The matron of a home for fallen women in Los Angeles, says: "Seven-tenths of the girls received here have fallen through dancing and its influence." Of course, some of these, either from inherited passion or evil education, have deliberately and of free choice entered upon a life of shame; but the great majority do so under the stress of temptation; sometimes because of poverty or chafing against uncongenial employment, with meager wages. They are told that in the profession of prostitution, they can, if they are lucky, make more in a single night than they could by sewing a week. Can you wonder that many a girl, aroused by the waltz and then lured by such glittering bait, is led to sell herself, soul and body, to those who make use of her and then cast her aside for another? And yet ball-rooms, where this corruption germinates, flourish and are countenanced by many preachers of the gospel, and attended and encouraged by church members whose pastors have not the moral courage to condemn the evil, for fear of offending some of their members who dance. The ministers, in a great measure, set the standard of morality in our land, and when they will rise to the occasion and make a long strike, a strong strike, a strike altogether against this ball-room curse, Christian people will strike with them. Then, and not until then, will this evil be wiped out. It is at the cause and not the effect that the strike must be made. In some cities the advisability of closing all the houses of prostitution by laws has been discussed. One might as well try to stop the Mississippi river from flowing by damming it at its mouth, as to try to stop this great stream of vice by closing the doors of the brothel. To dam the river at its mouth would only cause it to overflow its banks and seek another outlet, and to close the doors of the brothels on one street would only drive them to another. To stop this great tide of sin we must begin at its source. To close the doors of the brothel, close first the doors of the dancing school. CHAPTER IV. ABANDONED WOMEN THE BEST DANCERS. The most accomplished and most perfect dancers are to be found among the abandoned women. Why? Because they are graduates of dancing schools. If any should wish to ascertain the truth of this let him ask the girls themselves. I have for several months been working in a Mission of Los Angeles, and where I have before seen causes at work, I have now had ample opportunity of seeing the effect, and I have often heard some of these unfortunate ones cry out in bitter anguish "Would to God that I had never entered a dancing school." The following 200 were cases of girls who are to-day inmates of the brothel whom I talked with personally. They were frank to answer to my questions in regard to the direct cause of their downfall, and I gathered that these were ruined by: