POOR GIRLS.
We cannot hope to do justice to this branch of our subject. To treat it properly would require a volume, for it is full of the saddest, sternest, and most truthful romance. A writer in Putnam's Magazine for April, 1868, presented an able and authentic paper on this subject, which is so full and interesting that we have decided to quote a few extracts from it here, in place of any statement of our own.
Where the Bowery runs into Chatham street, we pause, and from within our close-buttoned overcoats look out over our mufflers at the passing throng. There are many novel features in it, but let them pass. Note these thinly-clad creatures who hurry shivering past, while the keen wind searches, with icy fingers, through their scanty garments, and whirls the blinding snow in their pitiful, wearied faces. We count them by tens, by scores, by hundreds, as we stand patiently here—all bearing the same general aspect of countenance, all hurrying anxiously forward, as if this morning's journey were the most momentous one of their whole lives. But they take the same journey every morning, year in and year out, whether the sun shines or the rain falls, or the bleak winds whistle and the snow sweeps in their faces, with a pain like the cutting of knives. The same faces go past in this dreary procession month after month. Occasionally one will be missing—she is dead. Another: she is worse than dead—her face had beauty in it. Thus one by one I have seen them drop away—caught by disease, born of their work and their want, bringing speedy end to the weary, empty life; caught by temptation and drawn into the giddy maelstrom of sin, to come out no more forever.
To-morrow morning take your stand at Fulton or Catharine ferry, and you shall see much such another procession go shivering by. The next day station yourself somewhere on the west side, say in Canal street, a few blocks from Broadway; here it is again. If Asmodeus-like, you could hover in the air above the roofs of the town, and look down upon its myriad streets at this hour, you would see such processions in every quarter of the metropolis. The spectacle would help you to form some idea of the vastness of the theme now on our hands.
Let us define the poor girls as those who are forced to earn whatever food they eat, whatever clothing they wear, by hard toil; girls who do not receive one cent, one crumb, from the dead, helpless, or recreant parents who brought them into the world. It is, of course, impossible to give their number accurately; but there is a result attainable by persistent observation, day by day and week by week, at all hours, and in all sorts of places, which is quite as reliable and satisfactory as any that is obtainable through blundering census-takers; and I know this army of poor girls to be one of great magnitude. The sewing girls alone I have heard estimated at thirty thousand, by one whose life is in every day contact with them, and has been for years. This is but a single class among the poor girls, reflect. The estimate may be deemed an exaggerated one. Then we will disarm criticism by taking it at half its word. If, accordingly, we say thirty thousand for the whole—for all classes—it is still a vague figure…. Few persons ever saw thirty thousand people gathered together. But we all comprehend distances. If this army of poor girls were to form in a procession together, it would be more than ten miles long.