INEXPENSIVE GIRLS.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2616, 28 May 1877, Page 3

INEXPENSIVE GIRLS.

To invent a girl -that will furnish her own motive power and will consume no fuel whatever is as impossible as to invent any other variety^of perpetual motion machine. And yet ignorant persons are constantly engaged in this hopeless task, and about once in every year we are told that the desired girl has been successfully constructed and is in full operation. The latest announcement of the kind comes from the town\ of Galesburg, 111., which boasts the possession of a girl who has eaten nothing since last July, but who has nevertheless been in constant, motion ever since that date. The.re is ho doubt that, were it possible to manufacture girls who could live, without food, they would speedily supersede the kind of girl now in use. At present girls are undeniably dear. The first cost o|j a welt-built pirlis not very great, but th%* necessity of supplying her with food three times a day entails a constant outlay of money. There is ho economy in feeding her with an inferior quality of food, or in diminishing che amount which she is calculjjied to consume. Scientific persons hffff the precise number of "units of work" that are contained in a single pound of pure caramels, and if a girl is constructed so as to perform.a certain amount of flirtation, piano-playing, and novel-reading upon one pound of caramels, she can do. only half as much work upon half a pound. The worst of it is, the girl requires to be regularly supplied with food, and ;to have -her steam constantly kept up, so to speak, no matter whether there is any demand for her services or not. In this respect she is decidedly inferior to the ordinary steam engine; "the fires of which may be banked or even entirely extinguished when the engine is not in use. No such expedient can be adopted in the case of a girl, for as soon as she is deprived of food her machinery falls to pieces, and she becomes entirely valueless. It is true tEat occasionally she may be sold for a trifling sum- to the junk department of some medical college; but the demand for scrap-girl is usually very limited. There would obviously be a great saving effected if this daily consumption of fuel could.be avoided. If, during Lent, for example, girls could have their fires banked, and their/ machinery could remain inactive until they should be needed to set society once more in motion, the saving thereby effected , would he enormous. Every scientific person, however, knows that this is'impossible so long, as the law of nature, which strictly prohibits the.pro. duetion of effects without adequate

-causes, remains in force. When, therefore, the inventor of the Galesburg girl grimly asserts she has used no food for sijfc consecutive months, and is, nevertheless, in good running order, we know ,that he is an impostor. It is admitted there is a very simple way of exposing the false claims made for this Galesburg girl. Let her inventor allow her to be thoroughly searched for concealed sausage and other condensed food, and then let her be confined fora week in a cell where no food can be secretly brought to her. Before that time has expired the girl will either beg for food, or her machinery wili have ceased, to act. Of course, theinventorwill noteonsent todothis, since it is much more profitable for him to exhibit his girl at popular prices, but his unwillingness to allow her to be thoroughly tested will be sufficient proof that he is imposing upon the Galesburg public, and raising false hopes among unscientific fathers who are dissatisfied with the annual cost of operating girls of the usual pattern.—New York Times. j