Toronto by Gaslight: The Night Hawks of a Great City: As Seen by the Reporters of "The Toronto News"Toronto News
History
Toronto by Gaslight: The Night Hawks of a Great City: As Seen by the Reporters of "The Toronto News"
Toronto News
Toronto (Ont.) -- Description and travel
While looking over his exchanges the other day THE NEWS editor clipped
from the Switchellville Recorder a two-column article with five headings,
the first of which was “Kidnapped,” in flaring letters. The article,
dealing as it did with an erring woman, who had fled to the city, seemed
to him to touch in some way or other the night side of city life, and
in that connection interested him. It led off as follows: “Man is
born to trouble as the sparks fly upward, but few are called upon to
bear as much trouble as our wealthy but unfortunate fellow-townsman,
Mr. Switchell. All will remember when he brought home to his handsome
residence a beautiful wife. None will forget the advent of his little
daughter. Everyone was sorry when he was prostrated with fever, and
recovered only to find himself almost entirely deaf, or “very hard of
hearing,” as the phrase goes; but the climax of sympathy was reached two
months ago, when his young wife, after eight years of married life, grew
tired of her deaf husband and eloped with Dr. Clarke, a man who has only
been known to the people of this village one year, but who in that time
has contrived to swindle almost every one of them. But a still greater
blow has fallen upon him. His little daughter Millie, who had all her
mother’s beauty combined with her father’s integrity, and a certain
sweetness of her own, has disappeared. The neighboring country has been
diligently searched, without result, and the conclusion is inevitable
that the child has been kidnapped by her
BEAUTIFUL, BUT ERRING MOTHER.
No one who knew Millie will wonder at it. The only wonder is how the
mother could have lived so long without her; but the sympathy of all will
be with the deserted husband and lonely father. Poor little Millie! The
villain Clarke will soon desert her mother whom he has already debauched,
and she will drift into a life of still deeper shame. Pure as Millie is,
she cannot but suffer from contact with such associations. It is this
thought that has almost driven her father crazy. Oh, if men and women,
before yielding to evil impulses, would remember that the little children
must suffer for it, what a different world this would be.”
The article was continued to much the same effect through two columns.
As the NEWS editor finished reading a letter bearing the Switchellville
postmark was handed to him. It was from THE NEWS correspondent at that
place, and read as follows:—“Read the Recorder for big sensation. Since
the Recorder was printed a domestic in the employ of Mr. Switchell has
confessed that she bought a ticket for Toronto at the request of the
child, who was determined to go off in search of her mother.” THE NEWS
editor said to himself “If the wanderings of that child could be followed
up they would make an interesting addition to the gaslight scenes.”
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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