The Bay State Monthly — Volume 2, No. 2, November, 1884Various
History
The Bay State Monthly — Volume 2, No. 2, November, 1884
Various
Massachusetts -- Periodicals; New England -- Periodicals
Italians, but the children of all nationalities, who have profited from
this powerful patronage: Hungarian, German, Chinese, Irish, French. One
of our compatriots, a girl of fourteen years, came one day to implore
its aid. Her father was a drunkard, who had reached the lowest round in
the ladder of degradation; her mother had no means of subsistence except
concubinage, nor her two sisters except prostitution. She begged that
they would save her from this life of shame. The society received her,
procured her a position, a good education. Learning that she was heiress
to a considerable property left by a grandfather, the society took
active steps in France to secure to her her rights. Unfortunately, the
agent who had possession of the estate became insolvent after having
squandered the property, and it was impossible to recover it. The
society continued to care for the young girl up to the day of her
marriage to a young man enjoying a regular salary of $1,200, and worthy
of her in all respects.
The strict watch kept upon the liquor saloons contributed equally to
improve the condition of children. Many were in the habit of being sent
by confirmed drunkards to buy the "liquid poison!" They thus promoted
this vice whose hardened subjects would prolong It even beyond the grave
by asking that "a bottle of whiskey may be put in their coffin." The
obedience of the children was rewarded by invitations to drink, which
initiated them in debauchery. It was among women abandoned to drink that
lived Eliza Clark, a child of eleven years, paying for the drinks with
the gains which she realized from dancing or singing; in return, the
women gave her brandy to drink and tobacco to smoke, so that when she
was found she resembled "a beast more than a human creature." They also
suppressed the playing of pool for drinks by minors, instituted by
saloon keepers to induce them to drink liquor, which was the reward of
those whom fortune favored in the game.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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