MY BATTLES 
 WITH VICE 
 
 BY 
 
 VIRGINIA BROOKS 
 
 Author of "Little Lost Sister." 
 
 NEW YORK 
 THE MACAULAY COMPANY 
 
 1915 
 

 Copyright, 1915, by 
 THE MACAULAY COMPANY 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 FOREWORD , 9 
 
 I A MOTHER'S REQUEST 23 
 
 II I FIND WORK AS A WAITRESS .... 28 
 
 III I BECOME A CLERK 44 
 
 IV THE FIRST CLEW 51 
 
 V NELLIE DALY'S MEAL TICKET ... 62 
 
 VI "BULL" TEVIS 70 
 
 VII AT THE CAFE SINISTER 78 
 
 VIII WHAT HAPPENED TO MAIZIE ... 85 
 
 IX THE TRAIL OF WATCHFUL JOHNNY . . 94 
 
 X THE BEXELWAUM BALL 107 
 
 XI HER RETROSPECTION 117 
 
 XII QUEER FISH IN THE DEPTHS .... 123 
 
 XIII TREFALKA AND STEVE 135 
 
 XIV THE SCARLET WEDDING DRESS . . .142 
 XV ANNIE'S HUSBAND 151 
 
 XVI MARY HOLDEN 160 
 
 XVII I HUNT A JOB ON THE STAGE . . .165 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XVIII THE MIDNIGHT CONVERSATION . . .172 
 
 XIX GRAY WOLF AND LOVE PIRATE . . .179 
 
 XX IN MERCEDES' APARTMENT . . . .187 
 
 XXI CARMEN OF THE TORPEDO CAFE . . .196 
 
 XXII IKE BLOSSOM 203 
 
 XXIII MAZELLE 210 
 
 XXIV "THE CAFE" 217 
 
 XXV THE ESCAPE 224 
 
 XXVI CONCLUSION 234 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 "My BATTLES WITH VICE" is the story of the 
 struggle for honor and virtue of the girl who 
 must work to live. 
 
 It is the story of thousands who have fough r . 
 the battle of modern industrial life and lost 
 
 Virginia Brooks is the girl, who single- 
 handed fought the forces of evil in West Ham- 
 mond, Illinois, and compelled the town to 
 clean up. It was she who drove the worst 
 dives in Christendom out of existence, because, 
 knowing the law, she fought for its enforce- 
 ment. 
 
 This story is written by a young woman 
 reared in the best social atmosphere, whose 
 desire to aid her less fortunate sisters mani- 
 fested itself early in life. 
 
 With the energy and eagerness of youth, 
 
 7 
 
8 INTRODUCTION 
 
 backed by the foremost philanthropic interests 
 in Chicago, she sought out and studied at first 
 hand the problems of the six-dollar-a-week 
 working girl not by asking questions, but by 
 living with the girl, working with her side by 
 side for the same wage, experiencing her 
 temptations, sharing her sufferings, confront- 
 ing her problems. 
 
 Virginia Brooks did not stop there. She 
 followed the girl who had fallen to those p re- 
 car) ous crags and ledges down the mountain- 
 side, that delay the final plunge into the abyss. 
 In the amusement resorts, dance halls and by- 
 ways that exit all in one direction, she learned 
 the lesson of the ages from a new viewpoint 
 the viewpoint of the new woman. 
 
 THE PUBLISHERS. 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 THE OLD UNDERLYING EVIL 
 
 THE social evil is as old as humanity. As far 
 back as history gives any record, evidences of 
 its existence and the subsequent terrible traffic 
 are to be found. From savagery to modern 
 civilization women have been slaves to the 
 brute that lives in man. They have been cap- 
 tured, sold for profit, and have had little to 
 say. 
 
 The Dark Ages are replete with data on this 
 sad, shameful phase of life. The dawn of the 
 Christian era, with its accompanying teaching 
 of purity and chastity, introduced extreme 
 asceticism. A radical stand was necessary 
 where civilization had apparently gone sex 
 mad. 
 
 
io FOREWORD 
 
 After Christianity was established and ex- 
 treme persecution of the Christians had ceased, 
 a general laxity developed and gradually the 
 old conditions returned. During the Middle 
 Ages social laxity increased with astounding 
 rapidity. 
 
 Laws framed for the suppression of evil 
 were not even enforced. One has but to read 
 of the court of Louis XIV to gather an idea 
 of the condition of society during this period. 
 Such royal courts set the example and loose- 
 ness ran through all grades of society. 
 
 With the beginning of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury scientific methods were devised for 
 handling the victims of this evil period. 
 More or less interest was aroused in the bring- 
 ing about of an improved condition of affairs. 
 Some effort was made to punish defiance of 
 the laws of decency. For the first time the 
 evil was reduced to negotiable proportions. 
 
 If we read and follow the course of society's 
 
FOREWORD ii 
 
 curse through past ages, we may be inclined to 
 comfort ourselves with the reflection that 
 wickedness is past and done away with, but 
 this is far from being the truth as I found out. 
 On the contrary, here in free America condi- 
 tions exist that have never been surpassed in 
 any age. As the problem faced ages that are 
 past, so it faces us to-day. 
 
 In my efforts at driving out criminality from 
 one of the border towns of Chicago I came 
 face to face with some shocking truths. I 
 found that evil and vice as it exists in the small 
 town is not a thing apart, depending on itself, 
 but is actually a small part of a great system. 
 
 When I first made an effort to break down 
 the wall of defense of the system which pro- 
 tected evil doers, I found the doors of justice 
 gradually closing against me. I found myself 
 beset by enemies in the most unlocked for 
 situations. In fact, I found that to ask that 
 vice be stamped out was to stand practically 
 
12 FOREWORD 
 
 alone unless by continued effort I could arouse 
 sufficient strength of public sentiment to cow 
 public officials into decisive action. 
 
 I have been amazed and horrified at the 
 methods employed by these traders in human 
 flesh to entice and induce the innocent and the 
 unwary into the nets spread for their unsus- 
 pecting feet. I have waxhed over and over 
 again our little lost sisters making their first 
 entree to the speedway of despair. One by 
 one I have noted the causes, the enticements, 
 the inducements, all of them far too carefully 
 planned and laid to be observed by one so un- 
 worldly as the poor girl who gets caught. I 
 have censured society in my heart, and justly 
 so. The fate of the girl adrift is to be laid 
 directly at the door of society. Her defeat 
 and destruction is the price society makes her 
 pay. 
 
 When the forces of good are brought to bear 
 upon these trappers and wreckers of young 
 
FOREWORD 13 
 
 girls, I have watched the means they use to 
 secure immunity and protection. They are 
 safe as safety itself, unless some slip, some 
 accident, happens that occasionally brings one 
 of them to tardy justice. I have seen men 
 held high in public estimation come to the de- 
 fense of these vultures. I have seen them use 
 every technicality, every unfair advantage, to 
 keep such scoundrels from the prison doors, 
 until my righteous indignation has cried out, 
 "There is no justice in the courts. The laws 
 are framed to shelter thieves. No man gets 
 his just due." 
 
 Whispered stories arouse my curiosity. 
 Once more I watch. Again I am confronted 
 with the system. I find that vice is a trust 
 the most powerful, the most elusive, the most 
 evasive in the world. Not the victim profits, 
 but the exploiters. Not the victim, but the 
 landlords, society parasites, dwellers on the 
 boulevard. 
 
H FOREWORD 
 
 The pay envelopes are labeled for the pro- 
 curer, the police, the politicians, straight on 
 to the man higher up. Shame does not attend 
 the man who profits from such a source. He 
 is the smugly successful business man of the 
 twentieth century. The girl adrift pays the 
 price. Out of the degradation of her body 
 and the damnation of her soul the fat philan- 
 thropist delivers his dole to charity. 
 
 I have seen the beginning of temptation 
 come to young officers on the police force in 
 Chicago. I have observed the hardening 
 process that day after day affects conscience. 
 I have watched the indifference grow upon 
 them as their hands seized upon tainted dol- 
 lars. Gradually the growing income, the in- 
 creasing comforts and perquisites, completely 
 dominate such natures. Whatever trace of re- 
 finement may originally have been seen in 
 their faces becomes lost in the bloating that 
 comes from contact with the monster. 
 
FOREWORD 15 
 
 They, too, begin to close down on the girl 
 adrift. They hound her with threats of jus- 
 tice applied, demanding a portion of her 
 revenue on the side. 
 
 To-day I am convinced that the procurer, 
 the officer, the keeper, are tools only in the 
 hands of the controllers of the trust. What 
 they reap as benefit comes back to the trust as 
 expenditures through gambling and drink bills 
 collected by the trust. The fortunes are for 
 the wealthy sons of the trust magnates. 
 
 I am impressed with the striking difference 
 between the agencies for the destruction and 
 those for the safeguarding of the young. The 
 agencies for safeguarding are scattered and 
 ineffective, while those for destruction are 
 united and nearly infallible. Hence the 
 amazing power of the latter. The agents of 
 the vice trust are always alert. Never in the 
 moments of fatigue, of bitter disappointment 
 and loneliness that overtake the girl adrift, 
 
1 6 FOREWORD 
 
 never is the procurer far away. He is al- 
 ways at hand with a friendly word, offers of 
 companionship, the promise of work. 
 
 In one moment of weakness, unsustained by 
 any of the safeguarding agencies, down goes 
 the girl adrift. The doors close behind her. 
 She is forever lost. She has joined that army 
 of little lost sisters. 
 
 It is not only the ostensible friend in the 
 hour of need that makes captures. Far more 
 subtle influences are at work to drag in the 
 unsuspecting country girl. Here the methods 
 pursued to bind and hold the innocent are so 
 dastardly as to be almost beyond belief. 
 
 I have seen this process, too. I have 
 watched the hounds posing about as the blase 
 dilettante of a small town, attracting little 
 children. There begins a process of under- 
 mining purity and innocence. After this had 
 been accomplished these rascals pushed the 
 
FOREWORD 17 
 
 ruined children on and on until there remained 
 but one way to earn their daily bread. 
 
 I will tell you the story of little Florence 
 a little slip of girl, just fourteen. Her father 
 was employed on the many acres owned by 
 the son of one of the foremost families in 
 Chicago. This son, a gentleman in the city, 
 a cur in the country town, never rested until 
 he had Florence in his power. Fearing that 
 his guilt would be discovered and tired of his 
 plaything, he sent her out of the village with 
 a pitifully small sum of money in her pocket. 
 
 So she struck out for the city alone this 
 child of fourteen years, untrained, unprepared, 
 facing an industrial world alone. She sought 
 work, but she could not earn enough to keep 
 body and soul together. One of the women in 
 the place that employed Florence offered to 
 introduce her to a friend who would show 
 her "how to make a living in a simple way." 
 
1 8 FOREWORD 
 
 Thus Florence met the friend "Watchful 
 Johnny" of the System. The child's labor 
 ceased; her education of bitterness and cruelty 
 was just beginning. 
 
 After a time Florence tried to make the 
 wealthy man pay her in money for the terrible 
 price he had extracted from her. In his fear 
 that some of his exclusive associates would 
 publicly ridicule him for his indiscretion, he 
 began to persecute the child through the aid 
 of politics and the use of money. 
 
 Time passed and in a few years, driven 
 from one dive to another, Florence died miser- 
 ably and alone. The work of that son of 
 wealth was complete. 
 
 He is only a type after all an exemplar of 
 the unthinking, the criminally careless, the 
 evilly intent. He and his band keep on con- 
 tributing to the ranks of the unfortunate, keep 
 swelling the revenues of the masters of social 
 corruption. 
 
FOREWORD 19 
 
 Society cannot afford to disregard the truth 
 of the situation. Society dares not look with 
 indifference upon the greatest of social prob- 
 lems which confronts us to-day. The girl 
 adrift is to be reckoned with. Hers is the 
 handicap, hers is the struggle, and hers the 
 cup of bitterness, as she drains it to the dregs. 
 
 I know this because I have seen it. I have 
 lived side by side with her as waitress, clerk, 
 or laundress as toiler of the factory. Why? 
 Because I wanted to know for myself what it 
 is that drums up recruits to the life that is 
 death because there might be an opportunity 
 to bring to the people at large some suggestion, 
 some insight yet dark, that would spur on 
 greater agitation and rouse greater interest 
 in the abolition of this evil. 
 
MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
MY BATTLES WITH 
 VICE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A MOTHER'S REQUEST 
 
 FROM my mail one morning I picked out a 
 letter written by a woman in Limaville, 
 Illinois, a little town in the southern part of 
 the State with less than three thousand in- 
 habitants. The letter impressed me. It 
 read: 
 
 "Dear Miss Brooks: 
 
 "I am writing to ask you to help me. Six 
 months ago my little girl ran away from home. 
 I guess she was tired of the farm, tired of 
 washing dishes, tired of being cooped up in 
 
 23 
 
24 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 this small town, because in the note she left 
 she said she wanted to see the city, the 
 restaurants, the lights, the shop windows and 
 the people. 
 
 "Two weeks after she ran away a postal 
 came. Mary that is her name said she 
 had found work in Chicago. She didn't send 
 her address. Maybe she thought we would 
 send after her. We've had no word since 
 then. 
 
 "People down here say perhaps Mary's 
 fallen in with those 'white slavers' we read 
 about in the newspapers. 
 
 "Miss Brooks, maybe you don't know what 
 a mother's sorrow is. Day and night I am 
 praying to God to send my Mary back to me. 
 If I only knew where to reach her. The 
 thought that maybe she is hungry, sick and 
 suffering is breaking my heart. I am so 
 powerless to help her. Can't you do some- 
 thing? Can't you find her for me? I am 
 
A MOTHER'S REQUEST 25 
 
 sending you her picture, the one she had taken 
 just before she graduated from the grammar 
 school. 
 
 "A broken-hearted mother, 
 "ELIZA HOLDEN." 
 
 The pages of the letter were tear-stained. 
 Poor mother, I thought! What must her an- 
 guish be as day after day no word comes to 
 her from Mary? Probably, I imagined, she 
 pictures in her mind each tender memory, 
 each little incident which changed her sweet, 
 rosy baby to a winsome grown-up girl. Prob- 
 ably a thousand times she has shaped her 
 daughter's future; a thousand times pictured 
 her won by the stalwart man of her fancy, 
 only to rouse herself to the truth, the hideous 
 truth that her Mary was gone. Where? 
 How? And even the gossiping neighbors be- 
 ginning to whisper "white slavers!'' 
 
 "White slavers!" How often of late I had 
 
26 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 heard the phrase. I didn't know then as I 
 know now that a great system of white slavery 
 existed. I didn't know then that the system 
 had ramifications extending throughout the en- 
 tire country, and that these ramifications are 
 to be found in the most unlocked for, the most 
 unbelievable places. I didn't know then that 
 its supporters are men and women high in 
 social and political life. 
 
 For many months I had been receiving let- 
 ters from mothers in all parts of the country 
 asking me to lend my aid in locating their lost 
 daughters. Most of the letters said that the 
 girl had gone to the city and then nothing 
 more had been heard of her. 
 
 Perhaps these girls had fallen a prey to the 
 System! Mary Holden, perhaps she, too, 
 It couldn't be! I sprang to my feet. Some- 
 thing told me to go out and seek the truth, to 
 enter the city's industrial life and strip the 
 veil of mystery surrounding the pitfalls, the 
 
A MOTHER'S REQUEST 27 
 
 dark and devious alleyways through which 
 girls disappear. I determined to drive from 
 its hiding place the grim specter of commer- 
 cialized, trust controlled vice, and to restore 
 Mary Holden to her mother. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 I FIND WORK AS A WAITRESS 
 
 WHEN I decided to get my information by 
 actual contact with conditions that affect girls 
 coming to the city, and especially working 
 girls, I was puzzled for a time as to the means 
 of getting a job. 
 
 My first efforts to secure a place as waitress 
 in downtown restaurants were not very success- 
 ful. I had scraped up an acquaintance with 
 several girls employed in restaurants, and to 
 them I communicated my desire to work. 
 One of them was rather a pretty child named 
 Linny Smith. She wore a yard or more of 
 puffs and seemed to me on first impression to 
 be about half hair, but she was very good 
 hearted and anxious to help me. 
 
I WORK AS A WAITRESS 29 
 
 "The trouble with you, Kid," she confided, 
 " is that you ain't got no style to you. Look 
 at the way you've got your hair on." 
 
 "What's the matter with it?" I inquired with 
 deep humility. 
 
 "Matter with it?" she retorted with disgust. 
 "Get some puffs and doll yourself up." 
 
 On reflection I decided that her advice about 
 the puffs was sound from several points of 
 view. 
 
 In the first place, I did not want to be recog- 
 nized, which would make my work of no avail, 
 and in the second place my too placid aspect 
 did really seem to have a deterrent effect on 
 the employer of help. So I bought some puffs 
 and trained them down over my forehead with 
 an effect so extraordinary that I at once con- 
 cluded the disguise to be absolutely safe. 
 
 The next day I tried several more places and 
 failed again, but the more I tried and failed 
 the more determined I was to be a waitress. 
 
30 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 I wanted to experience for myself from day 
 to day all the advantages and disadvantages 
 connected with the occupation. I had no ex- 
 perience, you see, and already I was beginning 
 to realize the struggle a girl must go through 
 when she has had no preparation for entry into 
 the fields of industry. I wanted to find out 
 what the opportunities of such a girl were 
 what praise or blame or pleasure or humilia- 
 tion might be hers. 
 
 So I persisted, and at last I succeeded. 
 Linny Smith had offered me daily hints as to 
 how I might, from her experienced point of 
 view, improve my appearance and thus stand 
 a better chance of getting work. 
 
 My first chance came at one of the big stores. 
 I entered the employment bureau of this place 
 and found a long line of girls standing before 
 the superintendent's desk. The line had been 
 waiting, I found, over two hours. I stepped 
 into place at the end of the line. 
 
I WORK AS A WAITRESS 31 
 
 "Gee," said a rather pretty looking girl who 
 had the place ahead of me, "we ain't got as 
 much show as a pair of pink eyed rabbits in a 
 den of snakes." 
 
 The child had a pinched, tired look, but 
 there was a half-whimsical expression on her 
 face the ghost of a smile. 
 
 "After a clerking job?" asked the girl ahead. 
 
 "No, I want to be a waitress," I said. 
 "Haven't had any experience at clerking." 
 
 "Not for mine," said the child. "I've got 
 to get a clerk's job, and it's got to pay seven a 
 week, because I've got my mother and sister 
 to keep." 
 
 Just then a porter came out of an inner office 
 and began looking over the girls in the row. 
 He picked out the girl ahead and me and 
 beckoned to us. 
 
 "You two can step in," he said. 
 
 The little girl ahead shrank back. I did 
 not comprehend it then, but did later. 
 
32 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 "You go on in," she said to me. "I've lost 
 my nerve." 
 
 I stepped into the office and a gruff voice 
 ordered me to give my name, address, what 
 sort of a job I wanted, and my letters of refer- 
 ence. 
 
 I explained that I had no letter of reference, 
 but that I could give him the name of a re- 
 sponsible person to call on the telephone. 
 
 "Nothing doing," said the man. "Suppose 
 IVe got nothing to do but call people on the 
 telephone?" 
 
 I mumbled some sort of apology with flam- 
 ing cheeks. The man told me to get my letter 
 of recommendation and then call again. 
 
 I hurried out of the office. The young girl 
 who had "lost her nerve" met me outside. She 
 seemed to have been crying. She grasped my 
 arm and led me to one side. 
 
 "What did he say, Kid? Any chance?" she 
 questioned. 
 
I WORK AS A WAITRESS 33 
 
 I told her about the letter of recommenda- 
 tion and her face fell. 
 
 "I knew it," she said, sadly. "You know 
 how it is I can't get a letter of recommenda- 
 tion that would hold a spoonful of water. No 
 show for me in there. Well, good-by." 
 
 I asked the girl for her name and address, 
 and she gave them to me. Afterward I 
 visited her several times, but she has given 
 up her ambition to be a clerk. Poor child! 
 
 I was passing the line of girls near the man- 
 ager's office making my way out of the place, 
 when one of the weariest of the weary gather- 
 ing called out to me: 
 
 "Girlie! Looking for a job? If you are, 
 hurry upstairs and see Miss Nixon. She 
 wants a girl for the quick-lunch counter. 
 Hustle along and you can nick it." 
 
 A few minutes later I was upstairs inquir- 
 ing for the forewoman of the restaurant. The 
 person who came forward was fat and im- 
 
34 MY BATTLES WITH YICE 
 
 posing. Again I was plied with questions 
 and given an application blank to fill out. 
 The scrutiny of that blank was not very close. 
 They needed a girl at once. The ordeal was 
 over. I was accepted. My hours were from 
 1 1 A. M. to 3 P. M. and from 4.30 to 8 P. M. 
 The pay was $4.50 a week for the morn- 
 ing work and 50 cents extra for work at 
 night. 
 
 Now there is a vast difference between see- 
 ing a thing done and actually doing it one's 
 self. You may think you can sense a situation 
 fully from observation, but that is a fallacy. 
 Do the thing yourself, and in a few minutes 
 you get a viewpoint that you had not supposed 
 could exist. 
 
 I had often wondered how it felt to shift 
 heavy trays loaded with dishes backward and 
 forward from a kitchen to a table perhaps 
 five or six rods away. I had watched wait- 
 resses, flushed and perspiring, hurrying to 
 
I WORK AS A WAITRESS 35 
 
 serve impatient customers. Now I was in the 
 thick of it myself. 
 
 "Annie Tate waitress." That was my 
 name on my first step toward the mysteries of 
 the underworld in the search for Mary 
 Holden. 
 
 It was already 1 1 o'clock, so the forewoman 
 put me at work immediately on "instructions." 
 First I was told to serve the hot drinks, then 
 collect the checks, then deposit the checks in 
 the cash box and bring back the sandwiches. 
 
 This method was employed so that cus- 
 tomers could not cheat the store. One check 
 paid for the drink and the sandwich. 
 
 Then I was taken out to the kitchen. There 
 I saw several red-armed young girls washing 
 dishes in boiling suds that I afterward found 
 contained some sort of chemical for cutting 
 grease. The chemical was so strong that the 
 girls soon became incapacitated from the in- 
 flammation it caused. 
 
36 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 The poor girls seemed to have a hopeless 
 sort of task. One of them was very pretty 
 the only one who spoke to me. I asked her 
 if she couldn't get a better job than that, and 
 she said that if she worked outside people 
 would see her. She preferred to be in the 
 kitchen. As I left her to go back to the 
 counter she surprised me by paraphrasing 
 Kipling's Sergeant Mulvaney with the whim- 
 sical remark: "I was a school teacher wanst, 
 but no matther." 
 
 I decided to see more of that girl later, and 
 I did. She will be heard from again in the 
 course of my story. I noticed that this girl 
 washed her dishes very carefully, but the 
 others seemed to have no desire to do more 
 than keep making motions. 
 
 A minute later I was working at the counter. 
 The noon-hour rush was just beginning. 
 Four girls beside myself and a head waitress 
 were running back and forth trying to serve 
 
I WORK AS A WAITRESS 37 
 
 the customers, who all wanted to be served at 
 once. Most of the patronage seemed to con- 
 sist of shopgirls and clerks of various grades. 
 
 It was a scrambled phantasmagoria of 
 "Ham on rye," "Cheese on white," "Ham on 
 white," "Hurry up the checks," "Get out of 
 my road." 
 
 The head waitress was perpetually prod- 
 ding the girls on to greater effort. At first 
 they seemed to respond with alacrity, but as 
 time passed they grew rude and ugly, resent- 
 ing the constant nagging with remarks of their 
 own that one would never have suspected they 
 knew how to make. As the hours went by I 
 realized what a desperately hard life this wait- 
 ress work is. I found the turmoil and hustling 
 almost unbearable, but it was my job, so I stuck 
 to it like a leech. 
 
 The balls of my feet ached horribly. The 
 bones of my face and head began to pain me. 
 I remarked this to a pale, thin woman who was 
 
38 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 sitting at the end of the counter. I brought 
 her an order of milk and apple pie. She 
 appeared to be in a state of intense nervous 
 excitement, and I asked her if she felt tired. 
 
 "Tired!" she blurted out. "Say, I'm be- 
 ginning to believe I can't die." 
 
