A SAD STORY.

Observer, Volume 9, Issue 529, 9 February 1889, Page 3

A SAD STORY.

I AM glad the maternity ward is not to be done away with. All honour to Mr Mays for the action ho took at the last meeting of the Hospitable and Charitable Aid Board. The ward is a public necessity and thoroughly deserving of support. Nevertheless and notwithstanding, there can be no question that this noble charity Is shamefully abused. Patients are often received there who have no sort of right to lay up . at the expense of a long-suffering public, while really deserving cases are apt to be overlooked. Brazen-faced shamelessness jostles against innocence betrayed. It is the old story. # # # t Society is terribly unjust. A girl is deceived by some heartless, unprincipled scoundrel, and while she has to bear all the physical pain, all the mental agony attached to her fall, as well as the scorn, and the jibes and jeers of the world, the cause of her trouble escapes scot free. No one Shinks any the worse of him. Jf his vgLme should happen to leak out in connection Spfch the affair,people appear to think but lightly iqfihis share in the business, and he may even

laugh off the thing at his house or at his Club with his male friends, and treat it as a good ioke. But the woman who has fallen what hope is there for her ? She is socially dead ; her life is blighted, ruined, wrecked. Her only chance is to co where she and her story are unknown, and so try to efface from her memory the bitterest trial any woman can know. * * * The law decrees that the male sinner of this sort shall pay for the maintenance of his child and the medical expenses iucidental to its birth. That is all. But is it enough? Should he not in cases of heartless seduction, have his name printed in large type and exhibited outside every police-station in the country with a brief statement of the crime of which he has been found guilty, and should not an advertisement be inserted in all the leading newspapers of ths city to the same effect, so that the world might read, and such shame as he is capable uf feeling enter into the breast of the deceiver ? * * * All this is (/pro})/'* of what 1 am going to tell you. A few days ago a well-known Auckland clergyman reported that a young lady residing in a certain suburb was about to become a mother. The facts of the case, he pointed out, were very sad, and he wished the unhappy girl to be admitted to the maternity ward, and that an order should be given to her authorising her admission on demand, no questions to be asked. The friends of the girl were most anxious that her illness should take place at the ward rather than at her home, so that a public scandal might be avoided. o ♦ * In due course the girl applied and got the order. Subsequently a public oilicial interviewed the young man implicated, and told him what had been aone. Did he show any contrition or express any regret ? Not he. l The silly little iool,' he remarked (referring to the girl) : ' 1 told her I would take apartments for her during her illness.' i ' And what do you propose to do after her illness"? 1 he was asked. l Well,' said he, with a laugh and a shrug of the shoulders, ' pussibln the xume thing might liuppc.n again.' \ ■?? * * ! A fellow like that ought to be kicked out of the ! city. He is not fit for the society of decent : people. Both this man and the girl whose life he has laid waste are members, 1 may as well inform you, of Auckland's ' aristocracy '—for vice and immorality are juet as rampant in high places as in low ones. Of course the young lady's family are intensely indignant with the man who has brought so much misery upon them, and they will not hear of the girl marrying the fellow. But to return to the maternity ward. The clergyman who recommended this unfortunate girl for admisssion to the ward was doubtless actuated by the kindliest of motives, and yet it is monstrous that the public should be expected to defray the necessary expense.-; in such cases as this. The maternity ward was intended for the benefit of the homeless, friendless, and deserving victims of society. That it should be used by those who can afford to dispense with its aid, and more especially those who are lost to shame and who simply make a convenience ot it not once but regularly is a scandal and a disgrace. THE I'INEST GIRL HE EVER MET. A Napier paper has got hold of a queer story about a traveller for an Auckland linn and a charming young lady he met in the train. Our contemporary tells the story at length, but seems to have got rather badly mixed, owing possibly to the use of fictitious names, and the elaborate precautions taken to prevent the identity of the chief actors in this domestic drama in real life from being recognised. * * ■•>• As the affair possesses a local interest I have ! tried to unravel this tangled skein, and here are the results of my labours*, told as concisely as I know how. Act I.— Scene : Interior of a first-class railway carriage fit, route from Napier to Waipawa. Dashing and susceptible bagman discovered lolling back on the cushioned aeat, and having for his vis-a-vis a charming young lady whose diess and manner indicated, or seemed to the enraptured bagman to indicate, birth, breeding and wealth. The travellers soon scraped acquaintance, and the lady informed the admiring bagman that she was the wife of a well-known Wellington business man — mentioning the name. * * * The C.T. was greatly impressed, as well as quite fascinated ; he thought the lady ' the finest girl he had ever met,' and when the train arrived at Waipawa he made an appointment to meet the charmer again. # * * Act II. — Napier. — The next meeting took place in the Hawke's Bay capital. Here the enamoured bagman capitulated to the charms of the fascinatiug stranger, and besought her to fly with him. There is reason to believe the lady was pretty iiy as it was, but she reciprocated the tender feeling expressed by the amorous 'traveller' and consented to accompany him where he would. As both parties were married, this little plan had its risks. But true love laughs at obstacles, as we know. # * # Act lll.— Ponsonby, Auckland.— The third act in this interesting drama finds the bagman and 'the finest girl he ever met' comfortably installed in a furnished house. Here the infatuated bagman ran two establishments— the other one, situated in quite another part of the city, being occupied by Mrs Bagman proper. But owing to the danger of detection the traveller pretty soon gave up the Ponsonby house and took ' the finest girl he ever met ' with him on his travels. In due course he paid Napier another visit, on business, and the lovers secured expensive apartments at a leading hotel. * * * In Napier they had a good time, and money melted like snow in the sun — the lady furnishing most of it. # « * i Love's young dream continued unbroken until

