A POOR SISTER.

Evening Star, Issue 3223, 19 June 1873, Page 3

A POOR SISTER.

Now, look here, my friends; look here, you friends (?) of humanity, and other broken-winded duffers; look here, you editors, buck-deacons, diamond-ringed parsons, snobs, and other electro-plated frauds —look here ! The sister cried, as to a just dead sewiag-machine girl, “My sister’s dead.” And then the sister cried again, “ My poor sister !” Just so : That was the complaint she died of; “My poor sister.” Don’t let us have any sham sentiment over this—the poor girl died, poor little anxious, heart-broken, hungry soul, because she was a poor sister, and for no other reason. If she hadn’t been poor she wouldn’t have gone away so soon to her poor relations, now, mayhap, all the richer for change of air. But look at this without sham sentiment, as I said before ; and what do you find, my beloved emotional parsons and hysterical preachers ? Great heavens, the common carrier puts it to you, What do you find ? This following, and no less shortened out of the Age, that shrieks eternally for cheap labor : —“ About nine p.m., at Ballarat, a young woman was heard screaming “My sister is dead—my poor sister. ” A doctor passed and found in the parlor the deceased lying insensible and dying. Another doctor came along, and found out the same. Then there was an inquest as follows:—‘The evidence of deceased’s sister at the inquest yesterday was to the effect that they had been living together for three years past. Deceased was a dressmaker, and witness kept the greengrocery shop. The deceased was often nervous and easily agitated ; she had a sewing machine, and usually worked from seven in the morning till seven or eight in the evening, but frequently werked till ten o’clock or later at night. She was sitting on the sofa finishing a dress, when she fell forward without a word, and never spoke afterwards. The jury returned a verdict of death from natural causes, in accordance with the medical testimony.’ Yes, this jury of mongrel Britons gave a verdict of “death from natural causes;” and then went home to a full meal. Don’t you see ? The girl frequently worked from seven in the morning till ten o’clock, or later at night, and yet she died from natural causes. Did any of the jury ever try working at a sewing machine from seven in the morning till ten o’clock or later at night ? If so be sure he’d die of chuckle-headedness, or some other airy disease of the blubber. The moral of all this to the girls is, “ Don’t take to sewing machines. They’re the curse of the working female, and ought to be broken up into old-iron.” 1 hate their clink—clink —clink; and should like to sink the man that invented the infernal machine in a suitable mud-puddle.—“ John Peerybingle” in the Weekly Times.