Knickerbocker | Page 8

the evils which oppressed her. And nobly did the mother
strive to shield from want and ignorance the little orphan, now her only
care. Her own education enabled her in some measure to supply the
place of teachers, which she was unable to employ. And never was
maternal care better rewarded than by the improvement of the gentle
being under her charge. But in this blessed employment the poor
mother was interrupted. While health continued, she had been enabled

by the most unremitted exertion to prevent the approach of absolute
want, slight indeed as were her earnings. (The modern improvements in
machinery having destroyed domestic manufacture, properly so called,
and left but little for the female to earn who is not attending its motions
in the noisy factory.) But illness had intervened, and diminished even
that small resource; and it was apparent to all that the want of suitable
food assisted in blanching still more the fair face of the poor child.
Maternal love had conquered the honest pride of the poor mother so far
as to constrain her to accept the slight and uncertain donations of her
neighbors. But this assistance, scanty as it was, could not continue. The
tax-paying husbands of the benevolent ladies who furnished it,
complained that the poor-rates were heavy, and that they had already
helped to pay for a house of refuge for the poor and the destitute, could
not, in addition to this, support them out of it.
She was told it was her duty to place her daughter in some family to be
brought up as a servant. In vain did she assert her ability to maintain
herself and child when health should return. Her advisers could little
sympathize with her feelings, and reproached her with pride. And she
was now harassed with the fear that her delicate and cultivated little girl
would be torn from her, and made a factory slave or household drudge;
for such power had the laws given to the rulers of the town. But this
fear, miserable as it was, was now overpowered by another. The
suggestion had reached the ear of the unhappy woman that she and her
child would be conveyed to the house of the town's poor, the place we
have attempted to describe. God grant that no fair reader of this homely
but too true story should ever feel the misery which this fear inflicted
on the mind of this friendless mother! Oh, that true Charity had been
present in the person of her best representative on earth, a sensible,
affectionate and liberal-minded woman, to minister to the wants, to
soothe the mind of her unhappy sister-woman, and cheer her exertions
for self-support! None such appeared, and the heart of the poor woman
sank within her. Her exertions were paralyzed; for struggle as she
might to avoid it, the alms-house, with its debased and debasing society,
was ever before her eyes as her ultimate destiny. It was in vain that she
endeavored to prepare her mind for this result. She could endure any
degree of privation, but not degradation and infamy.

Time wore on, without any renewed hints of interference, and she
began to hope that she was forgotten. Delusive hope! It was felt as a
disgrace that she should suffer, when the law had provided a remedy,
and they had paid for it. And it was therefore decreed by the magnates
of the town that she must be removed, and the day had arrived (with
which we commenced our narrative,) on which the paupers were to be
disposed of for the coming year. Deacon S---- was the person deputed
by his colleagues, as we have mentioned, to convey Mrs. Selden and
her daughter to the alms-house.
However prepared we may suppose ourselves to meet misfortune, the
moment of its arrival takes us by surprise. We will not attempt to
picture the utter desolation of mind and the despair which filled her
heart, when this man arrived at her door, to convey herself, and oh! far
worse, her innocent and intelligent child, to that scene of vice and
debasement. Although her dislike to the measure was known, yet from
her quiet and reserved manners, little opposition was anticipated. The
evils of life had accumulated upon her in a regular gradation, and she
had been enabled to bear their weight, up to this point, with outward
composure; looking forward to, but yet hoping this last cup of
bitterness would never be presented; or if presented, that some means
might be found to avert it. But the dreadful crisis had arrived. Had the
whole board of authority been present, I should be glad to believe, for
the honor of humanity, that they would have been moved to relent, as
they would not have been able to shift