 The woman told me she was sewing on chil- 
 dren's rompers for some tailoring firm. She 
 said she had to work in a little room with five 
 women, and there was only enough air for 
 two. 
 
 "I've got a little boy, and he's a cripple," 
 she confided. "I suppose that is why the Lord 
 won't let me die." 
 
 I asked her why she didn't eat something 
 more digestible than pie, and she replied that 
 she had become used to eating quickly, and 
 pie was the quickest lunch she could get. 
 
 Just then the bell rang for us to go to our 
 luncheon, and the tired, thin woman dragged 
 herself away. Lunch was served free to em- 
 
I WORK AS A WAITRESS 39 
 
 ployees of the counter. I ate very little, but 
 seized the opportunity to go out for a breath 
 of fresh air. There were two girls outside 
 from another department. One of them spoke 
 to me, and after we had conversed a few min- 
 utes I asked her where she lived. 
 
 "Me and Mame's living in a vaudeville 
 house out South, and we're studyin' for the 
 stage," she said. "There's a fellow there fix- 
 ing up a turn for us. Pretty soon we'll be 
 going on the road." 
 
 I returned to the counter for the afternoon 
 shift feeling somewhat refreshed. I deter- 
 mined to observe more closely the details of 
 the place. The four kinds of sandwiches were 
 divided into two lots and placed at each end 
 of the counter. Ham on white and rye bread 
 were at one end and the cheese sandwiches at 
 the other. 
 
 The tanks holding the liquids were placed 
 in the center and a shelf under the counter for 
 
40 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 cups placed them in a difficult position. The 
 counter was arranged without a thought for 
 the girls who worked at it. Unnecessary steps 
 the length of the counter were required. The 
 constant reaching for those badly placed cups 
 caused my knees to ache fearfully. I thought 
 of suggesting a change in the location of the 
 materials to be served, but I spoke to one of 
 the girls about it and she said: "For Gawd's 
 sake, tell that to Barney; I'd like to notice 
 whether she'd give you time to get your 
 hat." 
 
 Then for a few minutes the girl became con- 
 fidential, and I felt sorry for her, poor thing. 
 She told me she kept house for her father, 
 brother and nephew, being motherless. They 
 were trying to get a home together, she said. 
 
 "The work is hard here," I remarked. 
 
 "Hard here?" she snorted. "Why, I got up 
 at six this morning and did the whole family 
 wash, and my slob of a brother refused to 
 
I WORK AS A WAITRESS 41 
 
 straighten the kitchen so that I could get a 
 few minutes' rest before I came down here." 
 
 "You ought to make them help you," I ven- 
 tured. 
 
 "Say," she answered, "you don't know. I'm 
 English and Englishmen make truck horses of 
 their women." 
 
 The clerks and working girls I had seen 
 were coming back now for their supper. 
 Their orders were not very much. Five cents 
 for lunch and ten cents for supper sandwich, 
 coffee, and pie, the evening extravagance. 
 They lived on that fare for weeks and months 
 at a time until their stomachs revolted and they 
 had doctors' bills to pay. This crisis in their 
 lives was variously met. I am coming to that 
 later. Poor little girls with their pasty faces 
 and pale lips! 
 
 I went into the kitchen with a plate to hold 
 out for my supper. The cook reached into a 
 tin and pulled out a piece of meat with his 
 
42 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 fingers, slapping it on the plate. He reached 
 again and slapped a handful of mashed pota- 
 toes beside the meat I fled. It was time to 
 go to the cashier for my fifty cents extra. The 
 cashier was a girl of about twenty. She was 
 cross and irritable. She spoke insultingly to 
 girls but her insults did not stop there. I saw 
 a woman customer step up to the cage and 
 heard her ask if the dining-room was closed. 
 
 "Yes," said the cashier. 
 
 The woman made a petulant remark. 
 
 "Why the don't you do your cooking 
 
 at home?" demanded the cashier, as the cus- 
 tomer shrank away. 
 
 Well, it is all in the point of view. When 
 I reached home and had immersed myself in 
 a porcelain tub I began to recover. 
 
 My self-respect returned in leaps and 
 bounds. I realized what an important part 
 environment plays in the matter of self-respect. 
 I wondered how long I could keep mine work- 
 
I WORK AS A WAITRESS 43 
 
 ing under such conditions as those of my first 
 working day. Suppose I had been compelled 
 to return to a chilly, ill-furnished room instead 
 of to a cheery, harmonious household and a 
 sympathetic mother? 
 
 It isn't invariably the costume of the woman 
 of fashion or the blazing resplendent show 
 window that tempts the girl adrift. It is more 
 often just the human need for love and shelter 
 the lack of a friendly hand-clasp that shall 
 lighten to-morrow's labor the sympathy and 
 understanding that breed hope. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 I BECOME A CLERK 
 
 I SUPPOSE I was not a very competent waitress. 
 At all events my employers did not seem par- 
 ticularly impressed with the value of my 
 services. In a few days I was looking for 
 another job. My position was the same on 
 the surface as that in which thousands of in- 
 competent girls find themselves every day 
 but most of them haven't good homes to go to 
 when they are out of work. 
 
 It was purely by luck that I obtained my 
 second place. I was engaged to clerk in a 
 large department store during the Christmas 
 rush season. My place was in the basement. 
 Several girls had fallen out of the ranks the 
 night before I was engaged. Another girl 
 told me they "had to get Christmas money." 
 
 44 
 
I BECOME A CLERK 45 
 
 I was turned over to a floor walker, who 
 demonstrated the cash register, told me quali- 
 ties and prices of goods and other things. 
 Then I was ordered to go to the rest room and 
 hang up my hat. 
 
 The rest room struck me as rather a joke. 
 It was 10 by 20 feet and crowded with girls. 
 A table covered with oilcloth ran along one 
 side of it. The girls were eating sandwiches 
 and pie. On a dilapidated couch in a corner 
 of the room lay a girl who was crying from 
 headache. Nobody paid any attention to her. 
 A very slovenly matron was in attendance. 
 All the coat hangers were full, so I climbed 
 on a locker and found a niche for my things. 
 From this point I also discovered that there 
 were no outside windows just holes cut for 
 ventilation. The air that came through these 
 holes was from the basement. It was drawn 
 down by an electric fan, and, moreover, it was 
 very foul. 
 
46 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 The floor walker again took charge of me 
 and showed me my counter. It was a doll 
 counter, upon which all sorts of dolls, books, 
 and games were placed. After once entering 
 the counter the clerk is not permitted to leave 
 without a pass from the floor walker. 
 
 The girl in charge of the counter was called 
 Lil. I have never encountered so peculiar a 
 personality. Her face was lacquered with 
 whitewash and her hair, under a net, was 
 oiled, twisted and flat. Her bangs were 
 shaped into "spit" curls and plastered flat to 
 her forehead. Her face was without a vestige 
 of expression. She was rather nice in her 
 manner to me, possibly because I said little 
 to her. 
 
 I watched this girl closely in order to get 
 a line on what I must do. She spoke quite 
 softly to me, but she continually cursed the 
 other girls, calling them horrible names under 
 
I BECOME A CLERK 47 
 
 her breath. I don't know why she did this ; 
 there did not seem to be any reason for it. 
 She spoke in tones just low enough to escape 
 the ear of the floor walker. 
 
 A small girl named Maud, about sixteen 
 years old, waited at my end of the counter 
 next to me. She was soiled and tousled so 
 slouchy that I wondered how she managed to 
 get work. I asked her if this was her first 
 job and her reply was illuminating. 
 
 "Naw," she grinned. "IVe had thirty jobs 
 so far in my sweet young life factories and 
 mail order houses are my meat." 
 
 I must have looked at her commiseratingly, 
 because her old-young face took on an expres- 
 sion that seemed more human as she leaned 
 toward me and said: 
 
 "I'm engaged, Kid but don't spill it." 
 
 I tried to hustle about in that place and see 
 what enterprise could do toward gaining ap- 
 
48 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 proval from the "great chief," our floor 
 walker. My efforts made no impression on 
 him at all. 
 
 "What's the good working for him?" said 
 little Maud. "Why, that guy's got to come 
 down all hours of the day and night to clean 
 up and mark goods. He's all to the winky 
 blink. It don't make no difference to him 
 whether you live or die, because he is so near 
 'dead himself." 
 
 The crowds increased toward the noon hour. 
 The basement became almost intolerable 
 hot, close and seething with chatter. I was 
 afraid I might not be able to stand it and was 
 very much relieved when the bell rang for 
 luncheon. 
 
 I hurried into the dressing room and was 
 clambering on the locker after my things when 
 I felt some one take hold of my hand and 
 turned around to see a rather smart-looking 
 fellow about twenty standing beside me. 
 
 
I BECOME A CLERK 49 
 
 "Kid," he began, "come on. I'll blow you 
 to the beans." 
 
 "Thanks," I answered, "beans don't agree 
 with me." 
 
 "Shoot the beans," he persisted. "Lady 
 Vere can order patty de fossy gras and joy 
 bubbles if she wants 'em." 
 
 Again I refused the invitation. He went 
 away very angry. 
 
 "Believe me, Kid," he called back, over his 
 shoulder, "you'll get tired of paying for 
 lunches on your rake-off." 
 
 I told one of the girls about this episode and 
 she stared at me unbelievingly. 
 
 "Why, you fool," she whispered, "he's re- 
 lated to one of the bosses upstairs and he's got 
 money to burn a city with. It was the chance 
 of your life." 
 
 Then she motioned for me to step into a 
 corner, and in a whisper she continued: 
 "Why, that fellow treated a girl so nice down 
 
50 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 here, that she just got up and quit. Some of 
 the girls say that he is supporting her. He 
 sure did buy her fine clothes." 
 
 "And what was the girl's name?" I inquired. 
 
 "Mary," she replied. 
 
 "Mary Mary what?" I asked eagerly. 
 
 "Mary Holden." 
 
 "Mary Holden," I repeated. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 I remained quite stunned for a few mo- 
 ments. Indeed, I was on the track of the 
 missing girl. She had worked here in this 
 store. And the flippant youth?, He had 
 bought her clothes, and dinners! I hurried 
 out of the building. I had so much to think 
 over, and I was so fatigued. I needed food 
 and air, and a place to think. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE FIRST CLEW 
 
 I RETURNED to the store, my mind fully made 
 up to find Mary and to make the over-dressed 
 youth tell me her address. As I entered the 
 basement the place rang with rough conversa- 
 tion relating to dance hall orgies in which 
 some of the girls had participated. 
 
 Maud, my small companion of the counter, 
 sat silent in a corner, drinking in the talk. 
 Maud was getting her ideas of deportment, 
 ideals of conduct, notions of life. She was 
 getting them in a dangerous school. By the 
 time they reached her they were twisted out 
 of respectable recognition. Here was a girl 
 adrift receiving impressions. 
 
 My time was up. I returned to work. The 
 
 51 
 
52 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 girls seemed quite friendly. Maud came back 
 to the counter and in a childish way she put 
 her arm around my waist. 
 
 "You for me, Doll," she smiled. 
 
 Nobody ever tried to find out my real name. 
 I was either "Doll," "Kid," "Flossie," or 
 "Flip." It simplified matters a great deal, 
 because I several times forgot names I had 
 given and was afraid of being confronted with 
 my own perfidy. 
 
 There was a great deal of dissension be- 
 tween Maud and Lil. The two hurled oaths 
 at each other that could not be improved on 
 by any longshoreman my imagination can con- 
 jure. 
 
 Maud told me that Lil was a "rounder, and 
 no good." 
 
 "Say," the child confided, "that wedding 
 ring the tramp is wearing is phony. She got 
 it at a 5 cent store. She ain't never married 
 long." ~ 
 
THE FIRST CLEW, 53 
 
 Customers were crowding round the coun- 
 ters, pushing, jostling, shouting their wants. 
 It was pandemonium. The constant run- 
 ning back and forth and high reaching for 
 shelf goods made me deathly tired. I brought 
 into play muscles I seemed never to have used 
 before. 
 
 Then there was the string. Tyros can't 
 break string properly. It is a knack one has 
 to learn. I had a deep raw groove in the 
 under side of my little finger from breaking 
 string. I suppose somebody could have 
 taught me to do the trick correctly in five 
 minutes, but nobody did. 
 
