The Nellie Bly Collection: Volume Ii: the Pittsburg Dispatch

By Tri Fritz

Years before she shocked the world with her "Mad-House" and "Around The World" stories, Nellie Bly began her journalism career in her hometown of Pittsburg, PA. In this volume of (italics) The Nellie Bly Collection are over 80 articles from her days at (italics)The Pittsbug Dispatch, many of which have not seen the light of day since they were originally published over 130 years ago.

Nellie's first articles address the plight of women, and rail against their second class standing in American society. She would follow that up with a series of articles focusing on women who worked in the factories around Pittsburg. Later, Nellie would travel to Mexico, writing about the people, places and a corrupt government that forced her to stay one step ahead of the police. In this collection, we truly find Nellie Bly discovering her voice as a journalist.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669835035

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Copyright © 2022 by Tri Fritz.

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Rev. date: 09/27/2022

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CONTENTS

Editor’s Note

Who is Nellie Bly?

Preface: Quiet Observations

1. The Girl Puzzle

2. Mad Marriages

3. Perilous Paths

4. Our Workshop Girls (I)

5. Our Workshop Girls (II)

6. Our Workshop Girls (III)

7. Our Workshop Girls (IV)

8. Our Workship Girls (V)

9. Our Workshop Girls (VI)

10. Tree Planting

11. Garden Glories

12. Our Workshop Girls (VII)

13. Scenes Among The Roses

14. A Woman’s Devotion

15. Hand and Headware

16. The Electrical Age

17. The Flower Garden

18. Styles for The Little Tots

19. A Princess’ Dresses

20. Feminine Footgear

21. The Hose in Style

22. Some Lovely Laces

23. Saturday’s Market Basket

24. Dress Jewelry

25. Hints About Hair

26. Home of The Bulbs

27. Newest Neckware

28. Wraps for Cool Evenings

29. The Family Market Basket

30. Casement Courtship

31. Kerchief and Collars

32. The Economites

33. A Pucky Woman

34. A Musical Prodigy

35. In The Chorus

36. Thorns Among The Roses

37. Hay Fever Solace

38. Style in Stores

39. Real Romance

40. Sinking To Rest

41. Nellie Bly (I)

42. Nellie Bly (II)

43. Nellie Bly (III)

44. Nellie Bly (IV)

45. Nellie Bly (V)

46. New Rubber Novelties

47. Nursery Stories

48. 50,000 Butterflies

49. Woman’s Crowning Glory

50. Their Noble Work

51. Nellie in Mexico (I)

52. News from Mexico

53. Fresh from Mexico

54. Nellie in Mexico (II)

55. Nellie in Mexico (III)

56. Nellie in Mexico (IV)

57. Journalism in Mexico

58. A Note from Nellie Bly

59. Nellie in Mexico (V)

60. Nellie in Mexico (VI)

61. Nellie in Mexico (VII)

62. Odd Mexican Notes

63. Nellie in Mexico (VIII)

64. Nellie in Mexico (IX)

65. Nellie in Mexico (X)

66. Nellie in Mexico (XI)

67. Mexico As It Is Now

68. The Eden of Mexico

69. With Yellow Fever

70. Notes from Mexico

71. A Mexican Arcadia

72. Wonders of Mexico

73. Wonders of Puebla

74. Light On Mexico

75. Mexico’s Disgrace

76. About Two Pasos

77. Mexico’s Soldiers

78. Mexican Odditites

79. Some Mexican Laws

80. Mexican Manners

81. Women Journalists

Acknowledgements

Entries In

THE NELLIE BLY COLLECTION

Volume I: The Books

Volume II: The Pittsburg Dispatch

Volume III: The World (upcoming)

For Sarah,

as you embark on your own new adventure.

EDITOR’S NOTE

When I published the first volume of this series, THE NELLIE BLY COLLECTION: The Books, and started www.NellieBlyOnline.com, very little of Nellie’s work was accessible. There were books about her life that referred to articles she wrote, but the articles themselves were buried on microfilm in library basements. Years prior, I was researching a film project based on her life which prompted me to visit those basements. The television project didn’t go anywhere, but I found myself left with the life’s work of a national treasure. It was time to re-introduce the world to Nellie Bly.

