PROMENADING THE STREETS.
This is Yonge street at 10.30 on a Thursday night. I will take up my
stand in the shadow of this corner and watch the crowds roll by. What
a moving mass of young folks, for the overwhelming majority are young
folks. Some of them too young. It is after ten, and yet this bunch of
juveniles moving south are not going home, judging by what I observed
while I was walking, for I have been as far north as Elm street. I
wouldn’t be surprised if those two very immature maidens in the kilted
skirts passed up and down two or three times yet. I have some difficulty
in recognizing them, for there are 100 girls on the street who appear
to have been got up on the same model. There may be slight differences
of dress not discernible by the average male eye, but in essentials this
seems to be a distinctive class. For the most part the other loungers
on the street take it easy—walk slowly and languidly, but this tribe of
whom I speak are in couples, and they walk along with a fine, graceful,
swinging gait that carries them swiftly forward. None of them are out of
their teens. Their dress is not loud. The colors are subdued, and the
style of the Kate Greenaway order. The skirt is short, and enables a
curious on-looker to decide the color and
TEXTURE OF THE HOSE WORN
and the plumpness or attenuation of the young woman’s ankles. They are
certainly youthful, and this short skirt makes them absolutely girlish
in appearance, but in other respects by bold and artistic padding
they attain a robustness, not to say matronliness, which is rather
paradoxical. The swiftness of their walk makes them really the most
noticeable personages on all Yonge street.
Anyone who sees them oscillating regularly between King and Queen streets
would come to the conclusion that they are on “the mash,” but if you
select a couple and keep them in sight for a little while you will find
that they entirely ignore the presence of the men whom they encounter
in their path. These latter, however, do not ignore the girls. They are
frequently greeted as they go along with low-toned remarks, such as
“Hello, girlie!” “Good evening, Birdie!” and with sounds which I have
observed are produced when one person kisses another. To these endearing
salutations they either vouchsafe no notice or else they treat the
intruder to such a reply as causes him to let them pass unnoticed the
next time. This class of our citizenesses seems to me to be a very modern
production, and their habits and usages had cost me some thought.
“Why do they parade up and down the streets?” I said to a long-headed
detective friend, who sometimes gives me pointers and cigars. “They don’t
seem to be
HERE TO MAKE ‘STRIKES,’
and they are not shopping, and if they want to take the air it is neither
necessary to walk so fast nor take to such a crowded street. I suppose
it is none of my business, but, my dear fellow, I believe in the saying
which the Greek dramatist puts into the mouth of one of his characters,
‘I am a man, and whatever concerns men interests me.’ Of course this
concerns girls.” Taking no notice of this brilliant sally, my friend
went on to say: “You think these young women are not intent on making a
strike. Those two we have just passed, and who took no notice of your
wistful gaze, would have returned it with interest if you had been the
proper sort of a party. Those young women, sir, are the best readers of
human nature with whom I am acquainted. They took you in at a glance,
and they said, ‘He wouldn’t stand the biled eysters or the Inja pale
ale.’ I know that pair of business-like females, but I do not know
their exact capacity for bivalves and beer. I am certain though that
it is phenomenal. Now, there goes another miss, some of whose history
is familiar to me. She is pale-faced, with thin, straight nose and
sphynx-like expression. That icy little thing black-mailed a prominent
merchant of this town not long ago, and almost tortured him into his
grave. Detectives were hardly able to scare her off. There is another
who, if she prevailed on you to get into a cab with her, would try to
make you believe that you were a very bad man, and it would require a
portion of your salary, paid periodically, to
ALLAY HER RUFFLED FEELINGS.
“Where do they live?”
“Most of them live with their relatives. Some of them work by fits and
starts. I assure you they are as passionless as marble statues, and yet
they are as fully cognizant of the nature and constitution of man as the
most learned professors of the universities. I believe that the great
majority keep themselves personally free from gross immorality, yet in
their pursuit of what they think to be fun, combined with pieces of
cloth, silk hose, high-heeled boots and bright ribbons, they go as near
the fires of sin as it is possible to go and not get scorched, though I
can assure you that the smoke of evil has so blackened them that they are
morally as bad as those who have fallen, and should be avoided by decent
men and virtuous women.”
“On what then, do they base their claims to man’s gratitude. I mean that
gratitude that expresses itself in presents of gewgaws and finery?”
“It is all built up on hope and fear. I tell you, sir, that these
maidens—there’s Polly B⸺ just gone by; I’ll tell you something about her
presently. These maidens, as I was saying, find their chief game among
the ranks of the old, staid, bald-headed married men. These old fellows
in whom wickedness lives though youth be dead, are flattered by what
they think to be a mash made on one in whom throbs
THE FRESH BLOOD or GIRLHOOD.
