimate who lost
her child this summer. They took it
to the salt air of the. seashore and to
the tonic air of the mountains, but no
help came, and the brief paragraph of
it's life is ended. Suppose life could
be restored by purchase, how
much would that bereaved moth,
jewels from her fingers and neck
and bureau and put them down And
if told that that was not enough, she
would take her house and make over
the deed for it, and if that were not
enough she would call in all her in
vestments, and put down all her mort
cages and bonds, and if told that were
not enough she would say: II have
made over all my property, and if !
cam have that child back I will now
pledge that / will toll with my
own hands and carry with my
own shoulders in any kind ofhard work,
and live in cellar and die in a garret.
Only give me back that lost darling!''
l am glad that there are those who
know something of the value of a
child. It's possibilities are tremendous.
What will those hands yet do? Where
will those feet yet walk' Toward
what destiny will that never-dying soul
betake itself? Shall those lips be the
throne of blasphemy or benediction?
Come, chronologists, and calculate the
decades on decades, the centuries on
centuries, of it's lifetime. Oh, to save
a child! Am not right in putting that
among the great exploits?
But what are you going to do with
those children who are worse off shan
if their father and mother had died the
day they were born? There are tens of
thousands of such Their parentage is
against them. Their namey is against
them. The. structure of their Skulls
against them. Their nerves and nus
cles contaminated by the inebriety OF
dissoluteuess of their parents; Shey
are. practically at their birth
laid out on a plank in the middle OF
the Atlantic ocean, in an equinoctial
gale, and told. to make for shore What
to do with them is the question often
asked. There is another question quite
as pertinent, and that is, what are they
going to do with us 4? They will, ten
or eleven years from now, have as
many votes as the same number OF
weH-born children, and they wifi hand
this land>over to anarchy and political