Hotels and boarding houses, however, were only one phase of the matter. On the city streets, in the dance halls, in the soft drink parlors, wherever soldiers craved companionship, there the problem of the girl was to be found. It was most serious in the case of young girls fourteen to sixteen years of age, who were sometimes seen on the streets long after midnight, and it is to be remembered that in the Negro sections of the cities the streets were often dark and conducive to all forms of evil. Sometimes conditions were winked at by officials who opposed destroying the old order of things. In one case, after Government criticism, the local police made indiscriminate arrests in a pretended effort to clean up. This resulted in lawsuits which halted the work. Ignorant girls were brought into court, but those in higher places were seldom arrested. Even when arrests were made, the evidence revealed often brought a quick release. In one court a woman was sentenced to a year in prison and fined $1000 for leading girls astray, but within a few days, through the influence of unseen forces, she was again enjoying her liberty. A strange leniency also was often found in Southern courts in the case of colored girls whose conduct had brought them there; it did not seem to be required or expected that colored girls should live up to the same standards as white girls. Sometimes unsympathetic lawyers made sport of them for the amusement of crowded court rooms. They were not taken behind closed doors for protection, as were other girls charged with similar offences. Seldom, until near the end of the war, were there detention homes to which they could go and find a genuinely helpful guiding hand. Money appropriated by the Government for the establishment of detention homes in cantonment cities was seldom used for Negro girls. Instead they were usually placed in jail, or sent to the prison farm or the “stockade,” the home of the chain gang. The jails in which they were confined were, with few exceptions, demoralizing and a disgrace to the cities. The inmates lived in dirt and disease, sleeping on ragged, greasy mattresses on concrete floors and eating food prepared in the most unsanitary manner. In one instance colored girls were placed in a room 20 feet by 10, with their cots close together. An open toilet was in the back of the room, which was without windows or any means of ventilation except an electric fan. In such environment were placed many girls arrested for the first time. They associated with confirmed criminals and the living conditions and the treatment which they received made it well nigh impossible for them to lead a different life after being released. Sometimes they worked on the city farms, in the jails, or on rock piles in the jail yards. In one case they were marched through the streets to and from the work of cleaning the city cemetery.