It is simply wonderful how easily such men—shrewd old fellows that could
bargain with Shylock on the Rialto—can be hood-winked and hoodooed by a
slip of a girl. But I could tell you of scores of cases where toothless
old men have been led a terrible dance by just such a girl as that Jessie
C., who this moment flitted by us.”
“What is the end of all these goings on?”
“What is the end of it? The end of it is often very close to the
beginning. A few weeks shows our old Romeo that Juliet may be young, but
she is not innocent. In some cases they make an endeavor to stick to
their victim, but as a general thing they soon get everything out of the
old fool, and then laugh at and discard him.”
“But I mean what becomes of the girls?”
“Well, sir, wonderful to say, in a great many instances they don’t go
from bad to worse, but sometimes improve. I know some of them who have
got married. I can’t say that any of them are happily married. In most
cases the husbands must have known all about the “amusements” which
occupied his wife’s attention in girlhood, and are as lacking in decency
as she ever was. Probably he was not only aware of it but shared in the
“gifts” extracted from “his old nobs,” as they affectionately name their
victims. But wonderful as it may seem, some of these unions are blessed
with considerable happiness.”
“You say that many of them amend their ways. What about the others?”
“The others are to be found in the fast houses of Toronto, Hamilton,
Detroit, and Buffalo.”
“Well, don’t you think that even that is a very dreadful state of
affairs? The way you speak one would think that it was a subject of
congratulation that
MORE DID NOT GO TO PERDITION.”
“Perhaps I do speak a little more hopefully than the facts warrant,
but it seems to me so remarkable that any of them should escape going
completely to the bad that it perhaps gives that tone to my remarks.”
“Have you ever formed any idea how such an evil as this might be
lessened?”
“I have thought of it often. My opinion is that parents are largely
responsible for it. There is no use in talking, a mother or father is
very much to blame if they allow their children to be out on the streets
till all hours without knowing what they are doing. I tell you, sir, one
of the most serious signs of the times is the slackening of the authority
of parents. Children now-a-days, except in rare instances, have not that
reverence for their parents which was inculcate when I was a boy.”
“There’s a good deal in what you say, but don’t you think that it is but
the natural reaction from the manner that was formerly adopted by parents
towards their children? Instead of respect and love, parents tried to
inspire their children with fear and awe. There surely is a happy medium.”
“There is; but only a wise and conscientious parent strikes it. I know of
cases where children know almost any other man
BETTER THAN THEIR FATHER.
They see him but seldom, and wouldn’t care if they saw him less. The
mother is perhaps weak minded and characterless, and as a consequence
the children are allowed to drift wherever their inclinations or their
passions direct. Poverty is no reason why a father should neglect the
training of his children. Indeed, the poor man has often more chance
to keep an eye on his offspring than the rich man whose time is taken
up with business and society. So that poverty is no excuse for this
sad neglect. Just to illustrate what I mean: Two weeks ago I saw on
the street a girl dressed very richly. She wore a silk dolman, trimmed
with rich fur. Everything else was to match in costliness and richness.
Four years ago she was a small girl whom I saw every day. She was as
slatternly a little thing as you would see in a day’s walk. But as time
went on there came a change in this and she began to spruce up. The
change was very rapid. Indeed, not only did she show more neatness of
dress, but actually the articles she wore were of a value that would
naturally cause anybody to enquire where did she get them. But natural
as would seem such an enquiry her parents neglected to make it, and
finally she threw off the mask by openly adopting a life of shame. Then
her parents bewailed and moaned at their misfortunes. I was looking after
some ostrich feathers which were stolen, and in the search for them I had
occasion to visit a house of ill-fame on Albert street. In this house S⸺
had taken up her abode. She knew me and knew that I was acquainted with
her whole history. I questioned her and her answers were to the effect
that she was quite satisfied with her life, and thought that it was
infinitely to be preferred to that which she had led as a girl at her
home. She is not naturally bad, but her training had been such as to
make her believe that any way by which good clothes, nice food and some
fun could be obtained with little work, was the way which it was best to
take. She forgot or never comprehended her loathsome, beastly shame, and
compared her slovenly, loveless childhood with her present condition of
rich fare, fine feathers, lovers, race-meetings and theaters, and decided
that the latter was the best. Poor girl—poor wretch, I might say—if she
could only pierce the future and see the end of it all. She’s on the
hill-top of shame now, where the sun is shining, but God help her when
she goes down, as surely she will, amongst the slime and dirt which she
will find at the foot, and in nine cases out of ten it does not take over
three or four years to go from the top to the bottom.”