Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 285, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 December 1915 — INTERESTING ITEMS FROM THE CITIES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

INTERESTING ITEMS FROM THE CITIES

Paterson Woman Mothers 15,000 Mill Girls

VkATERSON, N. J.—Mothering 15,000 girls ranging In age from sixteen to itwenty-flve la the task assigned to Mrs. Grace E. Headifln, policewoman at Paterson. Ot Paterson's 130,000 Inhabitants more than 70 per cent are

foreign born or the children of foreignborn parents, and a large proportion of them come from volatile races. Sixty-five per cent of these girls live away from relatives or close friends. They are employed at monotonous labor all day, and while they turn out beautiful fabrics, the work is a constant repetition of the same motions, and they perpetually see the same machines and the same product. They take the same number of steps forward and back and they tie the

same kind of knots in the same way hour after hour until, when the tenhoar task is finished they are almost hysterical. And then, the cheerless boarding house or the poorly furnished room and a cheap restaurant table, which tend to drive the girls into the streets, where they walk aimlessly up and down because it is the only thing they can da At best they will be surrounded with dangers, and frequently only by chance do they escape the snares spread for them. Cheap theaters with questionable plays or acts and moving picture shows attract many, but the one overpowering passion is for the dance. The monotonous daily ton seems to seek relief in some such exciting amusement, and literally thousands of them attend nightly. In many instances the dancing hall is connected with a saloon and is free, or the cost is nominal, the proprietor finding his profit in the beer and liquor sold. There is the peril to those girls. Many of them have no mothers to guide them; others are so Csr away from mothers that they are really alone. Mrs. Headifln is very much in earnest. She has made no arrests thus far, but when she has seen a certain sort of man in company with a girl a hint to him has proved sufficient. She hes said that she prefers a horsewhip to a policeman’s club. She h«« even threatened to cowhide some of these men should they refuse to heed her admonition. She says that to cowhide such a man in the street would do more to stop his nefarious work than imprisonment or fine.