Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 February 1877 — Boston's “Boffin's Bower.” [ARTICLE]

Boston's “Boffin's Bower.”

When (reorßC Falconer” appeared, society clasped its gloved hawh in acyMc bdinlreuen, and man tiuttlt mighvffiil down and worship him m a perftcUv disinterested philanthropist; but for bears atWoman has lived and labored jn Beaton who is as devoted as the Boottlai| and, Boston fashion, Boetitf pdhttyuife Boetob'snffragists and Bostcm reFr*' 11 ! socieles Crown upon hMISd wq>*jitDot for limi-headed bus! phWanthrophy her efforts to help her sister women might be prematurely cteodh .Jennie Collins ‘s hhWte, Md M, Boftln’s Bower” is the title of the institution which she has created and maintains. South End, and consists of a large room which is open to working girls all day and every evening. Pretty pictures hang on the walls; magazines ana newspapers lie upon the tables; books are at the service of any one who wishes to read, and posetHo see? In short, it is a p feasant public parlor, and at first Miss Collins did not intend that it should be anything more, she had been a sewing girl herself, and she knew how long and dreary were the sewing girls’ evenings, and how many were fairly forced into the street, e.locutipnteta to read pianists to Dlay and those whom she foncß/ 1 wflled"** HTrfirls," And steadily refusing to^fcce p V .any assistance that' wo™l place h< r to any But Jenny was undismayed; her girls loved her, and she was content. Then came the great fire, and hundreds of women found themselves on Monday morning with only the slender pittance with helpless beings begging Miss Jenny for advice; they aid not ask for money; many of them were of that tough New England stock that will not take charity from any hand, but they were clamorous for work. Poor Miss Jenny looked at W -time was come when sire must work, not to make worncourageously, and never laid it down. She went to the leading manufacturers whose buildings had been swept away by tbejMsest and ahoyrad them that it was money; she went to a few men of social influence and showed them that now was the time for American families to secure American servants if they really wanted them, and they promised to talk in her behalf, and they did. She went to the the sufferers by the fire, and they spurned her contemptuously and she went back to her girls, half angry and half joyful. She distributed the money that she had obtained with a careful hand, but it was gone at last, and she had to ask for more. Sb&hAlfßUMXetUierself; Hhe coaxed beds fitnlture driers,"and gaTfeffiWg’ft a W bf the girls; she begged, jfrayftiqpg wlgave food to others, t)ffPii?TthFwl'ntet-, #ri(f was Wpy7’ although almost exhausted. But this was not the end. Boffin’s Bower was known far and wide as a place in which a workhrto an intelligence office; it was known as a refuge to which a woman might go without being asked insulting questions, or referred to some other institution around the corner, and its beds were never empty. Miss Jenny found time to attend iWmfflwe would give free dinners’ to unemployed girls during the winter, and would nave a fair to defray expenses, and she carried the plan through triumphantly, although the amount realized was pitiful in comparison to that which many a fair for some chimerical humbug the same purpose, ananopes to be able be hopelees, for the hungry are numberless. Poor Miss Jenny! When she dies, we shall give her a monument; until then, Boston Cor. of the Cincinnati Commercial.