 "Move along there, Flip." 
 
 I looked around and saw a new girl behind 
 the counter. She said she'd been put on the 
 job with me. Here was the most persistent 
 questioner I had yet encountered. She was 
 very slim-waisted, graceful in a certain rep- 
 tilian way, and her hair was piled high with 
 
54 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 puffs. I think she had been a brunette, but 
 if so she had quarreled with Providence. 
 
 "My name's Sadie," volunteered my new 
 friend. "Say, where do you live, Kid? You 
 don't look like you traveled the route." 
 
 I mumbled something about living at Chi- 
 cago Avenue and North Clark Street, and she 
 rapped out a remark that it was a "tough 
 
 corner." 
 
 "What do you get a week?" pursued Sadie, 
 breezing along in her offhand way. 
 
 "Only $6 now," I answered. 
 
 "How are you going to live on that?" she 
 demanded. 
 
 "Well," I sighed hypocritically, "it will 
 mean going without many things." 
 
 "Oh, yes, it will," snapped Sadie. "Go 
 without nothing you can. See these." 
 
 "These" flashed for an instant as Sadie exe- 
 cuted a rather daring kick. They were "near- 
 silk." 
 
THE FIRST CLEW 55 
 
 "I got them from a guy last night," the girl 
 went on. "Don't let nothing get away from 
 you that you can grab. Say, dearie, it's easy. 
 Get a guy and ring him up for a five. Can 
 you dance?" 
 
 "Yes," I confessed, "but a girl doesn't get 
 much chance to go anywhere when she is a 
 stranger." 
 
 u Aw, sure you can," grinned Sadie, amazed 
 at my simplicity. "Say, Kid, I'll take you to 
 Dreamland. It won't cost us a cent if we 
 make a killing. There's always a bunch of 
 guys around there and it's dead easy to date 
 up." 
 
 "What is dating up?" I pleaded. 
 
 "Greener than the green hills," muttered 
 Sadie, sotto voce. Then she added, aloud: 
 "By Gee. I'm goin' to give you the time of 
 your life, Kid. You gotta be wised up. Get 
 on the job," she hissed in conclusion. "Here 
 comes the devil." 
 
56 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 I looked around. Mooney, the floor 
 walker, was approaching. Sadie said he was 
 picking out the girls to be discharged and the 
 ones to be retained at the close of that day's 
 work. 
 
 "Doesn't the store give any notice?" I asked. 
 "I cannot afford to be without work." 
 
 "Raus mittum," laughed Sadie. "If they 
 tie a tin to us we'll both go over to the mail 
 order. Say! See that yellow-haired fellow 
 over there? He's asked me out to lunch, but 
 he frames like a piker. Anyway, it's thirty- 
 five cents in my kick and I'll let him spend it. 
 Here's some gum. Don't let Mooney see you 
 looking cow-eyed gum ain't allowed. So 
 long, Kid; see you after supper." 
 
 I watched Sadie's lithe form and her too 
 blonde head with its flashing crystal set combs 
 as she undulated through the throng and dis- 
 appeared. I turned back to my work. There 
 stood Mooney. Lil was watching him closely. 
 
THE FIRST CLEW 57 
 
 The other girls eyed him with painful inten- 
 sity. He just stood and looked at us a moment 
 and then passed on. That settled it, Lil said. 
 Not one of us had been chosen to stay on. 
 There would be a new crew after Christmas. 
 
 "The stiff!" Lil snorted " and me down 
 here working over hours packing goods. 
 Well, it's back to the mail order for mine. If 
 I'd known I wasn't going to stick I'd have 
 gone to the dance with the bunch to-night. 
 Say! You ought to see my regular do the 
 trot!" 
 
 A comical expression grew on her white- 
 washed face and she wiggled her shoulders, 
 first one, then the other, contorting her body 
 grotesquely as she sang under her breath: 
 "It's a bear it's a bear it's a bear." An in- 
 stant later she was holding her hand over her 
 heart and gasping: "My God, I'm all in, 
 Kid. I couldn't trot ner nothin' else to- 
 night." 
 
58 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 I looked up and noticed that the flippant 
 youth, son of one of the bosses upstairs, was 
 standing at my counter eyeing me closely. I 
 had something to say to him. 
 
 He spoke first. 
 
 "Hello, Kid." 
 
 "Hello," I retorted. 
 
 "Sorry you couldn't take me up this noon," 
 he continued. "We might have had a fine 
 feed." He smiled and showed his imperfect 
 teeth. 
 
 "I don't know you well enough for that," I 
 said. 
 
 "Oh, introductions are not necessary here. 
 Why, one Kid who worked here treated me 
 right, and, say, I couldn't do enough for her." 
 
 "That girl was Mary Holden." Even now 
 I don't know what made me blurt out the 
 name. 
 
 "How did you know?" he demanded, 
 slightly taken back. 
 
THE FIRST CLEW 59 
 
 "Oh, sfie told me," I answered. "I wish I 
 knew where I could find her. We are good 
 friends, you know." 
 
 "Is that so. I'll tell you where she is." He 
 looked around to see if anybody was watching. 
 Then he took a note-book from his pocket and 
 obligingly read off an address for me which I 
 jotted down. 
 
 "You'll find her there," he laughed. "Give 
 her my best." And he walked off, favoring 
 me with a wink of his bloodshot eye. 
 
 I looked at the address and could hardly 
 believe my eyes. The number and street was 
 in one of the most questionable parts of the 
 city. Poor Mary Holden poor little girls 
 adrift! 
 
 It was the night before Christmas. And 
 misery was all about me. How my heart 
 ached for those countless, motherless, home- 
 less girls about me. Some of them never sur- 
 vived the strain of that Christmas season. 
 
60 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 They wanted to give. They did give too 
 much. 
 
 Shoppers were heartless. In haste to secure 
 service before the stores closed they raved and 
 threatened. From one side of the counter to 
 the other I worked. It was like a nightmare. 
 The cut under my little finger was bleeding 
 badly. I cried whenever I tried to break 
 string. My feet throbbed. Some of the girls 
 were in their stocking feet it was impossible 
 to stand the pressure of shoes. 
 
 I looked up. There stood the girl I had 
 seen that first day while looking for work. 
 She had on a new hat and coat. 
 
 "Merry Christmas," she cried. "I came 
 over just to wish it to you." 
 
 "And Merry Christmas to you, dear," I an- 
 swered. The child looked at me pitifully and 
 her eyes fell. She was crying. An instant 
 later she pointed at the hat and coat she wore 
 
THE FIRST CLEW 61 
 
 and stepped back to show me new shoes and 
 stockings. 
 
 "I've got money now," she sobbed, "but no 
 Merry Christmas, girlie they got my number 
 all right." 
 
 Before I could say another word she was 
 gone. That night I wept myself to sleep. 
 The bells were ringing out "Peace on Earth, 
 Good Will to Men." Poor little girl adrift! 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 NELLIE DALY'S MEAL TICKET 
 
 THE boarding-house keepers of large cities 
 are often the world's most practical humani- 
 tarians. The 'stout woman, sometimes of a 
 forbidding aspect, whose portly presence 
 strikes terror into the heart of the little girl 
 seeking work and a place to live in an un- 
 known town, is often the girl's best friend and 
 her readiest resource in the time of stress. 
 
 It is true that there are always societies and 
 organizations to which the girl out of work 
 may appeal for assistance if she is lucky 
 enough to know where they are, or even to be 
 aware of their existence at all, but what the 
 girl needs when she is depressed with hunger 
 
 and her power of resistance to the "man with 
 
 62 
 
NELLIE'S MEAL TICKET 63 
 
 the dinner" is weakened by deprivation, is 
 some big-hearted soul on the spot with a bowl 
 of hot soup and a kind word. 
 
 I credit the rooming-house and boarding- 
 house keepers with having saved many souls. 
 
 Here is a case that will illustrate my point. 
 I am thinking of little Nellie Daly, a sixteen- 
 year-old child possessed of that extraordinary 
 beauty which comes of mixing the Irish and 
 Scandinavian races. Nellie's mother was a 
 wonderful blonde and her father a black- 
 haired West-of-Ireland man. 
 
 Nellie had the long, dark lashes and blue- 
 gray eyes of her father and great masses of 
 golden-blond hair like her mother. She was 
 slight of stature, but her figure was perfect. 
 
 This child appealed to me when I met her 
 for the first time. She was employed in an en- 
 velope addressing department of a mail order 
 concern and her pay was $5 a week. Her 
 room was in a house on Indiana Street, right 
 
 
64 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 in the middle of what used to be a particularly 
 disreputable district before they began clean- 
 ing out the dives of that locality. But Nellie's 
 boarding-house keeper, Mrs. McCarthy, was 
 a motherly soul. 
 
 Nellie paid $2 for her room. That left her 
 $3 to live on, dress on and pay for all other 
 necessaries and amusements. Nellie's people 
 were in the theatrical line. At the time I met 
 her the father had been ill and both parents 
 were having a hard time of it in some town on 
 the southern circuit, where they had become 
 stranded. 
 
 One day, in a burst of confidence, Nellie 
 told me that her meal ticket cost $3. Putting 
 two and two together I realized that my little 
 friend was spending her whole income just 
 to eat and sleep. I wondered how she paid 
 for her washing. That is why I called on 
 good-hearted Mrs. McCarthy one Sunday 
 morning to have a little chat with her. 
 
 
NELLIE'S MEAL TICKET 65 
 
 "The Lord only knows what'll become of 
 the poor baby," said Mrs. McCarthy, as we 
 stood in the door of a little two by twice apart- 
 ment on the fourth floor of her house. 
 
 Inside I saw Nellie's tousled blonde head 
 half buried in a pillow. Her face had the 
 look that comes upon a child's face after she 
 has cried herself to sleep. 
 
 "She's the lucky girl to be where she is 
 right now," whispered Mrs. McCarthy, "be- 
 cause 'Bull' Tevis is after her these three 
 weeks. Saturday she was getting ready to go 
 out with him when I happened up here with 
 a plate of stew that was left over from dinner. 
 
 "She lied to me first, and then I made her 
 eat the stew, and when she'd eaten it she just 
 threw her arms round me and cried so she 
 shook from her toes to the top of her head 
 the poor darlin'." 
 
 "Who is Tevis?" I ventured. 
 
 "Don't you know the scout that has been up 
 
66 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 twice already for runnin' girls into them holes 
 out South? I told the child about him the 
 first time he showed his face at this door to 
 call for her. She said she'd never been out 
 with him, but he always wanted to take her 
 to dinner. 
 
 "And after she ate the stew she took off her 
 hat and then while I sat with her she took off 
 her little best shoes and stockings and sat there 
 barefoot wrigglin' her toes. 
 
 " 'Mother McCarthy,' she says, 'I ain't 
 never been out with Tevis and I ain't 
 never going out with him, but I know one of 
 the girls that has been out with him, and she 
 says he buys swell things to eat. But I'm not 
 hungry no more now, Mother McCarthy, 
 God bless you,' she says, 'so hang Tevis,' she 
 says. 
 
 "Then I sat and visited with her and petted 
 her till she went to sleep just like you see her 
 now, and right glad I am I come up with 
 
NELLIE'S MEAL TICKET 67 
 
 that plate of stew. Before she went to sleep 
 she told me how she was living. It'd make 
 your heart ache to hear her. 
 
 "Five dollars a week, you see. There's two 
 for the room and God knows I've got to have 
 the money or I can't have a roof over her or 
 me neither. 
 
 "Well, the meal ticket she buys costs $3, 
 and she told me how she had been making one 
 meal ticket last two weeks. They got out 
 some new-fangled kind of a ticket that had 
 funny ornamental didoes on to one end of it. 
 
 "About the middle of the second week poor 
 Nellie lost track of how many meals she had 
 eaten, and it wasn't until Friday night that she 
 found out those didoes wasn't meals. Then 
 she tried to stay in bed from Friday to Mon- 
 day when she had four 'days' pay coming. 
 They'd laid her off Thursday night. Satur- 
 day morning Tevis called and wanted to have 
 her meet him in Clark Street. That poor 
 
68 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 dear was so hungry by then she was going to 
 take a chance with the snake charmer for just 
 one dinner. But she's all right now." 
 
