Some of the disorderly hotels have two registration books, one of which is used for entering single visits during a period of twenty-four hours, the other to register the number of times different rooms are used during the same period. The first book is the one displayed to inquisitive investigators or inspectors. In some resorts there is a regular office, as in a legitimate hotel, where couples register at the desk; in others, a small window is all that can be seen. The clerk pushes the book through the opening and the man registers, often without seeing the clerk's face. The woman is not seen by the clerk at all, as she stands in the shadow away from the window. Disorderly hotels offer a comparatively safe place in which to commit crimes of one kind or another. A well-known hotel referred to on another page has been the scene of murder. But the chief crime is stealing. The most successful prostitutes who solicit for these hotels are "gun mols," that is, pickpockets. They use all manner of subterfuges to "lift" the "roll" from the pockets of their customers. When their victim is heavy and sleepy from drink, they usually succeed, getting away before he realizes his loss. But the hotel is utilized not only by the criminal prostitute: it is too often the scene of first seduction. A young, weak, and foolish girl is induced to dine, then to drink, with a comparative stranger who has first taken pains to ingratiate himself with her: without recollection of what has taken place in the interval, she awakens next morning amid the totally strange surroundings of a hotel of this character. A brief description of a typical assignation and disorderly hotel will illustrate some of the general observations above made: A Third Avenue hotel[52] has had an interesting and varied history. The ground is owned by citizens who are well known in social and financial circles. The name of the place has been changed since 1906-7, but the same proprietor conducts the establishment. Once he ran a house in the old Eldridge precinct, later another in East 9th Street. When these places were suppressed, he opened the hotel here in question. He and his manager[53] were both members of the Independent Benevolent Association in 1909. For some years this hotel has been on the Police List as under "strict surveillance"; now and then it has been raided. As far back as 1906 one of the agents of an investigation then in progress was told by a prostitute that detectives had informed the girls that if they resorted to this hotel they would not be molested; whether this is true or not, the fact remains that the hotel was still doing business during the period of this investigation.