The brother of the young Chicago girl went to the offices of the
Chicago Tribune and the Daily News and asked for the name of the woman
who inserted the "Traveling Companion" advertisement. He was told that
the papers were sorry, but that would be impossible. The clerks who
had charge of the want ads were under bonds to divulge no information
regarding blind advertisements. They could not tell who inserted
them, anyway, as no names were taken. The letters when received by
the newspapers were held until the advertisers called for them. The
newspapers could not maintain the integrity of their advertising
columns if they asked impertinent questions of every advertiser.
The newspaper men were sorry. No one regretted the creeping into their
columns of such matter so much as they. Both papers employed detectives
to scrutinize the want columns and to hunt down and expurgate such
advertising if the least possible suspicion was attached to it, but
many want ads were so cleverly and innocently worded that they would
creep in despite every possible precaution that might be taken.
The young man employed detectives himself. He went to a large agency
and told the manager the circumstances. Hardened as he was through
constant association with crime and its varied phases, the manager of
the agency winced when the story was finished.
"You've saved your sister from a living hell," said the crime expert.
"You've saved her from the most terrible spider that ever wove a
net for the accomplishment of ruin. 'Mrs. Schwartz' the widow, is a
procuress--the most clever and fiendish procuress known to us. She
works under a hundred aliases. So keen is she, so clever in her plots
to bring about the ruin of young girls, that we can not cope with her.
She is a rich woman. Every dollar that she has made represents a soul
blackened, an innocent metamorphosed into a drug sotted, degraded
creature of the red lights.
"Your sister is not the only girl that advertisement was meant for. It
probably has already written the ruin of a score of beautiful young
innocents. It was a lure. A lure only. There was no trip to Europe.
There was no trip planned to any place except a house in Twenty-second
street or the private chambers of some wealthy libertine.
"Mrs. Schwartz must have received many hundred answers to that
advertisement from young girls all over the city--even out of the city.
The glamour of a trip to Europe, a salary to tour the world, would turn
any young girl's head. The wording of the advertisement would arouse no
fears or suspicions in the mind of even a worldly wise person.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account