Nor does she make our heart bleed for girlhood alone, but for manhood, as that blood-curdling conversation, unparalleled in literature, is gasped out between the Man and the Elder Sister as they crouch in the shadow in that ghastly room in what he himself tells her is “one of the most terrible houses in Europe.” Here we see manhood disfigured, draggled beyond recognition, sitting in the dust and ashes of a charnel house. How sodden the words fall from his lips as depraved and perverted manhood defends itself. “This is a commonplace in the world, in every capital of every nation on earth. Bishops, old ladies, imagine you could alter these things.” “Human nature—human nature,” muses the Elder Sister, “like the tolling of a muffled bell.” Thus are the wickedest, most deadly of the world’s platitudes on this subject uttered in this glaring scene of abnormality, so that automatically they are given the lie. The unbelieving will say, “But how is it possible that we do not hear oftener of such cases?” Two elements especially conspire to suppress such knowledge, both based on a false attitude towards women. First the double standard of morals which holds men’s purity so much lower than woman’s; second, the unjust attitude towards women reflected in the press which is more likely to seize upon a disappearance story in such a way as to make it reflect upon the girls’ character rather than to acknowledge it a possible case of abduction or white slavery. As I write, Miss Robins sends me letters which she has recently received from people interested in her book. One speaking of the “awful traffic that is going on” tells how two girls, daughters of a clergyman, have disappeared on their journey home from school and have never been heard of since. A letter from Miss Robins herself adds the following to her remarks on her book. “Of all the official people I consulted, not one of these experts doubted my story, _and all had known similar cases_. We do not need to be told that the people to whom these things happen, if they are refined and sensitive, are not eager to make known their ruin. The natural impulse is to cover the horror from every eye, even to deny it.” “If you will consult the findings of your own commissions you will see that in America ‘no girl of any class is safe.’”