The circumstances under which this peculiar charity comes to be a part of the life of the great metropolis need not be rehearsed here. The heartlessness of men, the frailty of women, the brutality of all those who sit in judgment in spite of the fact that they do not wish to be judged themselves, is so old and so commonplace that its repetition is almost a weariness. Still the tragedy repeats itself, and year after year, and day after day the unlocked door is opened and dethroned virtue enters—the victim of ignorance and passion and affection, and a child is robbed of an honorable home. _The Racing Trust_ BY THOMAS B. FIELDERS The only Trust that has the sincere and earnest and unfaltering support of the daily press is the most audacious, the most grasping, the most immoral of all trusts. This is the Racing Trust. There are hundreds of trusts in this country. All corporations that have eliminated or lessened competition to a marked degree are called trusts. It is asserted, commonly, that such combinations are against the laws of the states that form the Union and are in opposition to the Federal Constitution. If the Beef Trust or the Sugar Trust or the Standard Oil Trust have advocates among the daily newspapers of the country, these advocates are not earning their salt, to say nothing of their salaries. The only support they have the courage to give is silence. Yet it has to be proven that these trusts have infringed the law. In the case of the Racing Trust there is no doubt. There is none to deny that it is an absolute monopoly. It conducts business in open defiance of the law and the Constitution. It has the avarice of a miser, and the impudent shamelessness of a courtezan. All who will help to fill its maw are received with open arms. Lacking morals, it expects none of its patrons. Within its portals the scum of humanity is made as welcome as the cream. It has its rules, but these are without and beyond the law, though, curiously, they are enforced by so-called guardians of the law. The Beef Trust, by its rapacious methods, may make vegetarians; the Racing Trust makes outcasts, who, sometimes, rise to the dignity of convicts. The Beef Trust shuns advertisement; the Racing Trust welcomes it. Any reputable undertaking must pay heavily for the support of the press; the Racing Trust gets such support in columns per day for a ridiculously small subvention. The press poses as a teacher of morality. In the case of the Racing Trust it plays the part of a panderer without getting the price insisted upon by that unutterable in any other walk of life.