The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1913-03-02

III harmony win hef EFFORT TO protect
young women who come into the city.
In their turn the trainmen and agents
at the station, are glad to help the
Travellers Aid. 1t makes their
problems in dealing with the travelling
public easier to solve, when there is a
sympathetic woman with authority
ready at the station to take are of
difficult cases.
A puzzling case came to the atten-
ton of the conductor on one of the
Northern Pacific passenger trains not
long ago. He was a gentleman of
kindly Sympathies and it bothered him
to know just what to do for the at
tractive little Swedish girl not yet out
of her teens, who vas making the
journey from Sweden to Wallace, Ida
no, there to join her brother and uncle.
She had been put on a through train
by friends in New York City and she
a well provided with money for
comfortable travelling. Her difficulty
was that she knew scarcely any word
of English and that she would have
to stop over one night in Missouri
which seemed to her a frightful eX-
perience to be dreaded. She was in
tears and loath to trust any person
who tried to talk to her on the train.
Then it was that the conductor be-
thought himself of a certain friendly,
refined, little woman who made it her
business to meet trains at the railway
station and render service to any one
Of her own sex who seemed to need
a INV nrap,, nr l,lA r,,,rlJ -, ,r.,.,t
When the train pulled into Missoula,
the conductor saw that the little traV-
eler from Sweden met Miss Ellen
S~ymington, the Travellers Aid secre-
tary, working at the joint behest of
the Northern Pacific railway COM
pany and the Missoula Young Wom-
ems Christian association. The Trav-
elers Aid badge worn by Miss Syming-
ton was familiar to the Swedish girl,
who had been advised by the same
kindly agency at other stations. She
was glad to be escorted to a room for
the night and went safely and happily
on her way to Wallace the following
day.
That is only one small instance of
the work that is being carried on
quietly with tremendous influence for
good right here in the home city. There
have been 10 cases of service during
the last two and a half months. one
OF these meant taking a oman who.
was maudlin drunk, from the train to
the room maintained by the city at
the Young Women's Christian ~associ-
alton home and caring for her until
Shn hn,l ,,A caJ,4r a,1
Others have been less Spectacular as
cases, but they have required a finer
tact and a gentler sympathy, with per-
a far greater result in protecting
innocent young W~omanhood. Al least
II young women have been cared for
IN the city room at the association
nome, since 1t was fitted up last Oc-
The story of each one is sacred
to herself and to the tactful Christian
women who gave their sisterly ser
vice. but each story is written some
where on the records of deeds worth
while.
Miss Anna Belle Lockhart, city sec
rotary for the Young Women's Chris
tlan association at Great Falls, said
yesterday morning in her talk before
the cabinet conference of Montana as
sociations at the university:
The police commissioner of New
York City has estimated that $4,000
girls disappear every year, lost, no one
knows where. Some of them are taken
prisoners, caught unaware, and some
of them go OF their own accord into
the obscurity of the life of shame. Not
1n1u q tr, t,r, .,,,,v .:.t, .,-l -.
of a minister, We're studying in Lon
don. After a vacation they returned
to London expecting to be met at the
station by an attendant of the school.
He was not there and they waited. A
kindly looking man asked them about
their trouble, hen boWing politely,
lett them. In a few moments a yOung
man approached them saying that he
was a new attendant of the school ana
had come to meet them. Five weeks
later, when the parents of the girls
We're nearly frantic oVe the disap-
p~earanCe Of their daughters, one of the
girls appeared at the police station ana
said that she had just escaped from a
house where she and her sister had
been held as prisoners. The police
went at once to search the house but
it had been hurriedly abandoned and
the other girl was never seen again,
Such danger for young girls is Worll
wide and so the work of the Travellers
Aid is world wide. 1t is now a COM
mon occurrence for girls to travel
across the United States and through
many countries of Europe, meeting a
travellers Aid secretary at every sta
where a change of trains is to be
made.
The problem of languages must be
met in all the large seaport cities. In
New York there are foreign societies
OF every nationality and the Travellers
AID secretary refers persons needing
assistance to the society of their own
nationality.
During The Columbian exposition