This second volume, THE NELLIE BLY COLLECTION: The Pittsburg Dispatch, focuses on the hometown newspaper where Nellie would first find work as a reporter. Much of the material hasn’t seen the light of day since it was originally published over 130 years ago. The articles may not have the high-profile flair of her later work, and the prose can be a bit rough around the edges. However, Nellie’s passion comes through loud and clear; and the seeds of the stories that would make her a national figure are clearly present.

In response to the Quiet Observations column found in the Preface, Nellie’s first articles would directly address the plight of women and rail against their second class standing in society. She would follow that with a series of articles focusing on women who worked in a number of the factories around Pittsburg. Controversially, Nellie reported that not only were women capable and productive in the workforce, but often preferred to men by their managers! Then, in what would clearly be the progenitor to her later trip around the world, Nellie made the bold move of traveling to Mexico for six months, promising to cover not merely the expected tourist locales, but the most interesting aspect of any country—its people. Truly, in this collection, we find Nellie Bly discovering her voice as a journalist.

Nellie’s final article for the Dispatch is an item that serves as the perfect bridge to the COLLECTION’S forth-coming volume: The World. Having moved to New York City with the hope of continuing her journalistic career, Nellie found doors closed to her by the sexism of the day. Nellie decided to approach a number of New York newspapers not for a job, but as a Dispatch reporter writing an article on the viability of women reporters. This clever ploy granted Nellie introduction and access to several prominent editors, including her future employer, John Cockerill of The World. It is a fitting swan song to her career in Pittsburg, and a taste of things to come in New York.

If there is any regret of Nellie’s work from this period it is that we do not have the original, personal letter she wrote to Dispatch editor James Madden which earned her the opportunity to write that first article. Considering how many letters to the editor were received by the Dispatch, it really must have been something special for Madden to offer a paid article of her own in return.

In THE NELLIE BLY COLLECTION, every effort has been made to ensure that Nellie Bly’s work speaks for itself. No alterations or updates have been made to the text. These are Nellie’s own words. Any changes are corrections to grammatical errors. The Dispatch articles collected here are only the first act to a story of courage, fortitude and talent; and a testament to her moto: Energy rightly applied and directed will accomplish anything.

ARTHUR TRI FRITZ.

WHO IS NELLIE BLY?

Nellie Bly was born Elizabeth Jane Cochran on May 5, 1864 in Cochran’s Mills, Pennsylvania—a town named for her father, Judge Michael Cochran. Early in life, Elizabeth earned the nickname Pink from her mother’s routine of dressing her in that color. Judge Cochran passed away when Elizabeth was just six years old. Elizabeth’s mother, Mary Jane, would re-marry three years later to a man who was very abusive, forcing her to go through the tortuous process of divorce. This left the family on very hard times. Elizabeth would attend Indiana Normal in hope of becoming a teacher. However, she could not afford tuition and spent only one semester at the school.

In 1880, Mary Jane moved her family to Pittsburg. Elizabeth assisted her mother with duties around their home, which they had opened to boarders. In January of 1885, Nellie read a column in The Pittsburg Dispatch entitled Quiet Observations. The author, Erasmus Wilson, admonished women for attempting to have an education or career, suggesting they should stray no further than the home; and additionally stating that, in China: they kill girl babies or sell them as slaves, because they can make no good use of them.

This infuriated Elizabeth who wrote a scathing reply that she signed Lonely Orphan Girl. Dispatch editor George Madden was so impressed by the letter; he placed an ad for the Lonely Orphan Girl to contact him. When Elizabeth introduced herself to Madden, the editor offered her the opportunity to write a rebuttal. Elizabeth’s article, The Girl Puzzle, was published by the end of the month. Impressed again, Madden offered Elizabeth a full-time job writing under the name Nellie Bly, the title of a popular song by Stephen Foster.

