The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1902-09-27
Should Be Rebuksd.

The messenger GIRL decked il
boomers and mounted upon a bike
will make her appearance in Sal
Lake in few days. That is, if the
manager of the Western Union Tele-
graph company can induce the girls
of this city to take positions upon the
messenger force. The messenger boy
with all the faults attributed to him
must go way back and sit down. The
curtain is being rung down upon the
scene Of his Importance.
This paragraph led one of the local
news features in morning paper this
week. The rest of the article gives
the telegraph managers reasons for
deciding to hire girls between the ages
of u and 16 years in an employment
more treacherous to virtue than any
other in which poor children could be
engaged.
Two of the managers reasons are
quoted from the cold, business stand
point:
I'VE want as many girls between the
ages of u and 16 as we can get" said
the manager to the Herald reporter,
and we propose to put them to work
as soon as they apply for positions. Of
course, l don't know what success we
will have in getting girls, but we can
not get boys enough to do our work.
and we are forced to call upon the
girls to help out. Then, too, we have
so much trouble with the boys. 1t is
hard to get boys who can be trusted
ali the time, and girls are not so cas-
lily tempted to steal money or "soi-
der as the boys are
bo i
ager makes nice moral distinction be-
tween boys and girls in such employ
ment, and is certain that the latter
are proof against the temptations
hourly besetting the boy. What are
some of those temptations? Stealing
money is the least. Any person watch
ing the direction which at least one
half of these messengers take in re-
Spouse to summonses, will see them
turn up the red light district, or de-
liver messages at other questionable
quarters. Few innocent boys can be
hourly witnesses of sin without con-
tamination, and for this reason, as the
telegraph manager says, 'it is hard to
get boys who can be trusted all the
time" He might have added that some
of these boys know more of vice and
the half world than the ordinary Salt
Lake detective.
The manager assured the reporter
that the girls would be employed only
in the day time and a force of boys
would be retained to send out to sa-
looms and places Of bad reputation.
That statement may serve to allay any
of evil the parents of
the messenger girl might entertain, but
1t should not. The girl may never be
sent to places of bad repute nor de-
liver messages at saloons, yet how easy |
t is for unprincipled persons to decoy |
girls to rooms.
In whatever light the matter is
viewed, there is danger to the messen-
ger girl. She is Yearly always upon
he street, her boomer costume expos
ng her to ridicule and insult. Soon her
natural timidity and reserve gives
Dlace to holiness of manner-childish
estraint is no qualification for the sue
essful messenger. And if these are
lot enough to stifie modesty and hor-
or of vice, the companionship of those
'oys retained for the red light service
viii hasten the end of virtue.
These remarks are not intended to
asst reflection upon the manager of the
elegraph company. Like most employ
RS of labor, he is anxious for good
ervice and enlarged patronage, and
erhaps has not weighed the moral
fleet Of his plan. We trust, however,