 I have told the tale of Nellie Daly and good 
 Mrs. McCarthy because there are thousands 
 of Nellies and, I am thankful to say, hundreds 
 of Mrs. McCarthys in Chicago, and, in fact, 
 every large city. 
 
 From statistics I have gathered it is per- 
 fectly certain to me that the most valuable 
 first aid to morality in Chicago or any other 
 big city is the boarding-house woman. Often 
 she either has or has had sons or daughters of 
 her own. She is generally poor and often 
 hard beset with the problems of life on her 
 own account, but in nine cases out of ten she 
 will tide the poor girl lodging in her house 
 over a crisis like that which confronted Nellie 
 Daly. 
 
 Often these good women carry girls through 
 unemployment for weeks without security and 
 
NELLIE'S MEAL TICKET 69 
 
 for no reasons whatever except those of hu- 
 manity. The boarding-house woman doesn't 
 ask a million questions about the girl who 
 comes to her door. She takes the girl in and 
 gives her a bed and finds out what chance she 
 has to pay afterwards. 
 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 "BULL" TEVIS 
 
 I WANT to refer to the type that "Bull" Tevis 
 represents. This man I happen to know. 
 He tried to get me to join him at dinner one 
 evening while I was working as a clerk in a 
 downtown department store. 
 
 Tevis has an ingratiating manner. It might 
 almost be attractive if one hadn't happened to 
 find out what the man is. Tevis has a great 
 deal of very dark hair that curls low on his 
 forehead. He has a smile that often attracts 
 poor girls who haven't anybody to smile on 
 them and whose days are spent under the per- 
 petual nagging of the "bawler out." 
 
 Tevis has little, dark, beady eyes like a rat; 
 his jaw is a trifle undershot. His clothes are 
 
 TO 
 
"BULL" TEVIS 71 
 
 always natty and he wears a diamond in his 
 scarf. Tevis has about four to five hundred 
 girls in the downtown district on his "mark- 
 down" list. His methods are subtle educa- 
 tional, one might say. -He buys several fine 
 dinners, I understand, before showing his 
 fangs. He is careful not to flush the game 
 until he has pretty well barred the avenues 
 of escape. He has established a state of 
 friendship which permits him to lend the girl 
 money, demanding nothing in return a 
 "brotherly-love" sort of loan. 
 
 Why, I have heard girls swear by this man. 
 I have had a perfectly good girl stand and 
 plead with me, tears in her eyes, not to mis- 
 judge Tevis, because she knew him and knew 
 him for one of the best men God ever made. 
 
 But Tevis always collects always. When 
 a girl gets so involved that she doesn't know 
 which way to turn, Tevis is ever on hand to 
 show her a way out. 
 
72 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 Tevis' "way out" is merely one of the in- 
 genious ramifications of the System that leads 
 further in. In the end the girl disappears 
 completely from haunts that knew her, and the 
 work of Tevis is complete. Little girl adrift! 
 What chance has she against these subtly 
 trained and carefully groomed servants of the 
 System? If they cannot get her one way they 
 will another, and the whole strength of the 
 organization protects the procurers. So- 
 ciety's scattered forces resist feebly, but the 
 System moves safely and surely to a definite 
 end. 
 
 Indirectly I discovered that "Bull" Tevis 
 had Mary Holden's name on his "watch list." 
 I had not forgotten the street and number 
 where that flashily dressed youth in the de- 
 partment store basement told me Mary lived. 
 I decided to try my luck. Little did I realize 
 what a task it would be to rescue the girl. 
 
 In a taxicab I was driven up to the address 
 
"BULL" TEVIS 73 
 
 which was in the most questionable part of 
 Chicago. 
 
 "So this is where Mary lives," I solilo- 
 quized. "I can't believe it." 
 
 Up a rickety flight of stairs I walked. I 
 rang the bell on the door. The house had the 
 customary red front of houses in that locality. 
 The door was opened by a large colored 
 woman, who peered out at me cautiously. 
 
 "Is Mary in?" I asked. 
 
 "Who are you?" demanded the woman, 
 evading my question. 
 
 \ "I'm an old friend," I answered, slipping a 
 five dollar note into her hand. 
 
 "Come in," she said slyly. "I'll get Mary 
 for you." 
 
 I entered the house and the woman told me 
 to wait in the parlor while she went upstairs 
 for Mary. 
 
 I sat in one of the high-backed rose-velvet 
 chairs. In a glance I had taken in the con- 
 
74 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 tents of the room with its cheap oil paintings 
 of nude art, the gilded wicker chairs, and its 
 heavy Battenberg draperies, all of which be- 
 trayed the character of the house. I looked 
 up. Down the staircase came a girl. Her 
 face, pale, save for the rouge, and black pen- 
 ciling, stood out in high relief against the 
 shadows that played up and down the 
 hall. 
 
 "You came to see me?" she started. "Who 
 are you and what do you want with me?" 
 
 "I want to help you," I replied. 
 
 "I don't need any help." 
 
 "Perhaps you do?" 
 
 "Not from strangers, anyway," she retorted, 
 as if fearful to commit herself. 
 
 Her eyes looked into mine. 
 
 "I never saw you before in my life," she 
 said suspiciously. 
 
 "That does not matter," I returned. "I 
 want to get you out of this place." 
 
"BULL" TEVIS 75 
 
 "You can't. We're watched." She glanced 
 over her shoulder cautiously. 
 
 "Tell me your name?" I asked, in a friendly 
 manner. "Tell me your real, honest name, 
 the one your mother calls you by," I pleaded. 
 
 A spasm of pain crossed the girl's face. I 
 had hit upon the right chord. 
 
 "It is Mary," she whispered. 
 
 "Mary Holden?" I demanded. 
 
 "How did you know?" 
 
 "Because I have come from your mother. 
 I wrote to her and promised I would bring 
 her little girl back to her." I looked around 
 the room. "We must get out of here," I con- 
 tinued. 
 
 "My mother? Where is she?" she asked 
 with eagerness. 
 
 "Back in Limaville, waiting for you, long- 
 ing to hold you in her arms again." 
 
 The girl quivered. Her large brown eyes 
 filled with tears. 
 
76 MY BATTLES WITH YICE 
 
 "They won't let me go," she sobbed. "If I 
 only could go " 
 
 "Quick," I said, "I'll get you out." 
 
 I started out into the hall followed by Mary. 
 I noiselessly turned the knob, threw open the 
 door, and came face to face with "Bull" Tevis. 
 
 "What's the game, Kid?" he said to me, 
 blocking our exit with his arms. He sensed 
 the situation. 
 
 "We wanted a little air, that's all," I replied. 
 
 "So that's it, is it? You " and a curse 
 
 fell from his lips. "You'll not get her." He 
 rushed forward to strike Mary. His upheld 
 fist was about to descend upon her head when 
 I tripped him and he sprawled out upon the 
 floor. In an instant he was on his feet. He 
 made after me. One hand catching my throat, 
 he forced me back into the corner. 
 
 "I'm going to get you, and get you good," 
 he muttered in a guttural tone. 
 
 Mary saw her opportunity and availed her- 
 
"BULL" TEVIS 77 
 
 self of it. She fled through the open front 
 door and disappeared. 
 
 Tevis held me tight in his grasp. 
 
 "You'll not get away so easily," he sneered. 
 
 
 jr.. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 AT THE CAFE SINISTER 
 
 TEVIS was about to strike me with his fist. He 
 stepped forward; and then he stepped back. 
 He might have accomplished his purpose had 
 not a new actor appeared in this thrilling 
 drama. The flippant youth, who had given 
 me Mary's address in the department store 
 basement, entered from a side room. 
 
 " 'Bull,' " said the youth, "what's up?" 
 
 'This Kid got noisy and" 
 
 The young man stood staring at me. 
 
 "What! do you know her?" asked Tevis. 
 "Who is she, Bill?" 
 
 Without answering Tevis, Bill walked over 
 to me with an outstretched hand. I avoided 
 it 
 
 78 
 
AT THE CAFE SINISTER 79 
 
 "Hello, Kid," he said. "Glad to see you 
 again. Is Tevis trying to scare you?" Then 
 he turned to Tevis : "Easy, easy, I say. This 
 Kid is all to the mustard." 
 
 "Good day, gentlemen," I sai'd, and to my 
 surprise I was permitted to leave the house. 
 
 During that day I tried in vain to get a 
 trace of Mary. That evening I met Lil, and 
 we decided to visit the Cafe Sinister. 
 
 The waiter wore a shouting red necktie with 
 a diamond as big as a filbert sparkling from 
 its folds. His face had the par-boiled appear- 
 ance that characterizes complexions among 
 the male habitues of the levee. He smiled 
 ingratiatingly at Lil and me. 
 
 We were among the early arrivals at the 
 Cafe Sinister, than which there is no more 
 spectacularly gilded, no more brilliantly 
 lighted hall of evil fame within the System's 
 sphere of influence. 
 
 Lil had agreed to show me the sights 
 
8o MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 to direct the process of getting me "wised- 
 up." 
 
 I had never in my life before worn such 
 clothes as I wore that night, nor such a hat. 
 The former was a semi-decollete of vivid wine 
 color, and the latter sported huge black plumes 
 that made me feel topheavy. Lil waxed mo- 
 mentarily enthusiastic over my appearance and 
 insisted that I was a "bear," but she seemed 
 very tired. 
 
 A dozen or more couples sat about at scat- 
 tered tables. Some of the girls far outshone 
 me in decorative extravagance, so I did not, 
 perhaps, appear as conspicuous as I felt. 
 
 There were several entertainers lounging 
 about the place. A self-possessed youth with 
 a long dark cowlick that constantly fell over 
 his eyes and had to be shaken back, sang a 
 ballad and looked at me right in the eyes as 
 he did so, but the ballad was sentimental and 
 
AT THE CAFfi SINISTER 81 
 
 the habitues of the place did not like it. A 
 big blonde woman sitting alone at a table re- 
 marked stridently that it was too early for 
 that "home and mother" stuff. 
 
 At another table the one nearest our own 
 sat a girl of about eighteen, a pretty, dark- 
 haired, sloe-eyed child with a flushed face. 
 Beside her was a gray-haired man. His eyes 
 were nearly closed, but he proved to be wide 
 awake when anything happened to attract his 
 attention. The girl was humming little 
 snatches of a cafe song with a ragtime refrain, 
 beating time on the table top with the rim of 
 a wine glass. I thought the girl did not look 
 well. I spoke to Lil about her. 
 
 "Pie-eyed," was my companion's terse com- 
 ment. "She ain't going to last the evening 
 out." 
 
 The jeweled waiter brought two glasses of 
 some dark liquid Lil had ordered. Lil said 
 
82 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 the drinks were "ginger ale highballs." I 
 tasted mine and it was vile. It burned my 
 throat as it went down. 
 
 I continued to observe the pretty girl and 
 the gray-haired man at the other table. The 
 man might have been the girl's father. He 
 was certainly old enough. I noticed that he 
 drank little but often filled the girl's glass 
 from a silver-topped bottle. 
 
 A young fellow who looked like a chauffeur 
 in his puttees and a cap came in and spoke to 
 the gray-haired man, who shook his head and 
 the chauffeur went outside again. Just then 
 the gray-haired man caught Lil's eye and 
 nodded to her. She gave him a little wave 
 of her glove in return. 
 
 "Who is that man?" I asked. 
 
 "Say, Kid," Lil whispered, "take it from 
 me, he's a heller. That's Ike 'Gray Ike,' 
 they call him. Know what he's doing with 
 that little doll? Buyin' her wine, see. Know 
 
AT THE CAFfi SINISTER 83 
 
 who's payin' for it? Him! Not Ike. Not 
 in ten thousand years, Kid she is." 
 
 "But he paid for the last bottle," I declared. 
 "I saw him get the change." 
 
 "Kid," yawned the sophisticated Lil, pat- 
 ting her gaping jaws with her hand, "Kid, 
 that's just an investment for quick returns. 
 It ain't his coin, see? He's a trailer for the 
 gang. He'll get all that back and a bundle 
 besides when he turns her over." 
 
 Soon I heard hysterical sobbing. Turning 
 quickly, I saw that the dark-haired girl was 
 crying. She had a crumpled handkerchief 
 pressed to her eyes with both hands. The 
 gray-haired man had risen and was shaking 
 her by the shoulders. 
 
