Many years ago there was a horrible scandal in New York. The most famous architect in America was murdered, and the newspapers probed into his life, and it was revealed to us that many of the most famous artists and men about town in New York maintained elaborate studios, equipped with every luxury, all the paraphernalia of all the vices of the ages; and through these places there flowed an endless stream of beautiful young girls. In every large city in America you will find an "athletic club," and if you go there and listen to the gossip, you discover that there are scores of idle rich men with automobiles and private apartments, and a staff of procurers used in preying, not merely upon young girls, but also upon young boys. And these are not merely the children of the poor, they are the children of all but the rich and powerful. In the "movies" you see pictures of girls lured into automobiles, and carried out into the country, or seduced by means of "knock-out drops," and you think this is just "melodrama"; but it is happening all the time. In every big city of our country the police know that hundreds of young girls disappear every year. At a recent convention of police chiefs in Washington, it was stated, from police records, that sixty thousand girls disappear every year in the United States, leaving no trace. Unless the parents happen to be in position to make a fuss, not even the names of the girls are published in the newspapers. I do not ask you to believe such things on my word; believe District Attorney Sims of Chicago, who made the most thorough study of this subject ever made in America, and wrote: "When a white slave is sold and landed in a house or dive she becomes a prisoner.... In each of these places is a room having but one door, to which the keeper holds the key. Here are locked all the street clothes, shoes and ordinary apparel.... The finery provided for the girls is of a nature to make their appearance on the street impossible. Then in addition to this handicap, the girl is placed at once in debt to the keeper for a wardrobe.... She cannot escape while she is in debt, and she can never get out of debt. Not many of the women in this class expect to live more than ten years--perhaps the average is less. Many die painful deaths by disease, many by consumption, but it is hardly beyond the truth to say that suicide is their general expectation." CHAPTER XXXII SEX AND THE POOR (Discusses prostitution, the extent of its prevalence, and the diseases which result from it.)