Marie E. Zakrzewska.
Boston, September, 1859.
The sweet, pure song has ended. Happy she who has been permitted to set its clear, strong notes to music. I need not murmur that my own old hand-organ grows useless, since it has been permitted to grind out the key. Yet Marie's story is told so modestly, and with so much personal reserve, that, for the sake of the women whom we are both striving to help, I must be forgiven for directing the public attention to a few of its points.
In all respects, the "little blind doctor" of the story is the Marie Zakrzewska that we know. The early anecdotes give us the poetic impressibility and the enduring muscular fibre, that make themselves felt through the lively, facile nature. The voice that ordered the fetters taken off of crazy Jacob is the voice we still hear in the wards of the hospital. But that poetic impressibility did not run wild with crazy fancies when she was left to sleep on the floor of the dead-house: the same strong sense controlled it that started the "tassel manufactory" in New York, where it had been meant to open a physician's office. Only thirteen years old when she left school, she had but little aid beside a steady purpose in preparing for her career. We hear of her slatternly habits; but who would ever guess them, who remembers the quiet, tasteful dress of later years?
How free from all egotism is the record! The brain-fever which followed her attendance on her two aunts is mentioned as quietly as if it were a sprained foot. Who of us but can see the wearing-away of nervous energy which took place with the perpetual care of a cancer and a somnambulist pressed also by the hard reading suggested by Dr. Arthur Lütze? Berlin educated the second La Chapelle; but it was for America, not Germany. The dreadful tragedy of Dr. Schmidt's death is hardly dwelt upon long enough to show its full effects, so fearful is our friend of intruding a personal matter.
When "Woman's Right to Labor" was printed, many persons expressed their regret that so little was said about sin and destitution in Boston itself; and many refused to believe that every pit-fall and snare open in the Old World gaped as widely here. "You have only the testimony of the girls themselves," they would reply, when I privately told them what I had not thought it wise to print. I have never regretted yielding to the motives which decided me to withhold much that I knew. "If they believe not Moses and the prophets, neither would they believe though one rose from the dead," said, of old, the divine voice; and the hearts that were not touched by what I thought it fit to tell would never have been stirred to energy by fuller revelations.
In these pages, authenticated by a pure and cultivated woman, who holds a high position among us, every fact at which I hinted is made plain; and here no careless talker may challenge the record with impunity. Here, as in New York, smooth-faced men go on board the emigrant-ship, or the steerage of the long-expected steamer; here, as there, they make friendly offers and tell plausible lies, which girls who have never walked the streets of Berlin at night, nor seen the occupants of a hospital-ward at the Charité, can hardly be expected to estimate at their just worth. The stories which I have told of unknown sufferers are here repeated. The grand-daughter of Krummacher marries a poor shoemaker to save herself from vice, and poor German Mary drowns herself in the Hudson because she feels herself a burden on a heartless brother. Better far to sink beneath its waves than beneath the more remorseless flood which sweeps over all great cities. Now, when the story of the Water-street cap-makers is told, to be matched by many another in Boston itself, it is no longer some ignorant, half-trained stranger who tells the story, but the capable, skilled woman, who, educated for better things, made tassels and coiffures, and accepted commissions in embroidery, till the merchants were convinced that here, indeed, was a woman without reproach. Water-street merchants would do well to remember hereafter that the possibilities of a Zakrzewska lie hidden in every oppressed girl, and govern themselves accordingly. Think of this accomplished woman, able to earn no more than thirty-six cents a day,--a day sixteen hours long, which finished a dozen caps at three cents each! What, then, must become of clumsy and inferior work-women? Think of it long and patiently, till you come to see, as she bids you, the true relation between the idleness of women and money in the Fifth Avenue and the hunted squalor of women without money at the Five Points. Women of Boston, the parallel stands good for you. Listen, and you may hear the dull murmur of your own "Black Sea," as it surges against your gateway.
Hasten to save those whom it has not yet overwhelmed Believe me that many of them are as pure and good as the babes whom you cradle in cambric and lace. If you will not save them, neither shall you save your own beloved ones from the current which undermines like a "back-water" your costliest churches, your most sacred homes.
Caroline H. Dall.
Oct. 29, 1860.
L'Envoi.
"Unbarred be all your gates, and opened wide,
Till she who honors women shall come in!"Dante: Sonnet xx.