 "Come out of it," he ordered sharply. 
 "Come out of that, now you're all right." 
 
 The girl took the handkerchief from her 
 eyes and turned up a tear-stained face to laugh 
 at the man. 
 
84 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 "Ain't I the little fool?" the girl giggled 
 "ain't I the limit for a fool? Say!" 
 
 But the girl was soon crying again, and I 
 saw the chauffeur again standing in the back- 
 ground. The girl began wailing aloud. She 
 tried to rise and staggered. I thought I heard 
 her say, "I want to go to mother." 
 
 The gray-haired man nodded to the chauf- 
 feur. The waiter with the diamond came for- 
 ward, and the three men half carried, half 
 dragged the dark-haired girl toward the door. 
 She struggled and fought. 
 
 Just then the orchestra struck up a popular 
 ragtime air. The fat blonde woman at the 
 table on the other side began singing. The 
 girl kept screaming. For an instant I forgot 
 my part, standing up from the chair with an 
 indignant exclamation. Lil seized my wrist 
 and dragged me back with an oath. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 WHAT HAPPENED TO MAIZIE 
 
 "You little fool," whispered Lil, fiercely 
 "think you're going to butt in on that stunt?" 
 
 "But they are taking her away," I almost 
 screamed. "They're just dragging her." 
 
 "Say," snapped my companion, "don't you 
 try to do any reforming around here not in 
 a joint like this, Kid. If you take care of 
 yourself you'll have all you can look after." 
 
 "But that poor girl," I gasped. 
 
 "It's a red kimono for hers, and not much 
 else. Do you get me?" Lil replied. "You 
 couldn't help her if you howled all night, 
 so here's how." 
 
 Lil drained her glass and I saw her shiver. 
 It may have been the liquor. I shivered, too, 
 
 8s 
 
86 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 when she made me drink mine, but, strange 
 to say, it did not affect me otherwise. I was 
 too much excited. Outside I heard the horn 
 of a taxicab. 
 
 The waiter came over to fill our glasses 
 and I thought he stared rather queerly at me 
 as he said: 
 
 "Maizie's pickled to the gills, the little 
 fool. Beats all how good he is to her, too 
 buys her everything her heart could wish 
 for, but she will souse. Guess they're goin' 
 to California to-morrow." 
 
 Lil grinned sardonically. 
 
 "Crazy about California, ain't he?" she re- 
 marked. "Makes about four trips a year,, 
 don't he?" 
 
 "Well, you see, some people can't stand 
 these winters in Chi," laughed the waiter. 
 
 The farewell wail of that little girl adrift, 
 gone away in the taxi with the sleepy-eyed, 
 
WHAT HAPPENED TO MAIZIE 87 
 
 gray-haired man rang in my ears. I wanted 
 to leave the place then, thinking I had seen 
 enough, but Lil wouldn't go. 
 
 "Here's a couple of guys," she whispered. 
 "They're just rounders from a hotel. String 
 'em along." 
 
 Two well dressed men approached, bowed 
 to us and on Lil's acknowledgment seated 
 themselves at our table. One seemed about 
 forty-five years old. I thought the other 
 was rather younger. 
 
 "Waiting at the church, girls?" inquired 
 the elder man jocosely. 
 
 "Studyin' types for a novel," retorted Lil, 
 with such readiness that I shot a glance at 
 her painted, expressionless face to see whether 
 she had discovered me. But no, it was Lil's 
 little gift of repartee. 
 
 "How're you suited, then?" inquired the 
 younger man, good naturedly. 
 
88 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 "You'll do," laughed Lil. "Say, this place 
 is like a morgue to-night. Why don't some- 
 body start something?" 
 
 The younger of the two men clapped his 
 hands and a waiter hurried across the floor. 
 I whispered to the waiter that I wasn't feel- 
 ing well and that I wanted ginger ale. To 
 my astonishment he filled the order. It 
 looked the same as the other drinks and Lil 
 never knew. 
 
 The older man of our party told a story 
 about a traveling salesman and a stewardess 
 on a steamboat. I only understood half of 
 it, but that half was vile. 
 
 Lil laughed. She said she first heard the 
 story on a farm in Oklahoma. I knew she 
 had never been in Oklahoma. Then the 
 other man told a story, but it was not so bad. 
 I have noticed during my investigations 
 that tkw ol man who frequents low places 
 is generally too low to fall much farther. 
 
5VHAT HAPPENED TO MAIZIE 89 
 
 Both men left about n o'clock, after we 
 had refused an invitation to a late supper. 
 Lil said we ought to have accepted, but it 
 would have been an "all night job" and she 
 had to have some sleep. 
 
 A little while after that Lil stepped to an- 
 other table where a man and a girl were sit- 
 ting whom she knew. The place was 
 crowded with parties of drunken men and wo- 
 men by this time and the calliope piano kept 
 up an incessant banging and clanging of rag- 
 time. Occasionally the fellow with the cow- 
 lick front hair or another man, a dwarf, 
 would sing disgusting songs. 
 
 As soon as I was left alone for a moment, 
 a rather good looking young fellow came over 
 and sat down beside me. 
 
 "How is traffic?" he inquired. 
 
 "Not very good," I answered I didn't 
 know what to say. 
 
 "New in town?" he pursued. 
 
90 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 "Yes," I stammered, "I'm from the West." 
 
 "Things slow out there?" he asked sym- 
 pathetically. 
 
 "Not much doing," I rejoined. 
 
 "Well, let's have a drink," chirped my 
 casual friend. I glanced anxiously toward 
 where Lil was sitting. She was oblivious. 
 A drink had been served her at the other 
 table. But the waiter again brought me gin- 
 ger ale and I was thankful. 
 
 "Chi's all right," volunteered my compan- 
 ion, "but the game's been crabbed by a lot 
 of old crowbaits that want to run the earth 
 from the Y.M.C.A. A girl can do well 
 enough here, though, if she plays in with the 
 stir. I'm round here right along and I can 
 put you wise to the live ones. Say, what's 
 your name?" 
 
 I gave him a false name and a number in 
 Clark Street. These seemed to satisfy him 
 of my depravity. 
 
WHAT HAPPENED TO MAIZIE 91 
 
 "Tell you what I'll do," pursued the so- 
 licitous stranger, "I'll give you a knockdown 
 to a friend of mine that's getting the money 
 in fruit baskets. She's got an eight room flat 
 a couple of blocks away. It's very exclu- 
 sive only the highest class trade. iWith 
 your get up you'll cop the kale, believe me. 
 Say, I like you, Kid. What d'you say?" 
 
 "Give me the number and I'll run in some 
 time to-morrow," I promised. 
 
 The young man gave me a card with a 
 name and street number. Just then Lil came 
 back and the fellow excused himself, favor- 
 ing me with a parting wink which I took to 
 enjoin secrecy. 
 
 "Bah!" she snapped. "Don't play his 
 game play your own. Say, d'ye know who 
 that guy is? That's 'Simp' Simon, but, 
 believe me, he ain't no simp. He's a wise 
 crook and he'll put you on the skids, Kid, if 
 you give him a chance. I hadn't orta left 
 
92 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 you alone, but I ain't seen Ide since she was 
 married; and say, what d'you think? She's 
 goin' to have a baby." 
 
 I glanced at Ide. She was drinking 
 heavily. Already she was visibly intoxi- 
 cated. 
 
 "Is that man her husband?" I ventured. 
 
 "Naw!" laughed Lil, "that's just a guy. 
 Her husband's a traveling man." 
 
 It was nearly two o'clock and I was dead 
 tired, as well as sick of the sights and the 
 sounds. I begged Lil to go to a car with 
 me. The cars passed the door. 
 
 Five minutes later I was on my way home. 
 Lil went back to the cafe. She said she 
 guessed she would stay with Ide that night 
 over at Ide's flat. 
 
 Oh, how good home looked that night! 
 I kissed the spotless pillows of my little white 
 bed before my weary head touched them. 
 
 Next morning at breakfast my mother 
 
WHAT HAPPENED TO MAIZIE 93 
 
 handed me a newspaper. On the front page 
 was an account of a pretty girl's suicide in 
 a south side rooming house. The descrip- 
 tion haunted me until I visited a Wabash 
 avenue morgue where her body lay. 
 
 The dead girl was Maizie poor lost sis- 
 ter Maizie of the cafe. I cried a good deal 
 that day. 
 
 The gray-haired man with the half -shut 
 eyes no doubt has found another tenant for 
 the red kimono Lil spoke of. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE TRAIL OF [WATCHFUE JOHNNY 
 
 MARTHA COLE was just a little girl of fifteen, 
 working in a mail order house when I met 
 her. I was working in the same mail order 
 house looking for experience. 
 
 Martha came from a little country town 
 and her mother was very poor. [Che father 
 had been a railroad man had died in an ac- 
 cident. There were two other children and 
 Martha had to contribute as far as possible 
 to the support of the family. 
 
 The little girl was paid six dollars a week. 
 While plainly clad, she was neat, and with 
 her dark brown hair, big, lustrous eyes and 
 slight, childish figure, she was undeniably 
 attractive. 
 
 94 
 
THE TRAIL OF JOHNNY 95 
 
 Martha's mother fell ill something ver 
 a year ago and the child was appealed to for 
 funds. She was then employed as a cashier. 
 
 There was no way in the world for Martha 
 to help her mother except by borrowing 
 money. She tried to do this and failed. 
 Then she took fifteen dollars from the cash 
 of the firm and sent it to her poverty-stricken 
 home. For nine weeks she replaced a small 
 amount each week out of her pay, intending 
 ultimately to discharge the whole debt. 
 Then the cash was audited and she was dis- 
 covered. 
 
 In a flood of tears she told her story. 
 Twenty minutes later she was in the street 
 without a friend, without a character, a sick 
 mother on her hands and no prospect of hon- 
 est employment. One of the girls she had 
 met in the place introduced her to "Watch- 
 ful Johnny of the System." Johnny knew a 
 way out of such difficulties. He lent money 
 
96 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 [to Martha to send to her mother. From that 
 minute he owned her. 
 
 A week later one of the women of the Res- 
 cue Mission found Martha in red slippers 
 and a red kimono in the very heart of the 
 "district." She was delirious with drugs 
 and had almost forgotten her own name. 
 She was taken to the Midnight Mission and 
 put to bed. The woman who had harbored 
 her was taken to task for her share in the 
 transaction, but she pleaded ignorance of the 
 girl's story. 
 
 From the Midnight Mission Martha was 
 taken to a Home for Girls. This is a 
 "home" in the real sense. It takes a girl in, 
 gives her aid and comfort and questions her 
 afterward. Little Martha, who is at heart 
 a good, honest girl, now has excellent em- 
 ployment, and the fortunes of the Cole family 
 are at flood tide. 
 
 In connection with this case I came very 
 
THE TRAIL OF JOHNNY 97 
 
 close to landing the particular "Watchful 
 Johnny" who put Martha in the "bad lands," 
 but these "Johnnies" be slippery fish, the Sys- 
 tem's protected workers. They command 
 the best of legal talent and generally manage 
 to wriggle through holes in the net. This fel- 
 low found one, and got away without punish- 
 ment. I hope to get him yet. We are making 
 nets with smaller meshes. 
 
 Then there was little Lizzie McLean. 
 This child was sent to Chicago from Scotland 
 to be taken care of by an aunt whom the 
 parents had not known intimately for eighteen 
 years. 
 
 Much may happen in eighteen years. The 
 aunt has been for nearly ten years engaged in 
 questionable rooming houses. She is by no 
 means a delectable character. In fact, she has 
 a police record. 
 
 Of course Lizzie McLean's parents in 
 bonnie Scotland did not know that. So when 
 
98 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 the generous and wealthy Chicago aunt of the 
 little Highland lassie offered to pay her way 
 to Chicago and find her remunerative employ- 
 ment perhaps marry her to a rich man the 
 old-country folk were very glad to let their 
 pretty daughter have her chance. 
 
 Now what happened to Lizzie when she 
 reached Chicago was this: She entered the 
 place run by her aunt and for a time was per- 
 mitted to absorb ideas of "American life" in 
 that atmosphere. Her aunt assured her that 
 the patrons of the place, who made so merry 
 and appeared to have so much fun, were "lead- 
 ing society men and women." 
 
