The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1891-09-04

eA@s Ease was proved genuine. NOW
have read all Shakspeare's tragedies,
and all Victor Hugo's tragedies, ami al
Alexander Smiths tragedies, but ]
never read tragedy more thrilling
than that case, and similar cases by the
hundreds and thousands iv 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 a case
comes under your observation how dc
you treat it. ''Get out of my way; we
have no room in our establishment fol-
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 il
any man said to your sister or daugh-
ter you would kill 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 governesses 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
IN New York, where young
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 a
place, and l hope you will be success
full in getting something to do. Here is
my name, and tell them L sent you" The
embarrassed and humiliated woman
seemed to give way to Christian conf
dence. She started out with a hopeful
look that / think / must have
won for her place in which
to earn her bread 1 rather think
that considerate and Christian
gentleman saved 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.
There is another exploit you can do,
and that is to save child. A child
does not seem to amount to much. 1t
is nearly a year old before it can walk
at all. For the first year and half it
can not speak word. For the first ten
years it would starve if it had to earn
its own food. For the first fifteen years
it's opinion on 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 child 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
er give? She would take all the
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: Il have
made over all my property, and if
can have that child back 1 will now
pledge that I 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!''
/ am glad that there are those who
know something of the value of a
child. Its 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 its lifetime. Oh, to save
a childl Am / not right in putting that
among the great exploits?
But what are you going to do with
those children who are worse off than
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 name is against
them. The structure of their skulls
against thema Their nerves and mus
cles contaminated by the inebriety or
of their parents; they
are practically at their birth
laid out on 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 :? They will, ter
or eleven years from now, nave az
MANY votes as the same number of
we'll born children, and they will hand |
this land over to anarchy and political |
damnation just as sure as we neglect |
them. Suppose we each one of us save
a boy or save girl You can do it. |
VIII you? / will.
AS love is the most delightful pas
sion, pity is nothing else but love soft |
ened nv a degree of sorrow In short