The Washington herald., 1913-07-27
ny FRANCES sHAFFER.

Awhile ago q woman thoughtfully re-
marked that someone had suggested to
her that she read my Little Sister,
that pointed little story written oy
Elizabeth Robins concerning lie as IL
happens once in a sorry while to young
girls carefully sheltered from every
wind that coldly blows.
And later she said she had read the
story from cover TO cover and as she
laid II aside she was almost haunted
by the question-If she were going to
pass the book along with its needful
message to a thoughtless world. in whose
hands would she place 1t first?
For you know the word 1t carries.
know II tells all about beautiful
young girl unwittingly lured from her
sweetly cloistered life at home and
dropped into the great maeistrom OF
London vice. light-hearted. gay. un-
thinking, unknowing to the last-then
completely lost to the world that had
known her.
And from all the fruitless searching
and the hopeless heartache OF those who
had loved and lost my little sister
as an unwilling sacrifice to an ancient
evil that has too long eaten AZ the heart
of the world. the message comes. But
who needs it the most?
Mothcrs should Read II.
And the woman. as she thought Of
the tenderly watchful mother of my
little sister" said to herself that mothers
would do well to read the pitiful story,
for sometimes in their exceeding devo-
ton to their own, for whom no effort.
no sacrifice Is too great. they forget that
there are many hapless little sisters In
the dark world of sacrificed women who
bitterly need an outreaching arm TO
gather them back again.
That particular mother. with all her
sublime love for her own, forgot. ana
was cold. hard. and unforgiving TO an
outsider within her gates, strangely fear
full herself that her own little daughter.
cherished like a fragile blossom. would
be sought as a victim TO the basest COM
mercialism the world knows, sought and
sacrificed.
Yes, mothers would do well to read II.
but after all. II was not mothers upon
whom her urge would be the strongest.
Then she thought of the dear little
sisters themselves, all OF a sudden
brought face 10 face with life as IT goes
on in the big world about them, unpre-
pared, trustful. and never thinking OF
possible danger. And her mind drifted
back to the words OF the mother in the
story:
1T Is not fair to girls not to let them
know what terrible things can happen.
Yet, while IL is cruelty hard upon girls
whose minds are bound in ignorance and
whose hearts are broken at last. she
knew II would not be girls to whom she
would like TO drive home the message
the sharpest. the deepest of all.
Who, then, would it be that she would
hope to impress the most strongly with
the iniquity OF the whole vicious system
that entraps young women. some OF them
gathering in from the uglier ways OF
life. some from the very heart of the
home. but all young lives that ought to
be chivalrously protected?
Others Who Need the Pitiful Truth.
Straight into the hands OF those for
whom the traffic in young lives goes on.
she said, she would place this sorry re-
cital of the tragic happening to a little
sister, and she would trust TO their in
herent knighthood TO be impressed with
the enormity of the awful wrong that has
grown and spread until It stands a grim
meace to the very foundations of our
social life.
She would hope that as they read the
story. from start to finish, and guessed
something of the woe ahead of the little
sister and the poignant sorrow of those
who searched in vain to find her. the
pitiful truth would strike home that the
world has been heartlessly Indifferent to
a portion of its womankind.
She would trust they would realize that
there are hundreds. yes, thousands of
little sisters whose life-stories would re-
veal tragedies no whit less shocking and
forever, the awful pity and the endless