Denying rumors of his evil character, he wrote: "I did not go to Davis to see another girl. I went to sign up some policies which I wrote up there a couple of weeks ago. And if you heard anything I said about you, it was some lie those kids made up, like the one about the girl in Davis. I never spoke to the girl in my life and probably wouldn"t know her if I met her on the street. I do care very much for you and I love you much more than I profess and I don"t run after other girls. I would like to take you with me, but since you say that was impossible, I will be true to you. If you ever want to come to me I will send you the money and will take as good care of you as if you were my own sister."
In another letter the wretch complains: "Say, why did you tell Effie about my writing to you and wanting you to come to Chicago? Please keep these things to yourself if you value love."
Needless to say, the scoundrel had no wealth, and when Judge Fake fined him two hundred dollars, all the punishment our backward laws provided at that time, he had to go to prison until his father could send the money from his home in the state of Washington.
The letters quoted above were obtained by Miss Niblo, a missionary, from the intended victims, and were published by the editor of the Freeport Evening Standard, July 31, 1907.
A very young girl who just escaped this tiger"s claws wrote this letter of inquiry and grat.i.tude:
"---- Street.
----, Illinois, August 8, 1907.
Rev. Ernest Bell:
Dear Sir:--Could you tell me if Neil Jaeger is in the bridewell yet or has he been released? I am a girl that he tried to persuade to go away with him, but he did not succeed in getting me to go. You have my heartiest congratulations for capturing such a wretch.
Yours Truly,
There are hundreds of such smooth scoundrels occupied all the time in replenishing the dens of shame in Chicago. They travel, to our positive knowledge, as far as Ohio and Tennessee and in all the nearer states.
Fathers and mothers and brothers of girls, and the girls themselves, should be ceaselessly vigilant against these murderous deceivers. They always profess to be in some legitimate business and are apt to transact some honest deals as a blind. Every city that keeps up a red light district breeds these destroyers of girls. Every divekeeper employs such agents, and the princ.i.p.al is worse than the employee.
Mrs. Charlton Edholm, in her book "Traffic in Girls," writes the following confession made to her by a converted bartender: "Mrs. Edholm, I believe I am a converted man now, and that the Lord Jesus Christ has accepted me and I will dwell with him forever, but when I realize how many girls I have sent to houses of shame, I wonder if G.o.d ever can forgive me, and I would give my life if I could undo it.
"When I was a bartender for years in a saloon with wine rooms, these procurers used to come there, and often I"ve seen one of these men bring a beautiful girl to the ladies" entrance, and of course he would try to get her to drink wine or beer, but oftentimes having been brought up in a Christian home, or having signed the total abstinence pledge in the Sunday school,--for you W. C. T. U. women have done so much for the children by having temperance taught in the day schools and Sunday schools,--and she would refuse to touch the wine or beer, then he would wink at me, and I knew that meant an extra dollar for me, and I would drop a little drug into whatever that girl had to eat or drink, and in a few moments she would be unconscious and that fellow would have a carriage drive to the door, that girl would be placed in it and driven straight to a haunt of shame; he would receive his twenty-five or fifty dollars, and that girl would be as surely lost as if the earth had opened and swallowed her. Hundreds of times I"ve done this, and, Mrs.
Edholm, do you think G.o.d can forgive me?"
Young men, and older men, who patronize houses of shame should be made to see and feel that all this h.e.l.lish traffic goes on at their instance and at their expense. The keepers and procurers are the paid agents of the men who foot the bill. Every dollar, with the burning name of G.o.d upon it, that any man spends there makes him a stockholder in the white slave market and a partner in the traffic in girls. The men who support the hideous business are the ultimate white slave traders, and when their hired men, the divekeepers and procurers, come to judgment and condemnation, the men who supported them in crime will be arraigned beside them and punished with them.
PERIL OF STAGE-STRUCK GIRLS.
The corruption of the present day theatre is generally admitted.
Archbishop Farley, in a sermon at St. Patrick"s Cathedral, New York, on Sunday, February 7, 1909, said that "the stage is worse today then it was in the days of paganism." He added: "We see today men and women--old men and old women--who ought to know better bringing the young to these orgies of obscenity. Instead of that they should be exercising a supervision over the young and should look carefully after their companionship."
Actresses of character are among the foremost to warn young women of the perils of the modern stage. Shakespeare and the older dramatists taught virtue, often with the spirit and energy of a prophet. Mult.i.tudes of present day plays are of such moral character and tendency that no one can defend or excuse them. President Taft recently walked out of a theatre to express his disapproval of the play.
Low theatres exist merely to inflame those who visit them. They go to the awful length of naming the vice district as part of the merriment of the performances. Other so-called theatres are a part of the combined saloon and den of shame. I have conversed personally many times with girls who were deceived into going to such places, thinking they were going on the reputable stage.
Mr. Arthur Burrage Farwell, Chicago"s well-known reformer, here tells briefly the story of two young girls, whom I have often met in his office, who were lured by a false theatrical agency to go to a vile resort. The agency of a wicked woman, or two of them, will be noted in this case, along with the base deeds of an unscrupulous man. The keen eyes and wise head of a good hearted Scotch woman saved the girls from a terrible doom. Mr. Farwell writes as follows:
"About December 1, 1907, I received a special delivery letter from the managing editor of one of the oldest daily papers in Springfield, Illinois, informing me that two girls had been sent back to Chicago and suggesting that the police department be informed of the facts. I immediately communicated with the a.s.sistant general superintendent of police, Hon. Herman F. Schuettler, and the girls were located. The theatrical agent who had sent them from Chicago was arrested and work was started against some of the evil practices of false theatrical agents.
