management of our public money, I
have faith to believe that thousands which are now wasted in mere
political charlatanism would go to provide for the rearing of the
children of the state, male and female. My wife has spoken for the
boys; I speak for the girls also. What is provided for their physical
development and amusement? Hot, gas-lighted theatric and operatic
performances, beginning at eight, and ending at midnight; hot, crowded
parties and balls; dancing with dresses tightly laced over the
laboring lungs,--these are almost the whole story. I bless the advent
of croquet and skating. And yet the latter exercise, pursued as it
generally is, is a most terrible exposure. There is no kindly parental
provision for the poor, thoughtless, delicate young creature,--not
even the shelter of a dressing-room with a fire, at which she may warm
her numb fingers and put on her skates when she arrives on the ground,
and to which she may retreat in intervals of fatigue; so she catches
cold, and perhaps sows the seed which with air-tight stoves and other
appliances of hot-house culture may ripen into consumption.

"What provision is there for the amusement of all the shop girls,
seamstresses, factory girls, that crowd our cities? What for the
thousands of young clerks and operatives? Not long since, in a
respectable old town in New England, the body of a beautiful girl
was drawn from the river in which she had drowned herself,--a
young girl only fifteen, who came to the city, far from home and
parents, and fell a victim to the temptation which brought her to
shame and desperation. Many thus fall every year who are never
counted. They fall into the ranks of those whom the world abandons
as irreclaimable.

"Let those who have homes and every appliance to make life pass
agreeably, and who yet yawn over an unoccupied evening, fancy a lively
young girl all day cooped up at sewing in a close, ill-ventilated
room. Evening comes, and she has three times the desire for amusement
and three times the need of it that her fashionable sister has. And
where can she go? To the theatre, perhaps, with some young man as
thoughtless as herself, and more depraved; then to the bar for a glass
of wine, and another; and then, with a head swimming and turning, who
shall say where else she may be led? Past midnight and no one to look
after her,--and one night ruins her utterly and for life, and she as
yet only a child!

"John Newton had a very wise say