At the time, women who worked at newspapers almost always wrote articles on gardening, fashion or society. Nellie Bly eschewed these topics for hard pressing stories on the poor and oppressed. Drawing from her mother’s experience, she wrote on the inherent disadvantages women had in divorce proceedings. She also wrote numerous articles on the lives of poor women who worked in Pittsburg’s factories. Nellie’s articles fascinated readers, but drew criticism from the business community. When companies threatened to pull advertising from the Dispatch, Nellie was assigned to write on more domestic topics. After a number of additional articles on jewelry, gardening and grocery shopping, she decided a change was in order.

In 1886, Nellie embarked on a six-month trip to Mexico. She wrote of her travels to Madden, who published her reports as a series of articles in the Dispatch. However, what started out as a travelogue soon turned into a scathing review of the Mexican government. When Nellie reported on President Porfirio Diaz imprisoning a journalist for criticizing the government, she soon found herself threatened with arrest and left the country. Her accounts would later be collected in the book Six Months In Mexico.

Back in the United States, Nellie decided that her next destination would be New York City. In 1887, Nellie arrived hoping to land a job at a major newspaper, but, due to the sexism of the day, none was offered. After four months of rejection, and near penniless, she talked her way into the office of John Cockerill, managing editor of the Joseph Pulitzer newspaper The World. Determined not to leave without work, Nellie was eventually assigned to go under-cover as a patient in the notorious asylum on Blackwell’s Island and report first-hand on her experience.

Nellie convinced both doctors and judges that she was insane, and would have herself committed. She endured filthy conditions, rotten food and physical abuse from doctors and nurses for ten days before a World agent arranged for her release. Nellie’s articles detailing her experience—Behind Asylum Bars and Inside The Mad-House—created an uproar. After further investigations were launched, New York officials provided more money and changes to the care for patients at the asylum. Nellie Bly had arrived.

Nellie would spend the next several years writing articles for The World pioneering the field of investigative journalism. Often going under-cover, she exposed crooked lobbyists in government, tracked the plight of unwanted babies, reported on the conditions for poor workers in box-making factories and much more. Nellie was becoming so popular; The World would often use her name in the story’s headline. People couldn’t wait to read about what Nellie Bly was up to next.

Nellie’s most famous story came in 1889. She proposed to travel around the world faster than Jules Verne’s character Phileas Fogg in his book Around The World In Eighty Days. Editors at The World were wary of the idea; women didn’t travel without escorts, and they carried too much baggage. However, never one to be denied, Nellie Bly stepped onto the ocean liner Augusta Victoria by herself on November 14, 1889 carrying only two small satchels.

Nellie traveled the world heading east from New York. Her journey took her from England to Egypt, Ceylon, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan before heading back to the United States. During a stop in France, Nellie was able to meet Jules Verne himself, who encouraged her to break his own—fictional—record! Nellie provided updates on her journey to the legion of fans reading The World, while the paper also promoted a hugely popular contest to guess her eventual arrival time.

Nellie would step back on to American soil in San Francisco, and boarded a special train that took her across the country. On January 25, 1890, Nellie Bly arrived back at her starting point; seventy-two days, six hours, eleven minutes and fourteen seconds after her departure. Nellie was now an enormously popular international celebrity. Much to her surprise, The World did not offer Nellie a bonus despite the increase in circulation she had created. Upset over the sleight, Nellie Bly resigned from the newspaper.

Though unemployed, Nellie was not short of opportunities. Her image graced trading cards, board games and numerous other products. She went on lecture tours and wrote Nellie Bly’s Book: Around The World In Seventy-Two Days. Unfortunately, during this time, her brother Charles died, and Nellie began taking care of his wife and two children.

In 1893, a new editor at The World convinced Nellie to return; and on September 17th, the headline Nellie Bly Again appeared on the front page of The World. For the next three years, Nellie was back with articles about police corruption, the violent Pullman labor strike, and interviews with noted suffragist Susan B. Anthony and a then unknown Helen Keller among others.

In 1895, Nellie surprised everyone by marrying noted industrialist Robert Seaman, and by 1896 she had stopped writing for The World. Robert Seaman was owner of the Iron Clad Manufacturing Company, which made milk cans, barrels and other steel products. As the marriage progressed, Nellie became more and more involved with the company, even patenting a milk can of her own design. When Robert died in 1904, Nellie (as Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman) took over the company and became one of the world’s leading female industrialists. Unfortunately, by 1914 poor management and fraud within the company forced Iron Clad into bankruptcy.