 At last one of the "leading society men" be- 
 came enamored of Lizzie, who was just en- 
 tering her serenteenth year. He took her 
 about a great deal, and Lizzie's aunt furnished 
 her with fashionable clothes so that she might 
 cut a dash in the quasi-fashionable world. 
 
 One night a girl jumped out of a second 
 
THE TRAIL OF JOHNNY 99 
 
 story window of a cheap hotel and was picked 
 up unconscious. The hospital authorities 
 said she might die. An investigation revealed 
 that the girl had been taken to the hotel by 
 a man, but the man's identity was lost. He 
 had disappeared. 
 
 Subsequently Lizzie told me what had hap- 
 pened. The "leading society man" had taken 
 her to the hotel on the pretext that he was to 
 meet her aunt there, and they were all to dine 
 together. The man lied. What followed 
 caused Lizzie to jump out of the window. 
 
 Lizzie's aunt is now a fugitive from justice 
 and Lizzie is employed in a satisfactory way. 
 She is under the protection of women who will 
 see that she does not again fall into the hands 
 of our familiar friend "Watchful Johnny" 
 who ofttimes masquerades as a "leading so- 
 ciety man." 
 
 Now harken to the story of Sarah Roe. 
 Fourteen years old, Sarah was, when she 
 
ioo MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 walked into the Polk Street station with the 
 vague idea that she could find relatives in 
 Lake View. Probably the old mother of 
 Sarah, who sent her West because she was 
 unable to support her, supposed Lake View 
 was a place where it was easy to find out from 
 the neighbors where anybody lived. 
 
 When I became acquainted with Sarah it 
 was in a saloon rear room. She was with two 
 other women, and her innocent young face 
 attracted my attention. I sat down at the 
 table where Sarah was. She was very green. 
 The other women told me she had knocked at 
 their door a few nights before and asked for 
 shelter. The companions of the girl belong 
 to that class of "married" women that fre- 
 quent back rooms of saloons. 
 
 Fifteen minutes' talk with Sarah convinced 
 me that she was with dangerous company. 
 She had been told by the women with whom 
 I found her that the easiest way for her would 
 
THE TRAIL OF JOHNNY 101 
 
 be to "pick up a friend." I took Sarah with 
 me against the protests of these harridans who 
 said that they had done "everything for her." 
 Sarah is now a cashier in a downtown restau- 
 rant, employed by a kind-hearted man, who 
 pays her well and tells me that she is thor- 
 oughly competent. Also she is under the pro- 
 tection of an organization that will protect 
 her in the future. It was only good fortune 
 that Sarah escaped the hawk eyes and talons 
 of "Watchful Johnny of the System." 
 
 This sounds like repetition, doesn't it? 
 Well, the troubles of the girl adrift are sin- 
 gularly alike. They have a familiar ring when 
 one hears them from trembling lips twenty or 
 thirty times a week. The reason I am telling 
 of these girls one after another in this way is 
 
 that I want to hammer home the truth about 
 
 
 
 the problem that confronts us. 
 
 So I'm going right on with my story. 
 
 Four girls came to Chicago from a little 
 
102 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 town one evening and went direct to a house 
 in Armour Avenue, the address of which had 
 been given them by a man who had visited 
 their town the night before. He became 
 too friendly with one of the girls, Carrol 
 Brown, aged eighteen. Carrol was so fas- 
 cinated with the tales this man told her of 
 gayety at the Armour Avenue place that she 
 persuaded three other young girls to join her 
 in an expedition. It was a runaway. You 
 see, this man did not violate the Mann Act. 
 He merely told stories of Chicago fairyland 
 likely to appeal to the fancy of a country-town 
 girl. 
 
 The woman in charge of this place took the 
 girls in, but after talking to them she became 
 convinced that they were novices. 
 
 Now, one novice might be handled without 
 too much trouble, but four novices spell 
 "danger" in large capital letters. The woman 
 became alarmed, and, being wise in her gen- 
 
THE TRAIL OF JOHNNY 103 
 
 eration, she notified the Rescue Home people. 
 Two of the women from the mission arrived 
 and took these girls away. The woman who 
 called up made much of her determination 
 "never to be instrumental in the fall of an 
 innocent girl." 
 
 What she feared was the consequences. 
 One of the girls the Brown girl is nat- 
 urally bad. She has been put in five different 
 employments since her release from the Ar- 
 mour Avenue place. She is subnormal, and 
 it may be difficult to save her. The real place 
 for her is a hospital, because her ailment is 
 largely mental. The others were very glad 
 to be taken care of. One of them is the wife 
 of a respectable mechanic, two are employees 
 of a downtown firm that finds them competent, 
 and the other is the protegee as ladies' maid of 
 one of the best known women in the city. She 
 is a gifted child, with no real vice about her. 
 Once again "Watchful Johnny" was foiled. 
 
104 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 One afternoon I was walking in Clark 
 Street when I met a girl who did not seem to 
 be more than fourteen. She was pretty, her 
 pert little nose was held high, and the cheap 
 clothes clung to her with a certain chic that 
 distinguished her. 
 
 I stopped to speak. She was uppish at first 
 and then interested. I asked her where she 
 was working, and she told me she had been 
 discharged from a department store because of 
 inexperience. She had met a "fellow" who 
 was going to marry her. She became con- 
 fidential and told me that she was really 
 living with the man over in North Dearborn 
 Street, but it was only to be for a couple of 
 weeks; the reason was that if his folks knew 
 he was married in advance of certain legal 
 procedure he would lose several thousand 
 dollars. 
 
 The story sounded rather familiar. I 
 wanted to see the man. She was delighted at 
 
THE TRAIL OF JOHNNY 105 
 
 having found a friend who was not shocked 
 at her story, and agreed to take me with her 
 to meet "Tom," who was to be in the rear room 
 of a Clark Street saloon at 2 P. M. When I 
 entered that room with the girl her putative 
 future husband nearly tore off the spring doors 
 getting through them to the street. 
 
 The man was "Watchful Johnny" in one of 
 his disguises. 
 
 Katie lived in a little town clown state where 
 she was one of the belles. I corresponded 
 with her mother, who turned out to be a per- 
 fectly incompetent sort of person. There are 
 too many such incompetent parents. 
 
 The Home for Girls took care of Katie. 
 Nobody knew what happened except myself 
 and the superintendent of the Home. Katie 
 was there four weeks, and she proved herself 
 a bright little housekeeper. Now she is tak- 
 ing care of the summer home of excellent 
 people at Lake Carver. They know all about 
 
106 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 her, but she doesn't know it, and they are too 
 clever to let her suspect that they do. The 
 girl is giving satisfaction, and the woman who 
 took her is going to give her an expensive 
 course of instruction in domestic science. She 
 says Katie is worth it. 
 
 So, you see, all girls adrift are not entirely 
 lost. Some of them are saved. I wish the 
 proportion were greater. I am going to tell 
 in the concluding chapters of this story how 
 more girls may be saved. Still no word as to 
 Mary Holden's whereabouts. Lil has prom- 
 ised to aid me in the search. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE BEXELWAUM BALL 
 
 LlL wanted me to go to the Bexelwaum ball. 
 It was more or less a special occasion, she told 
 me, and a good many of the girls I had met 
 downtown in my capacity as a working clerk 
 were to be there. 
 
 My friend would not let me costume myself. 
 She insisted on "fixing" me for the dance. 
 When she had "fixed" me I looked so awful 
 that I might easily have been arrested on sus- 
 picion. Hair of a half dozen shades was 
 piled on my head ; I was decked out with cheap 
 jewelry and ribbons until I looked like a 
 Christmas tree. 
 
 The hour was ten when we arrived at the 
 hall. We bought tickets and made our 
 
 way to the floor. It is really a beautiful ball- 
 
 107 
 
io8 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 room, splendidly lighted and decorated. It 
 is no wonder that girls go there who have no 
 means of knowing just how bad the place 
 really is. 
 
 The orchestra played some seductive synco- 
 pated thing and the couples already on the 
 floor were dancing it to all sorts of steps. A 
 man they told me was Tango Tim was doing 
 a grotesque and suggestive dance all by him- 
 self in the center of the floor. I was told that 
 he received pay as a professional entertainer. 
 He ought to get seven years without the option 
 of a fine. 
 
 This was a "costume" dance. Some of the 
 girls had their gowns far above their knees 
 and cut so low at the top that very little was 
 left to the imagination. I think most of these 
 girls were between sixteen and eighteen years, 
 though there was the class of old habitues, 
 perhaps anywhere from twenty- five to thirty 
 years old. 
 
THE BEXELWAUM BALL 109 
 
 The crowd kept increasing until the cafe 
 with its innumerable tables for drinks and the 
 main floor were both packed. The characters 
 included cowboys, soldiers, sailors, comedy 
 Irish, French, Italian and Russian. There 
 were soubrettes, ballet dancers, waitresses, 
 nursemaids, Salvation army sisters, "baby 
 dolls," and circus riders. Nearly all the girls 
 had apparently striven for the most startling 
 display of shoulders, arms and legs. There 
 never was a musical comedy staged that could 
 have equaled this display of briefly adorned 
 femininity. 
 
 And there was no denying the fascination 
 of this place. It is a blaze of light. Much 
 to gratify the senses is offered at Bexelwaum's. 
 
 Professor Tango Tim alternated with a 
 soubrette young person of extraordinary grace 
 and sinuousness, who did the "Siamese Slip" 
 all by herself and so popularized the move- 
 ment that scores of girls all over the floor were 
 
:iio MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 trying it within a few minutes. The Siamese 
 thing calls for all sorts of back-bending, twist- 
 ings and contortions of the upper body. 
 
 The girls with the very ill-fitting and very 
 low-necked gowns could not even attempt these 
 movements without over-emphasizing the low- 
 ness of their gowns or revealing the shortness 
 of them. 
 
 The young woman dancing professionally 
 had some sort of fluffy lingerie that protected 
 her in the daring kicks and twists she exe- 
 cuted, but the amateurs had the advantage of 
 no such equipment. I never witnessed so 
 amazing an exhibition as developed out of the 
 general desire to Siamese. 
 
 Very soon the proximity of the cafe tables 
 and the liberal supplies of intoxicants pro- 
 duced their inevitable result. 
 
 One of the first to become palpably intoxi- 
 cated was a young woman dressed as an In- 
 dian squaw with a real baby strapped to her 
 
THE BEXELWAUM BALL in 
 
 back. The girl's face was stained a dull red 
 and the poor baby was dyed a like color. The 
 little thing was asleep when my attention was 
 attracted by the loud talk of the "squaw" 
 mother. A girl who told me she was the 
 "squaw's" sister berated the latter for pinching 
 the infant to wake it up so that it would cry 
 and attract attention to her makeup. 
 
 Afterward I saw her punch the child my- 
 self, and the child cried. I spoke to her, and 
 she laughed as she admitted that she wanted 
 the child to cry. She thought if the baby 
 cried she would get first prize for originality 
 in her characterization. She was carrying the 
 baby on her back, Indian fashion. Its poor 
 little weazened face lolled over her shoulder 
 and its eyes closed in utter exhaustion, despite 
 her brutality. 
 
 I had no lack of partners. Lil saw to that, 
 and, anyway, there were no formalities. 
 Young men asked me to dance and I did. 
 
ii2 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 The couples who were drinking and I think 
 most all of them were became more and more 
 daring as the time passed. The most simple 
 dance can be made suggestive by drunken men 
 and women. 
 
 I must have danced with six or seven part- 
 ners in the first two hours of the affair. Every 
 single one of them asked me, as though it were 
 part of the evening's entertainment, whether 
 they could "come up to the flat." The aston- 
 ishing part of it was that hardly one of them 
 was out of his teens. The way these boys 
 talked to me was enlightening. 
 
 For instance : I danced with a lad not over 
 twenty. We had done a few turns around the 
 hall in a two-step. I could not do the things 
 he did with the dance. He had all sorts of 
 variations of the step. 
 
 "You want to come in with the flop," he told 
 me. 
 
THE BEXELWAUM BALL 113 
 
 "What's the flop?" I inquired. 
 
 "Well," he enlightened me, "when I lean 
 back this way you want to tumble forward this 
 way." 
 
