Page:Side talks with girls (1895).djvu/35

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GIRL LIFE IN NEW YORK CITY

YOU are one among the many thousands who write to tell me that you want to leave home and make your own living. Apparently you never stop to consider that doing your duty as a daughter is earning your own livelihood; but being possessed of a vague spirit of unrest, you want to come to the great metropolis and enter the ranks of the workers, receiving in absolute money what is considered the value of your work. Have you ever thought out what girl life in New York is? I mean the life of the girl who has to work for the money with which she pays for her bread and butter, the clothes she wears, and whatever little pleasure she has. You have wonderful dreams of independence. You think how you will rise and rise and rise, and with the hopefulness of eighteen you see a great future before you. Suppose I tell you exactly what the life of the New York working girl is. If this will keep one girl