That same year, Nellie traveled to Europe to visit a friend in Austria. It also saw the outbreak of World War I. Nellie got in contact with former World editor Arthur Brisbane, who now worked at the Hearst newspaper The Evening Journal, and made arrangements to be a journalist once again. Nellie Bly became America’s first female war correspondent, writing articles on her experiences at front lines and the horrors of war. What had started as a vacation turned into a five-year tour of duty.

By 1919, Nellie was back in New York and writing regularly for The Evening Journal. She had her own column dispensing advice as well as her opinion on topics of the day. She helped poor women find jobs and raised money to aid widows, children and others who faced hard times.

Nellie Bly passed away on January 27, 1922 from pneumonia, having continued to write her column up until her death. The next day, The Evening Journal carried a tribute to the pioneering journalist, declaring Nellie Bly: The Best Reporter In America.

— PREFACE —

The Pittsburg Dispatch

Wednesday, January 14, 1885

QUIET OBSERVATIONS

----------

QUIET OBSERVER – Dear &c.: You have been giving us some very timely hints on boys. I am more interested in girls—in fact, I am stuck on them. I have five of them on hand and am at a loss how to get them off, or what use to make of them.

The oldest one is 26. She paints some—I mean she paints pictures and crockery. The next is 23 past. Her taste runs to music, and I must say she isn’t bad at the piano or singing. Then comes Anna just turning 21. She is of a moral and religious turn, spending most of her time going to meetings of one kind or another, and collecting money for the poor and the heathen. The next one is a regular clip. She says she is 18 and don’t you forget it. She can come as near paralyzing a wash tub or knocking piano out in one round as anyone you ever saw; and I do think she can slap up a meal in about as short order as the next one, and when she takes a turn through the house with a feather brush and a dust rag you would think a blizzard had broken loose or there was an explosion of natural gas. When the rumpus is over, however, you will find things in apple pie order.

The other one isn’t much of an account no way. When she was little, she had fits and didn’t thrive well. Some of the doctors thought it was her nerves. She sits around and reads stories, drinks hot water, pieces crazy quilts and jaws.

Now what am I to do with them? I can make out with Nervie. She is the worker, but the others keep me awake of nights thinking about them. Mother says to marry them off. I would do it in a minute if I had a chance, but they don’t seem to catch on well.

If you will give me a few pointers you will greatly oblige.

AN ANXIOUS FATHER.

***

Anxious father, thou art in a fix. Thy anxiety is well founded if not deeply grounded. Perhaps thou art bald headed. Thou hast a perfect right to be. Thou art in a fair way to go down to the grave with a weight of care upon thy heart. For advice get thee to Bessie Bramble, she knows what is what about women, and if anybody can make it appear that thou, thou man! art in the fault she can.

Whatever else thou mayest do, stick thou to Nervie, and don’t you forget it.

***

Some people are always in trouble; they seem to have been born to it. One man has no luck with horses, another’s coalboats are sure to sink, and another is constantly getting bills when he has no money to pay them. Their lives are rendered even more miserable by seeing others around who always seem to have the necessary funds at hand when a bill comes in, their coalboats never sink and their horses die only of old age.

One woman always has sour bread, another is sure to have a headache on the night of her favorite opera another never hears the latest gossip until it is old. This is all bad enough, but it drives the iron deeper into their souls to know other women who get all the gossip while it is fresh and fragrant, are always looking their best when there is an opera ticket around and who have won fame in bread making with the same brands of flour and yeast they use.

The man with a family of boys curses the luck that sent them. If they were only girls, he would have a fortune within his grasp. He looks at a dude of a boy, and says to himself: Now, if that fellow was only a girl, see where he might be. There is Mary Anderson just coining money, and Patti is rolling in wealth. Why, there would be thousands of chances for him to bring the sons of wealth to his feet if he were only a girl. Confound the luck! As it is, he is barely making enough to keep himself clothed, and I have to board him. Give me girls all the time.

