congressional investigating [Illustration: T. ALBERT MOORE, D.D.--Secretary Moral and Social Reform Council of Canada, and Second Vice-President, World’s Federation of Purity.] committees, that there is no longer any question as to the traffic or its extent. The problem now is, how to suppress it the most effectively and speedily. It is asserted by a United States official that fully 50,000 men in the United States are living off the earnings of women of shame and in selling girls into vice. =Others who profit from the traffic in virtue.=--But the buying and selling of women for immoral purposes is not the only way that financial profit is made from it. It was discovered in a certain city recently that an old house that would rent for ordinary purposes for $12.00 per month, was bringing $165.00 as a house of ill-fame. Landlords profit from the traffic. Liquor dealers profit from the traffic. In the same way but possibly to a lesser degree certain merchants, druggists, lawyers, doctors, professional bondsmen, gamblers and divers criminals profit financially from the nefarious traffic in virtue. =The extent of the evil.=--The extent of the Social Evil in the United States is not definitely known. Surveys of cities have been very carefully made at times, and at the present time our Federal Department for the suppression of the traffic is conducting a very careful census of the women in houses of shame throughout the United States. When this is completed we may know more certainly as to statistics. The writer after a most careful and thorough investigation in 1898, estimated the number of girls and women in houses of shame in our country at 300,000. This figure has been very generally accepted and used, and from recent investigations it is evident that the number has not decreased. The lives of women in houses of shame averages five years. They do not all die within this time, though many of them do succumb to the horrors of the life and accompanying disease, drugs and drink in much less time. Some leave the life for honorable work or return home, a few are married, some are rescued, but whatever the cause of their departure from the miserable life, this one thing is sure,--for every one that gets out a fresh victim is required to take her place. Accepting these estimates as correct, we see 60,000 girls and women are required each year to provide for the constant demand of the public houses of shame. More than 2,000,000 men and boys are the patrons and consorts of these women, ruining morals, health and happiness, and this is one of the most deplorable phases of the whole system. The profits from vice in the United States are beyond estimate, but are known to run up into the billions of dollars annually. The Chicago Vice Commission estimated the profits from vice in Chicago alone as $15,000,000 yearly.