Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls; Or, War on the White Slave Trade
History
Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls; Or, War on the White Slave Trade
Prostitution
Troy, New York, is a prolific source from which Chicago houses of ill
fame receive women. In a case recently tried in the Federal courts, the
testimony showed that one girl who had been found in a house of ill-fame
in Chicago had originally been taken to a house at Troy and from that
day, when she was eighteen years of age, until she was arrested in
Chicago some five years later, she had been in the clutches of or under
the control of the different members of a single family who had kept her
earning money for them during all these years. The peaceful village of
Charleston, in southern Illinois, has furnished to the panderers of lust
a beautiful Norwegian girl, whose parents imagine that she is engaged in
a legitimate occupation in Chicago, and whose peace of mind I would not
disturb by furnishing them with her name. Muskegon, Michigan, is a
field to which the white slave operator sends at frequent intervals for
fresh girls. It is not a large city, but seldom does the procurer go
there without returning with his victim.
Now a word as to the method used in procuring girls from our American
cities. Some of the various schemes, which are used by the procurer,
have been detailed in these pages in preceding articles, and I need not
worry the reader with a repetition of their details. It is not always
necessary for the procurer to go from the city to the country village to
get the girl he is seeking. Indulgent parents very often permit their
daughters to come to the great city unaccompanied by any protector; the
Sunday excursion, the fat stock show, a world's fair, some theatrical
production, a monstrous convention--these are the lights which allure
the daughter and sister to the city. Perhaps she has never been in the
city before and has no relatives or friends to whose house she may go.
Perhaps she has been in the city once or twice before and has met a
supposed woman friend, who has taken her to her house and shown her
every courtesy. If the former, she will oftentimes be met at the
railroad station by a young man, well dressed, pleasant and affable, who
offers to spend his money to procure her a cab to take her to some
respectable hotel. Unexperienced in the ways of the city, she accepts
only to find that instead of a protector she has found in the affable
young man a procurer for some vile house of prostitution. Many, many
times have instances like this occurred, and the innocent young girl has
awakened the next morning to find herself situated in a gaudy bedroom,
without clothing, the prey and victim of her procurer. Her clothes have
been taken away from her, and upon inquiry she finds that she is in debt
and will not be permitted to leave the house until she has earned
sufficient money to pay back what the affable young man has spent upon
cab fares and hotel bills, and, in addition to that, to repay the price
which the keeper of the house gave to her seducer. An instance of this
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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