The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-02-04
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more substantial benefits. from the rnissions and church houses.
 These extracts need no comments. Tba Working Girl suggests better workers in the field of these religious institutions. It Is strange. and has heen to me an unaccountable thing that an instinctive distrust was in the heart of plain working person when brought into contact with paid work CT for Grace and Gospel. Whether too much is expected, whether too little hu- man nature allowed such officials, or whether the religious salary really pro- duces atrophy of sterling virtues. Is not sieternined. Or 1t may be that such soft pIaces, small, but sure pay, warmth and shelter draw to themselves. as the working Girl seems to suggest. the al- ready weak and incompetent
 T have no quarrel to quote farther, ''to pick with the Salvation Army. nor with the city missions. as institutions. Roth have done too much good for that ninety and nine which the church for gets. But it Is pity that the work If the Salvation Army and of he city missions Is sometimes relegated to the control of such incompetent and un- worthy persons as Henrietta Manners and. Brother Mason"
 Are there not enough intelligent, conscientious men and women among the churches who would consider 1t not only a duty, but precious privilege to carry the Gospel of Jesus Christ into dark places? It Is not wise to set q thief to catch thief, and 1t Is worse than useless to encourage the weak, not to say the derraved, to carry the Gospel to their kind"
 Escaping from Henrietta Manners, our working Girl fell under the pro- lection of Mrs. Bridget Reynolds Then rises our trust in human nature. For in the gin-poisoned form of the old Irish woman long since reduced to sleeping in doorways and corners. yet shone the sterling virtues of independ- ence and helptulness.
 The early day, after night or Mrs. Bridget Reynolds's protection, is light ed by the friendly kindness of the cashier of a dairy lunch room.
 Then the darkness and safety (with prudence) of a Home for Working Girls"
 Here the sociological worker can find food for thought. Amid the fierce responsibility of this place grew the noisome growths of thievery, fear Of poison from self-indulgence on the part of the matron.
 The home for working girls was also an asylum for waifs.
 ITO this home for working girls the waifs. the foundlings, come at all sorts of tender years. They came as little children, and they went away as grown women. For them the home was pri- son. Locked in here from morning till night, they were prisoners at all save certain stated times when they were taken abroad for walk under charge of the matrons. In return for &,. 5f.<aa .t1t-z branches. and a very generous tuition in the drudgery of the kitchen. the laundry, and the sewing room, they re- ceived in all these years only their board and clothes and a certain nomi- nal protection against the vices and corruptions of the street and the gutter from which they had been snatched," /"
 The Home did large dress-nlaking and laundry business. for which the waifs furnished hands.
 A bright picture Is given of the flower-workers in Rosenfeld's. of the beautiful head-woman, most skilled rose-maker in New York, of the alert girls at their beauteous tasks.
 Then the sweat shops, where inces- sant labor and some kindness reigned. Making of boxes for jewelry followed. The Death of Bernice on the drear island. The loss of Eunice, still lost in or bur led under the city's rush.
 The laundry work came in time and meeting with the first acquaintance of the working girl in New York, the ever successful Minnie Plympton. She has been uccessful-successful in the only real way a woman can, after all, be successful Minnie is married. She is the wife of an enterprising young bu- siness man, and the mother of a charming baby
 After the meeting with Minnie, things took a turn; work became lighter, as fl always does when there Is sympathizing friendship in the back ground. There was work behind a notion counter Then as demonstrator of tea and cof- fee. Then a night course in stenogra- phy. study of English composition punctuation. brushing up in spelling and grammar. The second position as stenographer was with the editor of q religious pa per. Naturally, authorship grew out of this and prosperity.
 The Epilogue is a splendid summing up of the needs of the Working Girl. Foremost they must work rather than be worked One may have no experi- ence whatever in any line of work, yet one may know how to work-may un- derstand the general principles of in- | telligent labor" To work, not be worked, means to be | self possessed: to hold ones powers in control: it is fruit of character in the individual and must be growth of that thing we call breeding, rearing. Il must come first from the home, next | from kindergarten. school, and from constant self-improvement. It is need ed by every human being. for all true