His neighbor, who has a large crop of girls, goes around pulling his hair and asking the gods what he had ever done to merit their displeasure. He is willing to trade two girls for one boy, because he can find something for the boy to do whereby he will earn his board. Possibly, he succeeds in trading a girl off and gets a younger man in the family, only to find that he still has the girl to keep, likewise the young man, also their family.

Mixed families are the best. The trouble with the boys is balanced by the trouble with the girls. Thus, equilibrium is maintained.

***

It is a fact, whether people want to admit it or not, that children are not as welcome as they used to be. Too many parents haven’t the time to care for them.

You can recall families of your acquaintance where the families haven’t time to raise their children properly. They look after them during their infancy as a matter of necessity, clothe them as a matter of decency, and let them whithersoever they will as a matter of convenience. It may be saying too much that everyone can recall such cases, but almost every one can who is ordinarily observant.

In olden times, it was a parent’s pride to raise children in such a way as to make them a credit to their name and valuable acquisition to society. The father who left behind him an honorable and industrious son left more to the world than he who built a church or endowed a college. The mother who trained and educated a daughter in all that pertains to the true woman gave to society and civilization far more than a Rachel, a Ms. Siddons or a Patti.

***

It is a bother for a business man to look after his boys and see that they are surrounded with proper influences. He hasn’t time to talk to them or listen to their talk. His business requires all his time, so he bundles them off to a school somewhere and pays a man to look after them. He finds he has more comfort at home without them. Things are quieter when they are away, for boy is just another name for noise.

Such men may make money by sending their boys away, but too often it proves as curseful as ill-gotten gain. They forget that there is as much skill in handling money as in making it.

The boys, instead of being taught in the father’s practical school, how to make and take care of money only learned, in the theoretical boarding school, how to spend it.

So many men are ambitious to leave a fortune and a name. The latter they strive to paint high up on the political fence or some of the dead walls of fame, and the former flashes in the eyes of the groundlings from every side.

What better name can they leave than that borne by a son, and what better fortune than a thriving business?

***

Girls are different.

Yes, that is so, but there is, or at least there used to be a way of bringing them up so they were profitable to society and the world at large.

In other days it was a custom for mother to teach their daughters the domestic arts and fit them for the active duties of life. There are mothers living now who considered themselves unfit to marry until they had mastered the art of spinning, sewing, cooking and housekeeping. They would have been ashamed to have had it known amongst their acquaintances that they had no bed quilts of their own quilting, no blankets of their own spinning and that they were not competent to make their own wedding cake and cook the turkey.

But times have changed.

So they have, and greatly too. Whether for the better or not is another matter, yet nonetheless important. That was a practical age. Then people felt it was a duty to earn what they got. A man without an occupation useful to society, or a woman who couldn’t take a hand in household duties as well as at the piano or euchre, were regarded as aristocracy, and played a very small part in the affairs of the day.

***

In China and other of the old countries, they kill girl babies or sell them as slaves, because they can make no good use of them. Who knows but this country may have to resort to this sometime – say a few thousand years hence? Girls say they would rather die than live to be old maids, and young men claim they cannot afford to marry until they get rich, because wives are such expensive luxuries.

Well, what are you going to do about it?

Oh, nothing.

The Pittsburg Dispatch

Saturday, January 17, 1885

31_a_lbj6.jpg

— 1 —

The Pittsburg Dispatch

Sunday, January 25, 1885

THE GIRL PUZZLE

----------

Some Suggestions on What to Do With the

Daughters of Mother Eve.

----------

THE OLD FIELDS OF LABOR OVERCROWDED.

----------

How the Average Employer Discriminates Against

Petticoated Workers.

----------

THE ROAD AS SAFE AS THE FACTORY.

----------

For the Dispatch.]

What shall we do with our girls?

Not our Madame Neilsons; nor our Mary Andersons; not our Bessie Brambles nor Maggie Mitchells; not our beauty or our heiress; not any of these, but those without talent, without beauty, without money.

What shall we do with them?

The anxious father still wants to know what to do with his five daughters. Well indeed may he inquire and wonder. Girls, since the existence of Eve, have been a source of worriment, to themselves as well as to their parents, as to what shall be done with them. They cannot, or will not, as the case may be, all marry. Few, very few, possess the mighty pen of the late Jane Grey Swisshelm, and even writers, lecturers, doctors, preachers and editors must have money as well as ability to fit them to be such. What is to be done with the poor ones?

The schools are overrun with teachers, the stores with clerks, the factories with employees. There are more cooks, chambermaids and washerwomen than can find employment. In fact, all places that are filled with women are overrun, and still there are idle girls, some that have aged parents depending on them. We cannot let them starve. Can they that have full and plenty of the world’s goods realize what it is to be a poor working woman, abiding in one or two bare rooms, without fire enough to keep warm, while her threadbare clothes refuse to protect her from the wind and cold, and denying herself necessary food that her little ones may not go hungry; fearing the landlord’s frown and threat to cast her out and sell what little she has, begging for employment of any kind that she may earn enough to pay for the bare rooms she calls home, no one to speak kindly to or encourage her, nothing to make life worth the living? If sin in the form of a man comes forward with a wily smile and says fear no more, your debts shall be paid, she cannot let her children freeze or starve, and so falls. Well, who shall blame her? Will it be you that have a comfortable home, a loving husband, sturdy, healthy children, fond friends – shall you cast the first stone? It must be so; assuredly it would not be cast by someone similarly situated. Not only the widow, but the poor maiden needs employment. Perhaps father is dead and mother is helpless, or just the reverse; or maybe both are depending on her exertions, or an orphan entirely, as the case may be.

GIRLS POORLY PAID.

What is she to do? Perhaps she had not the advantage of a good education, consequently cannot teach; or, providing she is capable, the girl that needs it not half as much, but has the influential friends, gets the preference. Let her get a position as a clerk. The salary given would not pay for food, without counting rent and clothing. Let her go off to the factory; the pay may in some instances be better, but from 7 a.m. until 6 p.m. except for 30 minutes at noon, she is shut up in a noisy, unwholesome place. When duties are over for the day, with tired limbs and aching head, she hastens sadly to a cheerless home. How eagerly she looks forward to pay day, for that little mite means so much at home. Thus, day after day, week after week, sick or well, she labors on that she may live. What think of you this, butterflies of fashion, ladies of leisure? This poor girl does not win fame by running off with a coachman; she does not hug and kiss a pug dog nor judge people by their clothes and grammar; and some of them are ladies, perfect ladies, more so than many who have had every advantage.

Some say: Well such people are used to such things and do not mind it. Ah, yes, Heaven pity them. They are in most cases used to it. Poor little ones put in factories while yet not in their teens so they can assist a widowed mother, or perhaps father is a drunkard or has run away; well, they are used to it but they mind it. They will very quickly see you draw your dress away that they may not touch it; they will very quickly hear your light remarks and sarcastic laugh about their exquisite taste in dress, and they mind it as much as you would, perhaps more. They soon learn of the vast difference between you and them. They often think of your life and compare it to theirs. They read of what your last pug dog cost and think of what that vast sum would have done for them – paid father’s doctor bill, bought mother a new dress(?) shoes for the little ones, and imagine how nice it would be could baby have the beef tea that is made for your favorite pug, or the care and kindness that is bestowed upon it.

But what is to be done with the girls? Mr. Quiet Observations says: In China they kill girl babies. Who knows but that this country may have to resort to this sometime. Would it not be well, as in some cases it would save a life of misery and sin and many a lost soul.

IF GIRLS WERE BOYS

quickly it would be said: start them where they will, they can, if ambitious, win a name and fortune. How many wealthy and great men could be pointed out who started in the great depths; but where are the many women? Let a youth start as an errand boy and he will work his way up until he is one of the firm. Girls are just as smart, a great deal quicker to learn; why, then, can they not do the same? As all occupations for women are filled why not start some new ones? Instead of putting the little girls in factories let them be employed in the capacity of messenger boys or office boys. It would be healthier. They would have a chance to learn; their ideas would become broader and they would make as good, if not better, women in the end. It is asserted by storekeepers that women make the best clerks. Why not send them out as merchant travelers? They can talk as well as men – at least men claim that it is a noted fact that they talk a great deal more and faster. If their ability at home for selling exceeds a man’s, why would it not abroad? Their lives would be brighter, their health better, their pocketbooks fuller, unless their employers do as not – give them half wages because they are women.

