p. 64 | Use of Skating Rinks by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Jan 28, 1886

Use of Skating Rinks.

By Editor

It has been a great pleasure to us to read the report of the Twelfth Annual Session of the N. W. C. T. U., held at Philadelphia last fall. The proceedings would do credit to any deliberative body that ever convened. The address of the President, Miss Willard, was a strong document. But there was one paragraph which we much regretted to find in this address. It is as follows:—

"I was much impressed by a suggestion of Mrs. Phinney, of Ohio, that popular places of assembly are being furnished to our hand in the skating rinks now to be found in nearly every town and village. Perhaps this is the bright side of what has seemed a very 'dark Providence.' Let me urge that we here resolve to try the experiment of holding meetings in these rinks, and in depot waiting rooms, vacant stores, reading-rooms, or any place where the great out-door population that will not go to church, can be induced to congregate."

A man who had every opportunity to know, testified that the remorseless sacrifice of young females in London, the exposure of which so horrified the world, was greatly facilitated by the skating rinks. Inexperienced girls were there thrown into the society of strangers, and the excitement of the occasion made them an easy prey to the villains who went there for such conquests. And it has been stated by observers and law officers that the skating rinks in the cities of America are a most fruitful means of the ruin of young females.

But, it may be asked, why not turn them to good account, as Miss Willard recommends? Because it is not safe to give such encouragement to the young to enter these abodes of impurity and death. There is much in the power of association. If girls go there one night to meeting, they will feel more free to go to the same place the next night for sport. Let them be taught to shun the rink as they would the pest-house.