Nazileh’s most striking trait is her passionate love for her baby brother. Two ladies stop her ramshackle perambulator in the street. Antar has prickly heat. The ladies discuss ways and means; they talk of “district tickets” and “transfer stubs.” Then the awful word “Freshairfund” escapes them, and in a second two flying legs and four wobbly wheels are all that are seen of Nazileh and her precious burden. “That Freshairfun,” she gasps from a safe distance, “eet steal sweet little babees from their homes. I weesh”—she stopped in delight at the American oath she was about to utter—“I weesh a gosh on eet!”
It is a great pity to deal clumsily with the Oriental, for no one can lay down this book without feeling that there are exquisite qualities lurking in the Syrian quarter, qualities that we as a people need. Nazileh, gay, sad, loving, poetic, mischievous little girl, always courteous, never shrewd, seems to represent the best type of Syrian child. We need her filial devotion, her deference to old age, her fine hold on tradition in this rough and ready civilization of ours. Evidently the high tide of immigration that washes in so many problems, brings treasure also. How can we capture it?
With much that is beautiful and picturesque, the book leaves on our minds also the impression of great hardship, of overwork and underpay, of little children driven indoors out of the sunlight to ply a wearisome trade; of young girls fighting for existence in the misery of the sweat-shop.
But the author’s sympathetic understanding and charming interpretation of Oriental ideas, scenes, and customs mitigate the somberness even of the final tale, which gives the title to the book. The story is told by Nazileh’s sad young mother arrayed in bright Oriental garb for the Syrian Christmas, when the camel comes with gifts,—“And when Eve saw God coming, she hid all her unsightly children in a dark cave and only her pretty children were washed and dressed for God to see....” The lame, the halt, the blind, and those pursued of poverty,—these are “Eve’s Other Children.”
Mary Bannister Willard.
COMMUNICATIONS
TREAT BOTH ALIKE
To the Editor:
In most phases of life it is the little things that count. In the matter of prostitution we have heard so much about the big things—the inevitableness of it, because the man wants it, because the girl may have more money than her pay-envelope brings her, and the necessity for changing public opinion before any change in dealing with the situation can become effective—that we have become well-nigh overwhelmed by the magnitude of the evil. Yet, may we not expect shortly to gain public approval for two small and difficult yet perfectly feasible changes of method in handling the situation? These are my two suggestions:
1. When a house is raided, take all found in the house, women and men and put their names on the police-blotter.