Year: 1869

/ C4ElSBAaM ItOmO AOE OUlCaSEs


Suggested.


Mrs. SwissheIm, in one Of her recent


letters to the Pittsburg Gazette, writes


the following warning to young wo-


men:


In shelters to Country Girls" pub


lished about the year 1848, when I
4 I knew as much of this world, and


the people who live in it as the ma


jority of farmers wives who had been
/ brought up and always lived in the


country, I told the girls it was quite
ridiculous to be afraid of sedueers' arts
that no one could possibly injure them


until they had first injured themselves


that so long as they themselves did


nothing wrong, they were entirely safe.


In making this statement, I but said


what 1 believed, as firmly as I did and
lido, the doctrines Of the Reformed Pres


byterian Church, for side by side with


them and running all along through


them, I had from early infancy been
taught to think that purity of heart,
land its consequent propriety Of speech
and behavior, were to all men what
the white wand and gold ring upon it
were to the sons of Erin in the days of


chivalry. To believe in the Omnipo-


tence Of righteousness was a part of


my religion, and in my mind, Una
could never be separated from her lion


truth was always attended by ire


sistible power-but Ihave looked into


too many faces and heard too many


histories in the past twenty years not


to know that I have lived a. wild en-


thusiast; and that the most fearless


courage stands most in the need of the


guardianship of caution. 1 have


learned to believe that a larger proper
ltior, if not a majority of the women


who become terrors to themselves, and


the community in which they live,


have. been plunged into an abyss Of
shame as inadvertently as the traveller


who steps over a precipice into a
chasm filed with snow. The road is
all fair, soft and white, and no indica-
tions that, at that particular point, the
foundation will oppose no obstacle be-
tween him and destruction. Just as
innocently do thousands of women
step from the firm path of virtue into
an abyss of despair, and fall, like Lu-
cifer, never to rise again.


Let those who doubt this call to
mind the Pittsburg lady, second to
none in point of purity, who was drag
ged out from behind a counter of a
lighted store, from the protection she
had claimed of its proprietor, through |
our lighted streets, kicked, pounded |
with bludgeon, in the presence of a |
crowd, by fellows in the uniform of 4
our police. Does anybody know why /
any rufian might not put on blue
surtout, cap and badge, and drag any
woman off to any den, while our Or
der-loving citizens should each go his
own way and. mind his own business?
If the pretended police could persuade
the victim that she was in the hands /
of the law, and that it was useless and /
undigniied to shrink or struggle, he
could take her along without even the
escort of boys, who would otherwise
learn her destination. Many people
thought this lady very imprudent for
resisting; but, by that resistance, she
secured herself against being taken to
any place worse than a common prison, |
or receiving injuries which can result
in anything more than death. Inever
believed it was the original intention
of those men and their employer to
take her to the lookup, or that she
was the first respectable woman Who'll
had been picked up on the street.
Others have been taken, they knew /
not whittier, until such knowledge
came too late. Scarce a week passes
but we have the record. of some conf
dence game by which men are robbed /
of their money in open day, but the
hundreds of confidence games by
which women are robbed of more than
life are among the incidents which sell
dom get into the reporters books, for
the. reason that the only persons who
should be interested in exposing them |
are made, by the force of public opinion,
to feel that they, of all Others, are
most interested in cOncealing them. /
That unjust and cruel law made by
women, which ''devotes to the infer
nal gods" every woman who ceases to
be a virgin without the sanction of
some statute made by some legislative
body of men, and baptized "mar-
riage,' has the effect to make women
conceal an outrage of which they may
be the victim as carefully as sins in
which they We're wilIfuI transgressors;
and, consequently the arts of the raw
isheI contribute more victims to the
lists of prostitution than those of the
seducer, to which most are accredited.
I know one woman, in the upper walls
of life, who was engaged to be mar
ried to man of equal position, gen
teBldIl, noted for urbanity with man
ners and motions polished as a mirror
and graceful as a cat. As all parties
were agreed TO the match, their en-
gagement was quite public; he often
saw her alone, and in her fathers lux
urious parlor he thrust his kerchiefl
into her mouth and outraged her per
son. Her first impulse, to rush to her
mother, he restrained by effectualIy
closing her mouth and pleading his
love as his excuse-the short time
that would elapse before their marriage
might be made public, and the Uproar
she would cause, as there were strang-
ers in the house, who must know all
unless she were reasonable.


The strangers in the house and the
fear of that terrible shame secured her
silence, when he released her, and that
hour past, it became impossible for her
to tell her wrongs without fncurring
suspicion. When he ceased to fear ex-
posure, he threatened her with il, un-
less she would meet him alone but
from the moment of feeling his rufian
power, she watched him with such a
shuddering horror that she not only
risked his threats, but guarded more
closely her secret, lest her father and |
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