to jealousy, and little
understanding of true self-sacrifice, combine to weaken and embitter
these relations with step-children. The children themselves have plenty
of faults, and have doubtless been little governed, so that soon both
parties jar and rub against one another; and as neither have instincts
or affections to fall back upon, mere principle or sense of duty is not
enough to restrain them. What would be simply slights or jars in more
controlled persons, become collisions in this class.

Bitter quarrels spring up between step-son and mother, or step-daughter
and father; the other parent sometimes sides with the child, sometimes
with the father; but the result is similar. The house becomes a kind of
pandemonium, and the girls rush desperately forth to the wild life of
the streets, or the boys gradually prefer the roaming existence of the
little city-Arab to such a quarrelsome home. Thus it happens that
step-children among the poor are so often criminals or outcasts.

It needs a number of years among the lower working-classes to understand
what a force public opinion is in all classes in keeping the
marriage-bond sacred, and what sweeping misfortunes follow its
violation. Many of the Irish peasants who have landed here have married
from pure affection. Their marriage has been consecrated by the most
solemn ceremonies of their church. They come of a people peculiarly
faithful to the marriage-tie, and whose religion has especially guarded
female purity and the fidelity of husband and wife. At home, in their
native villages, they would have died sooner than break the bond or
leave their wives. The social atmosphere about them and the influence of
the priests make such an act almost impossible. And yet in this distant
country, away from their neighbors and their religious instructors; they
are continually making a practical test of "Free-Love" doctrines. As the
wife grows old or ugly--as children increase and weigh the parents
down--as the home becomes more noisy and less pleasant,--the man begins
to forget the vows made at the altar, and the blooming girl he then
took; and, perhaps meeting some prettier woman, or hearing of some
chance for work at a distance, he slips quietly away, and the deserted
wife, who seems to love him the more the more false he is, is left
alone. For a time she has faith in him and seeks him far and near; but
at length she abandons hope, and begins the heavy struggle of
maintaining her lit