One of the best procuresses in New York City operates as a sort of employment agent, receiving a commission from immoral girls for finding profitable houses for them to work in. In this way she supplies the cheaper grade of houses, the girls paying her from $2 to $5 commission, according to the character of the house to which she sends them. Another,[168] also the madame of a house in West 38th Street,[169] goes to France to secure girls for her exclusive $5 and $10 house. On June 6, 1912, eight inmates were counted in her establishment, several of whom were young French girls who could speak little or no English. One of them told a stranger that she had not been in this country very long. On July 17, 1912, at about 7 P. M., a madame was asked[170] whether she could use three girls just brought from Vancouver, British Columbia. Betsy, the madame, said she could not, but pointed with her finger to two men owners[171] of a house in West 28th Street.[172] One of them asked the woman what the girls looked like. The procuress indicated that they were well built, young, and pretty. The man cautiously advised the woman to take the girls somewhere and "green them out."[173] The close and essential connection between the white slave traffic and houses of prostitution is clearly exhibited by the foregoing instances. Houses of prostitution cannot exist except through trafficking in women. Prostitutes who live scattered through the city may earn money for their pimps; but traffic in scattered prostitutes is practically impossible. As soon as houses are set up, an opportunity for trade is created. The proprietors give specific orders to the procurer--for young girls, for innocent girls, for blondes, for brunettes, for slender women, for stout women. And the procurer fills the order, resorting to every possible device in the effort to do so,--to deceit, misrepresentation, intoxication, "doping," or what not. The white slave traffic is thus not only a hideous reality, but a reality almost wholly dependent on the existence of houses of prostitution. CHAPTER V PROSTITUTE AND CUSTOMER (a) THE PROSTITUTE The professional prostitute, in the sense in which the term is here used, is the woman or girl who sells herself for money, whether for her own pecuniary benefit, or under the direction or control of owners of vice resorts, of madames, procurers, or pimps. There has been much speculation as to the number of such women in New York City. Various estimates have been made from time to time, ranging from 25,000 to 100,000. A recent estimate places the number at 30,000.