Hot corn: Life Scenes in New York IllustratedRobinson, Solon
General
Hot corn: Life Scenes in New York Illustrated
Robinson, Solon
New York (N.Y.) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Temperance -- Fiction
How the throng go thoughtlessly onward. Do they ever think--think what
a sirocco blast from the valley of the Upas tree, is sweeping over this
city? Do mothers ever inquire, ever think whether it is possible for
their sons to escape the contagion of such company as they keep in the
great evening promenade of this mighty Babylon? Have New York mothers no
feeling of fear for their sons? or has "the pestilence that walketh in
darkness," obtained such strength that this is overcome? or has the
plague spot grown so familiar to their eyes that they no longer seek to
wash it out? If they have given up their sons, if they have surrendered
the great street to the almost exclusive occupancy, at night, of painted
harlots; have they also given up their daughters, surrendered them to
the wiles of the seducer? do they let them go out without fear, even in
company with their male friends, to be jostled upon the side-walks by
midnight ramblers, and seated at the same table, at some of the great
"saloons," side by side with those who win to kill, whose trade is
death, whose life is gilded misery, though enticing as the siren's song?
Have they forgotten that we are all creatures of surrounding
circumstances, subject to like influences, and liable to the same
disease as those who breathe the same atmosphere, and if that is impure,
those who breathe it may become so?
Even now, while I write, the "New York Daily Tribune," gives this "Item"
to its readers:--
"MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE.--On Sunday evening last, between six
and seven o'clock, Miss G. C---- left her father in Spring
street, near Broadway, to go to her brother-in-law's (Mr.
B----), No. -- Spring street, since which time nothing has been
heard of her, and it is feared that she has been dealt foully
with. She is seventeen years of age, good-looking and rather
tall; dark complexion, and dark eyes; lisps somewhat when in
conversation. She was dressed in plaid, light and dark stripe;
Talma cape; straw bonnet, trimmed with white outside, and green
and white inside. Her disappearance has caused the deepest
affliction to her family, and any information that can be given
will be gratefully received by her aged parent, No.--Spring
street."
"It is feared that she has been foully dealt with." Yes, and it ought to
be feared that "good-looking, rather tall" young girls, are foully dealt
with in the streets of this city, every night in the week. It is feared
she is not the first girl of seventeen, whose "mysterious disappearance
has caused the deepest affliction to her family."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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