We have in mind an incident that happened in your city. A girl was engaged to fill a position that had always been occupied by men, who, for the same, received $2.00 a day. Her employer stated that he had never had anyone in the same position that was as accurate, speedy, and gave the same satisfaction; however, as she was just a girl he gave her $5.00 a week. Some call this equality.

The position of conductor on the Pullman Palace car is an easy, clean and good paying business. Why not put the girls at that? They do many things that is more difficult and more laborious. In the banks, where so many young men are employed,

GIVE THE GIRLS A CHANCE.

They can do the work as well, and, as a gentleman remarked, It would have a purifying effect on the conversation. Some people claim it would not do to put woman where she will not be protected. In being a merchant traveler or filling similar positions a true woman will protect herself anywhere – as easily on the road as behind the counter, as easily as a Pullman conductor as in an office or factory. In such positions, receiving men’s wages, she would feel independent; she could support herself. No more pinching and starving, no more hard work for little pay; in short, she would be a woman and would not be half as liable to forget the duty she owed to her own true womanhood as one pinched by poverty and without means of support. Here would be a good field for believers in women’s rights. Let them forego their lecturing and writing and go to work; more work and less talk. Take some girls that have the ability, procure for them situations, start them on their way. And by so doing accomplish more than by years of talking. Instead of gathering up the real smart young men gather up the real smart girls, pull them out of the mire, give them a shove up the ladder of life, and be amply repaid both by their success and unforgetfulness of those that held out the helping hand.

However visionary this may sound, those interested in human kind and wonder what to do with the girls might try it. George M. Pullman has tried and succeeded in bettering this poorer class. Some of our purse-filled citizens might try it by way of variety, for, as someone says: variety is the spice of life; we long for it, except when it comes in the form of hash on our boarding house table. We shall talk of amusements for our girls after we find them employment.

ORPHAN GIRL.

— 2 —

The Pittsburg Dispatch

Sunday, February 1, 1885

MAD MARRIAGES

----------

That Break Hearts Covered by Calico as

Well as by Sealskin Sacques.

----------

LOOSE MARRIAGES AND DIVORCE LAWS

----------

Why the Roller Skate Resembles a Woman

in More Ways Than One.

----------

EQUAL RIGHTS ARE ALL WORKING GIRLS ASK.

----------

Written for the Dispatch.]

Bavaria has just passed a law forbidding the marriage of people who have received public charity within three years, who have not paid their taxes, or who, by means of dissolute habits, laziness or poverty, are likely to make home wretched. What a blessing such a law would be to our country. What untold misery, unhappiness, and even murder, would be saved. Of late much is written of unhappy homes, brutal husbands, unfaithful wives. Peruse any daily paper; you will read of two, perhaps a half dozen sometimes, petitions for divorce on account of desertion, unfaithfulness, brutality and other similar pleas to have the matrimonial knot cut. Petitions for divorces are as common as marriage notices. Governor Pattison’s suggestions in his message regarding divorces are, to say the least, commendable, but to get to the root of the evil and save all after regrets, dig up marriage laws, prune them, bud on good, strong sensible laws and the fruit will be good. Divorce laws will then not be necessary. In fact, the better way is to grant no divorce.

In Pennsylvania a man or woman, either drunk or sober, as long as they are able to stand up and clasp hands, can be married without one question as to his ability in supporting a wife, as to her ability to make a good wife, or to make home comfortable. It is not asked if they are capable to raise children in the right way. They promise to love, honor and obey, without one thought of the solemnity of the vow, without one intention of trying to keep it. Poor men without trades, without homes, without one dollar laid by for a rainy day, with cruel tempers, brutal instincts, with surprising love for the bottle containing spirits that do not tend to ennoble or better them, have the ceremony performed and many women similarly situated, with hot tempers and shrewd tongues. What can such ill-sorted marriages bring forth? They naturally disagree, have a large family–poor man’s luck–that they cannot support, are unable to feed, to clothe, to educate, to instruct as to the right way to live; to what end do they come?—to the almshouse, work house, reform schools, brothel houses, penitentiary and in a few short years depart this life with a sin-stained soul to fill and un-honored grave. The sins of the parents are indeed visited upon the children.