Taking the story from the girls and from their testimony in court, it is as follows: These two girls worked in a large department store in the city of Chicago. One of them was approached one day by a well-dressed woman who requested the judgment of this young lady upon some material to be used in theatrical work. The result was that this woman gave the name of a theatrical agent and told the girl that she could make $25.00 a week by going on the stage, as she had a good voice, etc., etc.
This girl spoke to another friend, working in the same store, and together they called upon this theatrical agent whose name was given them by the woman. After being taken to a saloon, an attempt being made to compromise them, they were given tickets to the city where they were supposed to go upon the stage. They reached the city and providentially were guided to a boardinghouse of a Scotch woman who lived next door to the alleged theatre, which proved to be a saloon in the front and a vaudeville in the rear and upstairs a most awful place.
The proprietor of the alleged theatre declined to employ the young ladies unless they would stay in the rooms over the saloon or theatre.
On the advice of the Scotch woman they declined to stay over the theatre, and the woman furnished them tickets and they returned to Chicago.
The preliminary hearing of the People vs. ---- was held in the Munic.i.p.al Court of Chicago before Judge Wells, January 14, 1908, and lasted about five days, and twenty-seven witnesses were heard, the testimony covering 373 pages. The theatrical agent ----, was held to the grand jury. His license to operate a theatrical agency was revoked by the state.
The sworn testimony showed a condition of affairs that would be a disgrace to the most ignorant, vicious and debased people. That such things are allowed in a republic where the people rule, as were allowed in Springfield and in other cities, is a sad commentary upon the average indifference of the authorities and the people, which should be called criminal indifference.
The theatrical agent and one of the owners of the property in Springfield were indicted for conspiracy, but in the criminal court these charges were not sustained.
The two girls were living with a woman and one day when they were needed as witnesses it was found they were not there. A letter with no signature was received by the president of the Chicago Law and Order League, informing him that the two girls were living under a.s.sumed names in Milwaukee, and immediately representatives of the Chicago Law and Order League and of the State of Illinois, went to Milwaukee and found the girls and brought them back.
The men who were responsible for sending these state"s witnesses away were indicted and were found guilty and the woman re-indicted.
The expense in this one case to the Chicago Law and Order League and the State of Illinois was probably not less than $2,000.
If the young girls who are seeking a living upon the stage could know of the pitfalls that are in their way, I believe many of them would seek other employment. One of the girls is now married and living very happily.
Arthur Burrage Farwell, President Chicago Law and Order League."
E. A. B.
CHAPTER XVIII.
PROCURESSES AND THE CONFESSION OF ONE OF THEM.
Here is a story from the London Times, which might easily be repeated in the New York Herald or the Chicago Tribune:
"I was standing on a railway platform at ---- with a friend waiting for a train, when two ladies came into the station. I was acquainted with one of them, the younger, well. She told me she was going to London, having been fortunate enough to get a liberal engagement as governess in the family of the lady under whose charge she then was, and who had even taken the trouble to come into the country to see her and her friends, to ascertain that she was likely in all respects to suit. The train coming in sight, the fares were paid, the elder lady paying both. I saw them into the car, and the door being closed, I bowed to them and rejoined my friend, who happened to be a London man about town. "Well, I will say," said he, "you country gentlemen are pretty independent of public opinion. You are not ashamed of your little transactions being known!" "What do you mean?" I asked. "Why, I mean your talking to that girl and her duenna on an open platform." "Why, that is Miss ----, an intimate of friend of ours." "Well, then, I can tell you," said the Londoner to me coolly, "her friend is Madam ----, one of the most noted procuresses in London, and she has got hold of a new victim, if she is a victim, and no mistake." I saw there was not a minute to lose; I rushed to the guard of the train and got him to wait a moment. I then hurried to the car door where the ladies were. "Miss ----, you must get out; that person is an unfit companion for you. Madam ----, we know who you are." That one victim was rescued, but how many are lost?"
With "Prisoner Number 503," whose story follows, I have conversed personally and I have not the slightest doubt that her story is true. It surprised me to hear her say that she was and is a member of a Baptist church, with an implication in her words and manner that members of other churches are not quite so safe as members of her denomination. Her story was published January 28, 1909. She was brought to justice by the Chicago Law and Order League.
BY PRISONER NUMBER 503.
I am writing this message to the readers of The National Prohibitionist and to the world from behind the bars in that gloomy pile of buildings alongside the Drainage Ca.n.a.l, where Chicago every year spends some millions of dollars to protect herself from the criminal cla.s.ses which she constantly creates and breeds.
It may shock the respectable people who read these lines to find that their author is an imprisoned criminal. I lay emphasis on the word "imprisoned," because my not very long experience with the world has taught me that violation of the law is not particularly offensive to the ma.s.s of the world"s inhabitants so long as it is not attended with the "pains and penalties" that are prescribed for the law"s violation.
I may as well shock my readers still more at once by the frank confession that I am in prison convicted of being what is commonly known as a "white slave trader" and I was justly convicted and was guilty of the offense charged.
And having made this confession, let me introduce myself.
Behold me, a very common sort of a woman, twenty nine years old, an ex-schoolteacher, born and piously brought up in the good state of Arkansas, fairly well educated, and, until within the last few months, almost wholly inexperienced in the ways of the wicked world.
Six years ago, in my Arkansas home, I married a man whom I believed to be in every way worthy of the respect and love that I gave him and, bidding goodby to my mother and my childhood friends in the old home, went with him to St. Louis.