Toronto by Gaslight: The Night Hawks of a Great City: As Seen by the Reporters of "The Toronto News"Toronto News
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Toronto by Gaslight: The Night Hawks of a Great City: As Seen by the Reporters of "The Toronto News"
Toronto News
Toronto (Ont.) -- Description and travel
One of the saddest cases that had come under his experience this
clergyman related to me as follows: It will be remembered that his parish
includes that street stretching from Yonge street to College avenue,
which may well be termed the vicus sceleratus, the Wicked Street, of
Toronto. Several years ago a young lady visited him at his vestry, who
was evidently in great distress. She had the manners and appearance of
one who had been carefully and respectably brought up. Her story was
soon told. Her parents held a good position in the town of ⸺, Ontario.
She was engaged to be married to a young gentleman of good professional
prospects. Within a week of their appointed marriage, when the wedding
trousseau had been provided, he forced the unsuspecting girl to yield to
his wishes, then made an excuse for postponing the wedding day. After
several months of this deception her condition necessitated flight. He
took her to Toronto and placed her as a boarder in one of those nefarious
“high-toned” fast houses where the Mother of Infamy entertains the
daughters of death. When the girl found out the character of the place in
which she had been left by her lover, who had now wholly abandoned her,
she at once ran away, and obtained work as servant at a hotel. A day or
so afterwards she was followed by the woman (the word seems misapplied)
who kept the “high-toned” den from which she had fled. This wretch
informed the poor, trembling girl that she knew her entire history, and
would expose her if she did not return. Most unhappily the girl had not
the presence of mind either to appeal to police protection, or to throw
herself, surely not in vain, on the womanly goodness of the hotelkeeper’s
wife. She yielded, and became once more the slave of the procuress. She
now appealed to the Rev. Mr. ⸺ for aid to escape
A LIFE WHICH SHE ABHORRED.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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