ife and debased character are the natural outgrowth of
poverty, ignorance, and laziness. The number among them who have "seen
better days," or have fallen from heights of virtue, is incredibly
small. They show what fruits neglect in childhood, and want of education
and of the habit of labor, and the absence of pure examples, will
inevitably bear. Yet in their low estate they always show some of the
divine qualities of their sex. The physicians in the Blackwell's Island
Hospital say that there are no nurses so tender and devoted to the sick
and dying as these girls. And the honesty of their dealings with the
washerwomen and shopkeepers, who trust them while in their vile houses,
has often been noted.

The words of sympathy and religion always touch their hearts, though the
effect passes like the April cloud. On a broad scale, probably no remedy
that man could apply would ever cure this fatal disease of society. It
may, however, be diminished in its ravages, and prevented in a large
measure. The check to its devastations in a laboring or poor class will
be the facility of marriage, the opening of new channels of female work,
but, above all, the influences of education and Religion.

An incident occurred daring our early labors, which is worth
preserving:

EXTRACTS FROM JOURNAL DURING 1854.

THE TOMBS.

"Mrs. Forster, the excellent Matron of the Female Department of the
prison, had told us of an interesting young German girl, committed for
vagrancy, who might just at this crisis be rescued. I entered these
soiled and gloomy Egyptian archways, so appropriate and so depressing,
that the sight of the low columns and lotus capitals is to me now
inevitably associated with the somber and miserable histories of the
place.

"After a short waiting, the girl was brought in--a German girl,
apparently about fourteen, very thinly but neatly dressed, of slight
figure, and a face intelligent and old for her years, the eye passionate
and shrewd. I give details because the conversation which followed was
remarkable.

"The poor feel, but they can seldom speak. The story she told, with a
wonderful eloquence, thrilled to all our hearts; it seemed to us, then,
like the first articulate voice from the great poor class of the city.

"Her eye had a hard look at first, but softened when I spoke to her in
her own language.

"'Have you been long here?'

"'Only two days, sir.'

"Why are y