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
There are many angles to the white slave business in New York. Many
women are enticed into houses of ill-fame by promises of marriage and by
fake marriages. The cadet took a woman before a crooked notary public
and went through a form of marriage but failed to file the agreement
thereof, thereby suppressing the evidence of marriage, the purpose
being to aid procurers who sometimes marry several girls in their vile
purposes of compelling these unfortunates to live lives of shame, to
enable them to profit by their villainy. The Commission of Immigration
found that this practice had been largely suppressed by the new law
requiring a marriage license. These notaries now advise as to the best
way the law may be circumvented. As an illustration, one notary agreed
to perform a real marriage between an investigator of the commission and
a supposed Swedish girl, and to draw a contract transferring her
property to the husband. The notary then advised the latter as to the
best manner in which to make the new wife appear to have committed
adultery so that the husband might be able to secure a divorce after
having secured the girl's money.
That many of these houses in New York City are run under the guise of
massage parlors is well known. Many of the women in these houses are
French. A paper is published in New York in which the names and
addresses of these houses are advertised. Innocent women are lured by
advertisements for operators. The publisher of this paper is a notary
public and is always willing to advise his advertisers how to carry on
their immoral business. One of the difficulties that the Federal
authorities have in putting a stop to the importation of these women
into the country is the fact that very many of the women who have been
actually intended for the disorderly houses are manifested to seemingly
respectable people. These people, however, have some indirect connection
with the business of prostitution. For instance, one man has what seems
to be a perfectly legitimate and solid business as a manufacturer of
women's clothes. However, his sole business is the supplying of that
clothing to the disorderly houses throughout the country. It is said
that women have come to work in his factory and have been turned over,
after many glittering promises have been made to them, to some keeper of
a disorderly house who made them inmates of his establishment. Some of
the women go to work in restaurants where members of the Association
have some interest, and thus the way is made easy for an introduction to
the woman with the subsequent result of finding her way into a
disorderly resort. Some of the procurers in New York work through the
employment agencies. Since May, 1904, the Commissioner of Licenses has
revoked 14 licenses of employment agents for sending girls to immoral
places of whom 9 furnished immigrants chiefly. Nine other licenses were
revoked for immoral conduct, eight furnished immigrants chiefly. The
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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