feel homesick forlorn and forsaken in the world. Their health at length
fails them, and they cannot earn bread enough to keep themselves from
starvation. They are too proud to beg; and the consequence is, that they
walk the streets, or throw themselves into the river.

I met scores of these friendless women. Some I took into my house; for
others I found work, and made myself a sort of guardian; while to others
I gave friendship to keep them morally alive. It is a curious fact, that
these women are chiefly Germans. The Irish resort at once to beggary or
are inveigled into brothels, as soon as they arrive; while the French are
always intriguing enough either to put on a white cap and find a place as
_bonne_, or to secure a _private_ lover.

I am often in despair about the helplessness of women, and the readiness
of men to let them earn money in abundance by shame, while they grind them
down to the merest pittance for honorable work. Shame on society, that
women are forced to surrender themselves to an abandoned life and death,
when so many are enjoying wealth and luxury in extravagance! I do not wish
them to divide their estates with the poor; I am no friend to communism in
any form: I only wish institutions that shall give to women an education
from childhood that will enable them, like young men, to earn their
livelihood. These weak women are the last to come forth to aid in their
emancipation from inefficient education. We cannot calculate upon these:
we must educate the children for better positions and leave the adults to
their destiny.

How many women marry only for a shelter or a home! How often have I been
the confidante of girls, who the day before, arrayed in satin, had given
their hands to rich men before the altar, while their hearts were breaking
with suppressed agony! and this, too, among Americans, this great, free