Year: 1872

Last week a woman died of whom we wish
to say a word here. 1t does not matter how
or where she died. She was so obscure, be-
longed to so common and poor a class, that no
notice of her death found place in even the |
cheapest paper, and no one who knew her |
will read these words. Only one of those !
thousands of ordinary lives that, day by day. |
end unnotlced, no more missed by the world |
than so many burned out candles. This woman |
had neither beauty, nor wit, nor large culture
she brought no gift with her when she was
born to make her greatly welcome to the
world never could sing a song, nor write
poem; was not even fit to reign in drawing
room. She was only sweet-voiced, gentle
lady, full of wOmanly affection and eager ten
dernesses, who had kept her pure childish
beliefs unchanged to middle age. She was
little, sickly, shabbily clothed; she lived in a
tawdry house with glaring papers on the walls,
and torn, dirty mating on the floor the air
she breathed was that of want and vulgarity;
year In and year out she worked at machine,
sewing dresses for servants and shop-girls who
bullcd her, not unreasonably, for she was
but poor sempstress, if the truth must be
told. Her husband, a coarse grained, gossiping
fellow, tried this trade and that became ward
politician, did what he could for his family,
but felt that his wife must do her share He
had been used to raw-boned, stout Connect
cut farm women, beside whom she doubtless ap-
peared inefficient enough.


1t others remembered how tenderly nurtured
she had been as girl, and that the fortune
she brought him he had flung away, he never
did. Nor did she. They were wretchedly
poor, and it was but just and proper she
should work. So she worked, stopping now
and then to give birth to another child to be
nursed at the tired breast, and watched and


prayed over with the blind, idoatrous devotion
she gave to the Others Certain logical mora
lists lay down as axioms that there can be no


tragedy without crime, and that no woman,


with love, husband and children, ought to ask
for more. This woman never did ask for more.
The loud Dragging politician remained her
hero to the last. If her life slowly dried and
wlthered away, as tree might, tapped of all
| its juices at the root, she thought it was her


self that was to blame. This poor lady was


cursed with as finely wrought an organization


as any favorite of fortune; both body and mind


required companions of her own caste, and that


nutriment which Nature and Art give but to
| few, but which that few must have or die.
! Besides, not even the strongest woman can


furnish bread and butter for housefull of chill


dren, make their clothes, keep their souls pure


and their manners refined, and add to the


number every year. She was not strong in


any sense so she stitched, and nursed and


trained them, with the dirty walls about her
/


of children grew shabbier and coarser and


more vulgar day by day Que day an old


accomplishment of her girlhOOd recurred to


her hower-painting, moulding in clay, design
ing-lt does not matter what; work, however,


in which her real nature would have found
food and expression, and the pay for which


would have been comparative att1uence. She


sent a specimen of her work for trial, which


was approved but men were employed who


had been trained to business. Only the


machine was left, and the work for her chill


dren's bodies and souls that she could not do.


1t grew and grew before her sight until the


day came when she dropped as under an


intolerable burden. As she lay on the bed day


after day slowly dying, husband and children


were loud in sorrow and astOnshment. How


had she come hy such manifold diseases
: Machine work and want of air? 1t was in
, credible" She struggled with her work yet


sewed as she lay on her back, drew her chill
dren close to her with hungry, unsatisfeC
love in her eyes that they could not under


stand. But as the hour came for her to qui
, the world that had been so niggardly of it
comfort or bounty to her, she was beset will
, restless fancies, which to her husband seemed
/ scarcely sane. "She thinks if she could SCI
/ and smell a thorny rose that used to grow will
r about the farms down there in Maryland wher
) she was born, she would be we'll again. Nov
what good could there be IN rose! /! Ii
I could not see why she would make them pu
5 the children out of the room, and turn out tn
n gas that she could not see the machine, and s
p lie looking up at the patch of sky above tn
!. brick walls When she was dead, he cried
e II did what could | am not to blame.
t And it was true no man can go beyond hi
s nature.


a What was to blame? Not poverty; not tn
Q working for bread and butter; not the vi
e equal marriage Since the world began, Kin
d Cophetuas have married beggar girls untitled
n and clothed them royalty in their own fames
n and Titanias have rejoiced to worship an as
n But if she had been taught practically tn
s one occupation for which her taste and abilIt
It fitted her? If all women were so thorough
,s taught such occupations that employmeI
n would be open to them as men? The answt


matters nothing to her now. A day or tw
r ago the wornout body was laid back in tt
is earth to which it had been drawn by sue
10 strong and subtle kinship. To what rest
r. recompense the soul Of the gentle lady passet
o only He knows who took it hence. Her wOr
a remains unfinished. But it is because the
Of are so many thousands of over-worked wome
Of around us on every side, staring blankly
ID their unconquerable work, and lives wasted
IN noon day, that we have told her story, ar
IS revereutly hold back her memory, for tn
se brief moment, out of the eternal silence
er y. Tribune.


The WRECKS IN CHARLESTON HARBoR.-
e. For some time past operations have bee