September last, when it was rudely disturbed by the arrival of the fickle iair one's husband, who patronised the same hotel and lost no time m interviewing his wife. He was as cool as a cucumber ; was not the least bit jealous, but pointed out to the lady that she must at once return to her home, if only for the sake ol appearances. She objected vehemently, and after a hard-fought battle won her point, and the husband retired from the field — as cool and col- | lected as ever. ;>J * Aci IV.— Wanganui.— The next act shows us the bagman and the finest girl, etc., in Wanganui, where they rented a nice house and lived as befcre. Here the bagman's wife turned up one day a* unexpectedly as the finest girl's husbai d had turned up at Napier. She took in the situation at a glance, and instead of making a scene, simply asked to be received as a member of the household. That was reasonable enough. She was allowed to have her way. The meek and submissive conduct of his wife, so unexpected as it was, appears to have touched the heart of the bagman. Perhaps Mrs Bagman had foreseen this. Anyhow his conscience began to give him lits, and to make a long story short, he asked his wife's forgiveness. After that' but one thing remained to be done— to show the finest girl he had ever met the door. « * * The finest girl went oil" in a haft', panting for revenge. It do&en't pay to fool with this kind of woman. She returned" to 'Wellington and told her bosom friend:-; how shamefully she had been used by an Auckland traveller, the also wrote to her former admirer's employers in Auckland, and there was the deuce to pay. The bagman was taxed with impropriety, and said the whole story was the concoction of a jealous, vindictive woman. Shortly afterwards ' the finest girl,' with true feminine inconsistency, wrote to the linn stating that her first letter had been written in spile, and she was sorry for it. So the matter chopped. * * * ! Act V. — More trouble : Here the curtain might have descended on the piece had not the finest girl elected to make mere trouble. Her temporary hate had now turned to love again, and she longed to 'make it up' with the bagman. To this end she came from Wellington to Auckland, but the traveller would havo none of her. Overcome with remorse at bin treatment of his wife — and possibly with an eye to keeping his billet —he bade the finest girl begone. She went, boiling with rage, her love turned again to bitterest hate. Meantime her husband, suspecting her errand in Auckland, had followed her. To him she promised amendment — conditionally on his assisting her to punish that odious creature! The husband, egged on by his wife, went to interview the odious creature's employers, and the odious creature lost his billet. He ' resigned.' * «■ * Act VI. — Where did the money come from ? What you are doubtless curious to know is : How did the finest creature manage to raise ttie money which she spent so Javisnly with the bagman? The fact is the finest creature, alas ! was an impostor. She had been masquerading all the time as the wife of a wealthy Weiiingtun man whose name bears a strong resemblance to her own, and not content with bringing disgrace on an old and respectable family by her amours with the baginun. aiie also Uat-d the name to gee credit, which she had little diiliauhy in obtaining, thanks to her adroit management. Costly dresses and expensive jewellery are marketable commodities. Hence the plentiful supply of cash, which was perhaps not the least of her attractions in the eyes of the once fond bagman. * # * How this adventuress managed to escape prosecution at the hands of the man whose name she assumed and whose money she appropriated almost passes comprehension— unless the injured party wished to avoid having his name dragged before the public. He preferred, doubtless, to hush the matter up. * # if ' The finest girl ' and her husband are now in Melbourne, while the bagman is a resident of Dunedin. Maybe his JNapier experience has taught him a lesson. In any casß he probably bitterly rues the day on which he made the acquaintance of the finest girl he ever met.