Arizona weekly republican., 1893-01-19

nOtiCeu, tO give Lue ODJtCJ OI lU Jne sense
 of having suffered for length of time
 beyond the power of computation. The
 phrase, "an eternity of woe," is by no
 means a mere poetical trope, but very
 real experience, as I fear too many of
 you who read these lines know from a
 bitter experience, while, on the other
 hand, the hours or days of real happi-
 ness dotted along through life seem
 so brief and so far away when once they
 are passed that we almost doubt if we
 ever actually experienced them, or if in-
 deed they were no more than one of
 those morning dreams apparently GOV
 ering hours, but which waking reason
 tells us only filled the half minutes be-
 tween the servants first and second
 knock upon the bedroom door.
 Again, the poets have, as indeed they
 generally do, seized upon the true in
 wardness of the situation when they
 speak of dream of delight" ''vision
 of joy" Just think of it! "An eternity
 of woe" and ''dream of delight" and
 yet both events may, by the measure of
 the clock, have occupied the same length
 of time.
 But to return little to our muttons.
 Take the case of a girl at hOme-and 1
 dare say some girl reading this will
 think l mean her, and somebody not
 girl will immediately fit the cap to the
 head of some friend of their own, but
 really mean no girl in particular, but, alas, a great many girls in generals girl, we will say, whose parents are in very moderate circumstances, and yet not poor enough to allow their daughter to go out into the world to earn her own living. She must stay at home and "be subject unto her parents"
 She must do the work which if it were done for stranger would bring her in solid income, while at home she is paid in food, not such as she could fancy perhaps; in clothes, each garment of which represents separate pang of modification and disappointment, and in a good deal of 'scolding and fretting at from sickly or overworked mother and harassed father. The girl feels, bitterly feels, that the days of her youth and good looks are passing by; that she is losing those chances of untold pros perity and joy which every girl believes -oh, sweet delusion!-lie within her reach if only she could get her hands free to grasp at them. She knows that unless some new opportunity is offered to her before long the day will come when she, too, will be peevish and sickly and fretted into wrinkles and sallow- ness as her mother is now, and it may well be without her mothers solace of having fulfilled woman's destiny and taken rank as wife and mother.
 Perhaps it is even worse than this; perhaps the girl is actuallyill used; per haps the father drinks, and the mother is 8 vixen, and the rough boy brothers are allowed to tease and tyrannize and bully their sister as only rough boys can.
 In either case here is a life being spoiled and crushed, and yet capable of being saved by the intervention of some strong hand and masterful will. But if this good girl is of Lotty's way of and considers that "Mum's the word" is the best rule of life, she will simply refrain from trying to summon that hand and will to her rescue, and will. after some years of desperate strug- gle, go under the waves and add one more to "the noble army of martyrs" each one of whom adds her little item to the account mankind is scoring up against fate-an account probably to be in the end, since it can never be plid off.
 But perhaps the girl, having stuck to !. her motto of "Mum's the word," finds l her release comes through some William ! or Thomas or Jack or Joseph, who offers !. her marriage. Naturally the poor child grasps at any means of escape from her |. dreary life and does not too closely | what it offers instead. SGe marries in haste and, alasl repents at l leisure. Jack or Joseph turns out to be . different from the father from whose | grumbling she has escaped, but not, on | the whole, any better. He does not | grumble or grOwl so much certainly, | but he laughs and sneers, which is worse. The father dealt out his money sparingly for the new gown that could not be refused, but the husband, if | urged too far, swears angrily that he has none to give and bids her make over her old things or buy them out of the magnificent dowry she brought him, when, poor child, she knows that he knows the price of her wedding gown is not yet scrimped out of the poor house. hold she has left.
 Perhaps, on the other hand, Jack or Joseph is foolishly careless of money, spends what he can get as soon as it comes to hand, and lives for the rest of he month on credit, as she is also wei come to do if she can get anybody to give it to her, for Jack or Joe of this 1ind had as lief be in debt for hun fred dollars as for ten, since he never Intends to pay either. We all know the md of this career-debt, failure, pro- ,esses at law, bankruptcy, ruin, misery ,f every sort. The children come, and heir mother remembers in shame and yain regret her resentment against her )wn poor mother now that she finds her