OCR Text |
Show ! Should Be Rebuked. The "messenger girl," decked in bloomers and mounted upon a bike will make her appearance in Salt Lake in a few days. That is, if the manager of the Western Union Telegraph Tele-graph company can induce the girls of this city to take positions upon the messenger force. The messenger boy, with all the faults attributed to him, "tuat fj wo. utx v. iv i I ! i fiit uun u, lie curtain is being' rung down upon the scene of his importance. This paragraph led one of the local news features in a morning paper this week. The rest of the article gives the telegraph manager's reasons for deciding to hire girls between the ages of 12 and 16 years in an employment more treacherous to virtue than any other in which poor children could be engaged. Two of the manager's reasons are quoted from the cold, business standpoint: stand-point: "We want as many girls between the ages of 12 and 16 as we can get," said the manager to the Herald reporter, "and we propose to put them to work as soon as they apply for positions. Of course, I don't know what success we will have in getting girls, but we cannot can-not get boys enough to do our work, and we are forced to call unon the girls to help out. Then, too, we have so much trouble with the boys. It is hard to get boys who can be trusted all the time, and girls are not so easily eas-ily tempted to steal money or "soldier' "sol-dier' as the boys are." It will be observed that the manager man-ager makes a nice moral distinction between be-tween boys and girls in such employ ment, and is certain that the latter are proof against the temptations hourly besetting the boy. What are j some "of those temptations? Stealing money is the least. Any person watching watch-ing the direction which at least one-half one-half of these messengers take in response re-sponse to summonses, will see them turn up the red light district, or deliver de-liver messages at other questionable quarters. Few innocent boys can be hourly witnesses of sin without contamination, con-tamination, and for this reason, as the telegraph manager says, "it is hard' to get boys who can be trusted all the time." He might have added that some of these boys know more of vice and the half world than the ordinary Salt Lake detective. The manager assured the reporter that the girls would be employed only in the day time and a force of boys would be retained to send out to saloons sa-loons and places of bad reputation. That statement may serve to allay any apprehension of evil the parents of the messenger girl might entertain, but it should not. The girl may never be sent to places of bad repute nor deliver de-liver messages at saloons, yet how easy it is for unprincipled persons to decoy messenger girls to rooms. In whatever light the matter Is viewed, there is danger to the messenger messen-ger girl. She is nearly always upon th.? street, her bloomer costume exposing expos-ing her to ridicule and Insult. Soon her natural timidity . and reserve gives place to boldness of manner childish restraint is no qualification for the successful suc-cessful messenger. And if these are not enough to stifle modesty and horror hor-ror of vice, the companionship of those boys retained for the red light service will hasten the end of virtue. These remarks are not intended to cast reflection upon the manager of the telegraph company. Like most employers employ-ers of labor, he is anxious for good service and enlarged patronage, and perhaps has not weighed the moral effect of his plan. .We trust, however, j idmm-r,' ....... ... y.- W. i,. ry ' he will not succeed. We hope, at least, the poverty of no Catholic parent will induce him to place his child in an employment so destructive to virtue as the messenger girl service will - turn out to be. . . ' |