Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1859 — Caution to Ladiens Going to California. [ARTICLE]

Caution to Ladiens Going to California.

A correspondent of the Philadelphia Press says it is altogether unsafe for ladies to take passage on the steamers for California, without a proper companion. There are generally rogues on the watch for them, and deeds of terrible crime have been perpetrated in consequence. Any woman traveling on that route, will find plenty that will be willing to assist her, and they will be very attentive, and make themselves very agreeable, and the ladies themselves, in their innocence, cannot understand why it is that such attention is paid to them until they are lost in shame and prostitution. An excellent young lady, on the last passage up, was very sea sick, as nearly all are. A young man of fine appearance and dress; made himself very attentive to her, and she was only saved from ruin by a man who observed his movements and interfered at the risk of his life and a duel, just at the last moment, when the profligate scoundrel had drugged the lady, and stripped her of her jewelr , and S2OO in money, and was about to take away her good name by means of chloroform. Many will say that their education and refinement will save them from such outracee, but the experience of every voyo--,e disproves this. Even the most vjvtuous, educated and intelligent are led to shame and dishonor by being without * pro toctor, -end no one is truly safe without one. Many husbands here for their wives, and on their jog,j ne y some become the prey of dep.Vons in human shape, and thus they are lost to shame and degradation before they reach their distant homes. Young men send for young ladies, intending to make wives of them, but on their journey they are led into the whirlpool of passion by these attentive gentlemen, and are lost ere they stand up joyous, happy brides.