A CAUTION TO IRISH GIRLS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 440, 16 September 1881, Page 7

A CAUTION TO IRISH GIRLS.

Undee this heading Miss Mabel Sharman Crawford has addressed a letter to the Freeman, from which we take the following passages : — Permit me through your journal to direct attention to a serious evil which materially affects the welfare of a large number of Irishwomen. As fraud is pre-eminently the characteristic evil of the present day, the ignorant and unwary, ever liable to be duped, are more especially exposed under the conditions of modern life to be victimised by swindlers. Amongst the various devices employed for the attainment of such ends the fraudulent advertisement is the most successful. To one of these advertisements my attention was last year directed through a chance glance at the advertisement columns of a newspaper published in the South of Ireland. Resolved to inquire into the matter, I wrote to the office, and, in reply, I received printed papers the contents of which were well calculated to impose on ignorant girls. The statement, in large type, that the office was under "royal patronage" would doubtless evoke brilliant visions of well paid service in families of high rank. On my arrival in London shortly afterwards I found from personal investigation full confirmation of the suspicions I entertained. The fraudulent character of the office " under royal patronage " was an admitted fact, and from the police I obtained details of the widespread ruin it had caused. Of the many hundred letters of inquiry for missing relatives ani friends that had been received in connection with this office from every part of the United Kingdom, upwards of one hundred had come from Ireland ; and, doubtless, the victims brought in this manner to the knowledge of the police formed only a small proportion of the total number lured to London through specious lies inserted in provincial journals. Under such circumstance it seems somewhat strange that the law did not afford an effective means of putting an end to an admitted swindle, but the police court magistrate to whom I applied declared that the police wrre only empowered to interfere when a " case " was furnished for prosecution. But the poor victim of a craftily organised fraud hr d seldom " a case "to bring before a court of justice. When the beggared dupe, no longer able to pay th* weekly rent exacted in the i office '' home," was turned out adrift a waif and stray on the streets ' of London, the law afforded her no re<lress for the wrong she suffered. Even when her box was seized for arrears of rent incurred whilst waiting for the promised place, her plunderer plundered under legal sanction. A tradesman living opposite to the office said it was a common sight to see a crowd collected outside the door through the wails of some forcibly ejected beggared woman. Had two London Servants' Registry Office proprietors, named P ; pe and Jackson, now in gaol, not unwisely tried to swell their gains last year through masculine dupes, they would most probably have escaped conviction. For the office " under royal patronage " is only a type of many serTants' offices to be found in London, since to the metropolitan male and female rogue this branch of business affords peculiar facilities for cheating with impunity. Through the means of registration fees paid by applicants for situations a goodly income can be realised. Whilst the honestly conducted office gives a fair equivalent for the fee, through inquiries made for a suitable place, in the fraudulent office it only brings a return in specious lies. Though that office is now closed, yet doubtless its late proprietor, under another name and in gome other part of London, is carrying on a profitable business. And whilst I ask the Press to refuse insertion to swindling baits, I also beg the aid of the editors of Irish newspapers to warn young women of the great danger ihey incur in the acceptance from Btrangers of situations in foreign countries. The knave, the profligate, find ready dupes in the trusting confidence of ingenuous youth, and it is surely wise that this consideration should be regarded as an important feature in the training of girls compelled, as so many are, to earn their own subsistence. On behalf of this numerous class I now ask the aid of the Irish Press to direct attention to the dangers to which Irishwomen are expoa»d»