OUR YOUNG GIRLS

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVI, Issue 12570, 3 August 1901, Page 9

OUR YOUNG GIRLS

TO THE EDITOR.

g| r —Will you kindly allow' a small space in your valuable paper for a few remarks, in regard to the downfall of young gir s in this city. In the Salvation Army Barracks last Sunday night Mrs Goldfinch remarked, during the course of her speech, that one of -the greatest evils of this city was the young girls walking the streets. It was the surest and speediest way to their ruin. Granted it is so, let me aisk Mrs Goldfinch if she has ever thought that one-half of the young girls who walk tho streets do so because they have nowhere else to-go? What has puzzled me so long is why have the Army and churches allowed these girls to come to a downfall before stretching out a helping hand. Instead of opening half a dozen maternity homes, which is most certainly asking girls to go to the bad as soon and as fast as they can, they might start a young girls’ club with a good library and a few healthy games. Let the girls /subscribe so much a week and with a little public help I am sure we could keep it going. I am sure every girl.would help for the sake of) having a bright and cheerful home to go to when she is out. How many girls come into the town to ‘take up work of one kind or another? We all know how hard it is to keep a smiling face-through all the ups and downs which come with the day’s work, and then to sit of an evening and think of the home she lias had to leave with all the happy faces, each one eager to know and talk over the events of the day. Do they who are left behind miss her face half so much as she misses theirs? No; they are still happy and as eager for.news as they were before shs left them, while she, poor girl, has no one to speak to. She bravely struggles on as long as she can; she goes to her church on Sunday,, when she finds that she is a stranger and is not welcome; no one at church takes any notice of her or cares what becomes of her. Then .she -goesjjto the street 'for company, for there is not one -of us who can do without human sympathy. The consequences of such a decision means that a man, who has not as much manliness as an ass, ruins that future life without a care for her suffering. When (by chance he finds a girl who will not be persuaded to Sell her body and soul for his pleasure, he turns round with some such remark as; “Have your own way. I am a gentleman,” and expects a girl to take that .ns gospel truth after his previous conduct. Now, what I ask is, give us girls a chance of having some respectable place to go and: spend our evenings. Then if girls prefer the streets it will be quite time to complain of thoir conduct.—l am, etc., ELLA STEVENS. “