Not only to the lowly do such mad marriages bring misery, but in the higher walks. Money, the god that does everything, will many times close the world’s mouth, if not its eye. The children born of these will have every advantage; nevertheless, as many hearts ache under silk and satins as under calico. The bond of matrimony hangs like a millstone around the necks of as many of affluence as of poverty. There are just as many brutal husbands, unfaithful wives, just as many wretched homes among the lordly as among the lowly; but money helps in a great measure to make like bearable.

MARRIAGE A VENTURE.

Reformation is necessary, but how is it to be obtained? By simply making the divorce laws stricter? Surely not. Marriage is truly a leap into the dark. The most common excuse is, How did I know it would end this way? He or she was my ideal before marriage, but there has been a dreadful change since. True enough. Young men while courting are all that can be desired–polite, kind, indulgent, generous to a fault, while at home they may be unkind to their mother, disrespectful to their father, tyrant over younger brothers, may even strike their sisters. Where is the girl that would marry such a man? But they are in the dark and eager for the change. It is the same with the sweethearts. The young man finds them neat and kind, the parlor in trim order. She is a good hand at euchre, sings sentimental songs and plays racquets on the piano. He congratulates himself on finding a treasure, an angel, when lo! and behold, she is a Tartar; goes to breakfast with uncombed hair, without a collar, sleeves torn out of dress, shoes unbuttoned, slaps her sister, scowls at her mother, gives father impudence and wages a war of words with her big brother. Where is the young man that would marry her as she is; where is the man that would wish to put her queen of his home, mother of his children; that would willingly lay the fatal I will that would bind them together until divorce released him? But he is also in the dark. The cup of marriage life is before them, and with a vain, conceited idea that they know what it contains, they eagerly snatch it while holding it to their lips during their engagement. They dream of nectar and bliss, they drink, surprise too great for expression awaits them. What looked like the richest of wines turns to the bitterest of gall; the scales drop from their eyes; they behold with disgust each other in his true color. Life is not the thing they planned it out, and so grows unendurable; finale–a divorce.

A young man drawing a comfortable income has a widowed mother, who has doubtless worked hard to give him a start in life, and helpless sisters. He lets his aged mother work, and allows his sisters to support themselves where and how they will, never has 5 cents or a kind word to give at home, dresses in the height of fashion, has every enjoyment, gives his lady friends costly presents, takes them to places of amusement, tries to keep it a secret that his mother and sisters work. If the fact becomes known, he will assert positively that it is against his most urgent desire. Will he make a good husband, think you? Where is the girl who, knowing this, will give her happiness, her life, into his keeping? But it is not always the case that both parties are deceived.

OLD MAID A BUGABOO.

Some excellent men get wives who make their life a torment; some splendid women get husbands who are brutes; some people marry for money, some for love, and many marry because they don’t want to be old maids. Bessie Bramble to the contrary notwithstanding. To be called an old maid is just as great a bugabear as it ever was, except to one that is very smart and intelligent, whose duties would interfere with domestic life. I am surprised that she married him knowing him to be a confirmed drunkard, said one lady to a friend on the Manchester street car the other day. Yes, it is strange, but then, you see, she got married. Great consolation. Let this man be what he would, she married and escaped old maidenhood. However, few women will marry a man knowing that he drinks, but if they do walk into misery with their eyes wide open, make no exit for them in case of fire. If they will embrace unhappiness make them do it knowing it is for life. As a rule, women will marry a man believing his promises to do better; but men will seldom take women likewise. Reformation of the marriage laws is necessary. But for the funeral baked meats that the bridegroom sees in future, would he so joyfully fall in with the marriage procession? But they don’t look forward to the funeral" now, but to the divorce, as they fall in with the funeral procession.

It is strange, but true, that as people grow more enlightened marriage produces more misery and becomes a less sacred tie. It is not so many years back since they married for life, not with the understanding that if unsuited a divorce could easily be procured. Then, if from some desperate cause they were compelled to be divorced, they were shunned by society and no