Many of the circumstances whose strong influence has
been at work for years in our manufacturing towns have not arisen
here; and there is no manufacturing population in Lowell, so to
speak: for these girls (often the daughters of small farmers) come
from other States, remain a few years in the mills, and then go
home for good.
The contrast would be a strong one, for it would be between the
Good and Evil, the living light and deepest shadow. I abstain from
it, because I deem it just to do so. But I only the more earnestly
adjure all those whose eyes may rest on these pages, to pause and
reflect upon the difference between this town and those great
haunts of desperate misery: to call to mind, if they can in the
midst of party strife and squabble, the efforts that must be made
to purge them of their suffering and danger: and last, and
foremost, to remember how the precious Time is rushing by.
I returned at night by the same railroad and in the same kind of
car. One of the passengers being exceedingly anxious to expound at
great length to my companion (not to me, of course) the true
principles on which books of travel in America should be written by
Englishmen, I feigned to fall asleep.
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