Also the evidence shows that the hirelings of this traffic are
stationed at certain ports of entry in Canada where large numbers of
immigrants are landed to do what is known in their parlance as "cutting
out work." In other words, these watchers for human prey scan the
immigrants as they come down the gangplank of a vessel which has just
arrived and "spot" the girls who are unaccompanied by fathers, mothers,
brothers or relatives to protect them. The girl who has been spotted
as a desirable and unprotected victim is promptly approached by a man
who speaks her language and is immediately offered employment at good
wages, with all expenses to the destination to be paid by the man. Most
frequently laundry work is the bait held out, sometimes housework or
employment in a candy shop or factory.
The object of the negotiations is to "cut out" the girl from any of
her associates and to get her to go with him. Then the only thing is
to accomplish their ruin by the shortest route. If they cannot be
cajoled or enticed by promises of an easy time, plenty of money, fine
clothes and the usual stock of allurements--or a fake marriage--then
harsher methods are resorted to. In some instances the hunters really
marry the victims. As to the sterner measures, it is, of course,
impossible to speak explicitly beyond the statement that intoxication
and drugging are often used as a means to reduce the victims to a state
of helplessness and sheer physical violence is a common thing.
When the United States authorities some time ago raided the French
resorts on the south side in search of foreign born victims of the
slave trade, some of the most palpable of slavery tactics were
discovered.
"Not one woman in one of these prominent resorts was found who could
speak English," said Assistant United States Attorney Parkin. "But in
their own tongue everything said by them showed long drilling as to
answers that should be made to inquiries. Ask any one of these women a
sudden question in English and her reply to anything asked would be
'five years,' the term of residence in the United States that would
prevent deportation.
"The typical story of the women was of having come to New York about
four years ago as companions or servants in the family of well to do
French immigrants. After several years the family had returned, leaving
the girl, who about three or four months before had come to Chicago
from a New York resort.
"But the slavery feature was bulwarked by every fact that we could
elicit from these drilled women. Not one of them knew by what steamer
she had come to the country; she could not even name the line by which
she sailed. She didn't know what the steamer fares were. She could not
name a single street in New York, which would have been a certainty had
she even stopped there for a week at liberty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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