 He illustrated how the thing ought to be 
 done from his point of view. I blushed. It 
 was an atrocious suggestion. I pretended that 
 I couldn't understand him and refused to do 
 what he wanted. 
 
 "Why," he said, "all these old time dances 
 are on the blink. Nobody dances 'em, and 
 nobody wants 'em. You've got to get some 
 action into a dance nowadays or you can't put 
 it across." 
 
 "What do you think the dance really ought 
 to be?" I asked him. He was a very young 
 fellow and it appeared to me he might be 
 decent if he had the chance. 
 
 "Well," he answered, reflectively, "I figure 
 that dancing and hunting with a gun are just 
 
ii 4 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 about the same. If the guys that come here 
 to this place had any show, they'd rather go 
 rabbit hunting, maybe." 
 
 "Well, is this a hunt instead of dance?" I 
 begged. 
 
 "Sure it is," he responded, readily enough, 
 and laughing at my ignorance. "All this stuff 
 is phony. The guys don't give a care about 
 dancing. They know that the girls like to 
 dance, and they know the girls will be here in 
 flocks. So if a fellow wants to cop off a girl, 
 here's where he comes." % 
 
 "But don't girls come here who can't be 
 'copped off,' as you call it?" I suggested. 
 
 "Oh, once in a while there's a kid that's 
 straight and just happens to float in," he an- 
 swered, "but, you see, they all get wise to it 
 pretty soon. They don't want any girl to 
 come to these doin's unless she's playing the 
 game all the way down the line. Most of 
 'em are gold diggers, at that." 
 
THE BEXELWAUM BALL 115 
 
 "What's a gold digger?" I queried. 
 
 "Say," answered my young friend, "maybe 
 you come from the hills around Gary, but I 
 'don't know any of that bunch that talks the 
 way you do. A gold digger is a miner." 
 
 "Yes," I agreed, "but how does being a 
 'miner' and a 'gold digger' apply to that little 
 girl over there, for instance?" 
 
 "That kid with the red hat?" he inquired, 
 pointing. "Why, she's the queen. That's 
 Chrissy Tate. Why, Kid, she's got cards and 
 spades on 'em all. She can get money from a 
 'Gypshun' mummy, believe me." 
 
 "But she looks like just a little girl," I told 
 him. The boy had such nice eyes I thought 
 there might be an undercurrent of decency 
 about him. 
 
 "Kid," he said, with his worldly-wise look, 
 "Chrissy's been travelin' this route for four 
 years, and she knows more about what's going 
 on along the trail than any of them. First she 
 
n6 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 used to be 'Steve's' girl, and she beat him up 
 with one of his own bottles. He got scared of 
 her, and since that she's traveled under eight 
 different names. There's a funny thing about 
 that Chrissy. Do you know what she does? 
 When anybody is on to her she gets out a lot 
 of old dolls she's got in a trunk and plays with 
 'em. Steve told me he came home one night 
 and found her sittin' in the middle of the 
 parlor floor playin' with a regular layout of 
 dolls. 
 
 " 'You're sure crazy,' says Steve, 'put them 
 things in the ash can.' " 
 
 "And he says Chrissy gathered all them fool 
 dolls up in a bunch in her arms and sat up and 
 cried all night. Now what the hell do you 
 think of that?" 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 HER RETROSPECTION 
 
 THE head floor-manager, distinguished by a 
 dignified manner, a pair of narrow dark eyes 
 that suggested villainy, a new fifteen dollar 
 suit and a checked tie, signaled for the next 
 dance, and my young, too sophisticated part- 
 ner darted away. The orchestra, hidden be- 
 hind a table piled high with empty beer bot- 
 tles, struck up a noisy tune with much em- 
 phasis on the brass instruments. The dance 
 was on in full swing. 
 
 For all the intent hilarity of the crowd, to 
 me the scene was intensely pathetic. A large 
 percentage of the crowd were tipsy. The 
 scene was perfectly disreputable. There was 
 nobody there who tried to make it respectable, 
 
 117 
 
ii8 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 and had there been, that person probably 
 would not have dared. 
 
 A much intoxicated man walked over to a 
 girl standing near me. 
 
 "Do you Tango?" he asked. 
 
 Boldly he offered her his arm, and the two 
 shuffled off. Like many of the others they 
 were too weary to dance much, and before 
 long I noticed they stopped their gyrations 
 and sat down at a table to partake of the amber 
 fluid. 
 
 The majority of the dancers were fast be- 
 coming awkward, and some lost step alto- 
 gether. Couples bumped one another, leav- 
 ing trails of human hate in their wake. 
 
 A woman with a hard, painted face came 
 over to me and asked me where I was staying. 
 I told her I had a good deal of trouble finding 
 a "right" place to stay. 
 
 "Why, say," she said, "you ought to be get- 
 
HER RETROSPECTION 119 
 
 ting the kale while you're young. Don't let 
 none of those flim-flammin' youths get hold of 
 you. Cut out the love stuff, see? Get a guy 
 that's got one foot in Graceland and one in 
 
 . There's millions of them in Chicago, 
 
 and they're your meat." 
 
 "Yes," I volunteered. 
 
 "If a girl can't get what she wants one way, 
 she's got to get it another." 
 
 "What really does a girl want?" I sug- 
 gested. 
 
 If I live to be a hundred years old I shall 
 never forget the strange look that came into 
 that creature's face. 
 
 "What does a girl want?" she croaked. 
 "Why, what she wants is what she can't get." 
 
 "What do you mean by that?" I inquired. 
 
 "Why," she retorted, "men want women 
 just to amuse them. I was married once 
 not long ago, either only five years." 
 
120 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 I looked at the hard, painted face. It was 
 cruel, but she must have understood, for she 
 laughed in my face. 
 
 "Say," she went on, "I've got a baby some- 
 where. He made me let one of them homes 
 adopt it. Now I can't find out where the 
 child is. God! Do you suppose I care any- 
 thing about floating around with this bunch? 
 We had over a thousand dollars, and then he 
 went to work for a brewery. Then the brew- 
 ery put him to work collecting in the 'dis- 
 trict.' After he got in there he used to come 
 home 'pickled' every night. Then he got to 
 staying out. That time I was expecting the 
 baby. I had to have attention in a hospital, 
 and they told me I couldn't look after a baby 
 for a long time, and I'd have to get somebody 
 to care for it You know, a woman doesn't 
 know much about her baby before she gets it 
 Afterward is when she wants it 
 
 "So I let them persuade me that my baby 
 
HER RETROSPECTION 121 
 
 would be too much for me, and they sent it to 
 a 'home.' My little kid God! I hain't 
 ever set eyes on her. They took her away be- 
 fore I ever knew she was on earth. 
 
 "So, here's me, see? I'm not much good 
 now. I'm pretty bad. I make men pay me 
 now, see? I hate men and I hate women. I 
 hate all the crazy kids that storm around this 
 place. I'm married all right, but what's the 
 use of a man like that? Why, he's worse than 
 no man at all." 
 
 It was this woman who introduced me to 
 Chrissy, the pretty girl with the child face. 
 I talked to her for a long time. We danced 
 in the same set later in the evening. Since 
 that Chrissy and I have been very friendly. 
 She lets me go to see her. She has promised 
 that she would try to break away from the halls 
 and get a new start. I don't know whether 
 she will keep her promise, but I hope so. 
 
 Lil had been so busy with the men that she 
 
122 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 almost forgot me. Just as I was leaving she 
 asked if I had had a good time. 
 
 "I was interested," I replied. 
 
 "Going home alone?" she demanded. 
 
 "I guess that is the best way to go from 
 here," I smiled. 
 
 "Aw, Kid, don't hurry," she urged. "The 
 fun is just beginning." 
 
 I told her I was tired and must get some 
 sleep. 
 
 "Please be careful, and I hope you find 
 the missing Kid," she said, as I left the 
 hall. 
 
 When I returned home I asked my mother 
 if she had received any word from Mary, 
 pretty Mary Holden. I could see by the ex- 
 pression on her face that she believed my task 
 a hopeless one. At any rate I told her I was 
 learning a great deal about the big city and its 
 traps for girls adrift. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 QUEER FISH IN THE DEPTHS 
 
 HUMAN nature becomes the more puzzling as 
 its deeper soundings are explored. Down in 
 the depths there are some very queer fish- 
 fish with only a few of the sensibilities of sur- 
 face species ; invertebrates in the majority, pur- 
 blind drifters with the shifting tides. 
 
 Over on the north side is a policeman who 
 has made a great deal of money out of his con- 
 nection with the vice traffic. He got only the 
 droppings from overloaded bags that went to 
 the men higher up, but even these were suffi- 
 cient to buy a house and some very respectable 
 interest-bearing securities. Chicago's girls 
 adrift paid for the house and the securities, of 
 
 course, but what I am trying to point out is 
 
 123 
 
124 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 the contradictoriness of the grafter's char- 
 acter. 
 
 For this policeman is a regular attendant at 
 church ; he has a family of well kept children ; 
 his wife swears by him; his superiors insist 
 that he is a valuable officer. 
 
 Now, here is another contradiction: One 
 night last winter a very cold night, too I 
 witnessed a transaction at the corner of Con- 
 gress Street and Wabash Avenue that made me 
 ponder. A poor shivering little girl stepped 
 from a doorway and accosted a man who had 
 just emerged from a taxi-cab. The man I had 
 seen before. The girl I did not know. She 
 seemed to be about seventeen. 
 
 I saw the man's hand go into his pocket, and 
 then it was extended toward the suppliant, as 
 he passed quickly into a nearby building. 
 The girl stood staring at a $5 bill the man 
 had given her. 
 
 It was then that I approached the girl and 
 
QUEER FISH IN THE DEPTHS 125 
 
 asked her if I could help her. I carried some 
 cards in my pocket book which called for the 
 admission of friendless children such as this 
 one seemed to be to a shelter that feeds them 
 without demanding histories of their lives in 
 advance. Sometimes they use the cards, but 
 not often. This girl laughed shrilly as I 
 spoke to her and showed me the $5 bill. 
 
 "What do you know about that?" she de- 
 clared; "an' I never saw him before in my 
 life." 
 
 The man I had recognized in the act of 
 doing an apparently generous act was "Ike, 
 the Kike," notorious around the world as a 
 trafficker in women. I told the girl who her 
 casual benefactor was, and she cursed me ex- 
 pertly for my interference. 
 
 "Suppose he is just what you say," she said. 
 "D'you think I could walk up to one of your 
 God-A'mighty crowd if I was broke like I 
 am to-night and touch 'em for a five? Not 
 
126 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 on your family Bible, Kid. I'd get a ticket 
 r for soup, more likely. That guy? Why, 
 say, he's got a heart in him." 
 
 Now, I don't know what induced "Ike, the 
 Kike" to give away part of his slimy earn- 
 ings whether it was a spasm of pity, a be- 
 lated twinge of an atrophied conscience, a 
 touch of swagger perhaps the recklessness of 
 inebriety, but when I saw the girl entering a 
 corner cafe, intent, as she said, on "big eats," 
 I fell once more into reflection upon the 
 strange contradictions one encounters in an 
 underworld character. 
 
 Take another case, that of a young woman 
 I know who went as straight as an arrow from 
 a Chicago high school to a place of evil fame 
 known from Paris to Vladivostok. This girl 
 told me her views in a dispassionate way. She 
 was gentle with me and behaved throughout 
 as though I were a silly, argumentative child 
 in need of correction. 
 
QUEER FISH IN THE DEPTHS 127 
 
 Of course, I was trying to get the girl out 
 of the place; my visit was on behalf of an or- 
 ganization devoted to such rescue work. 
 
 "Why do you sociologists bother with peo- 
 ple like me?" she demanded. "Why don't 
 you begin your work in the public schools 
 yes, and in the private schools too and build 
 for the future by teaching boys and girls to be 
 decent human beings at ages when they can be 
 taught, when they are not already depraved?" 
 
 A sudden sharp twinge ran through my 
 being. What if I should find Mary Holden 
 and hear her speak like my high school friend? 
 The horror of it caused me to shudder. 
 
 I admitted that we ought to do more sym- 
 pathetic work in the schools and churches 
 and homes, but emphasized my immediate 
 case, which was her own. I wanted her to 
 leave with me. 
 
 "No, I'm not going to leave here," the girl 
 declared stubbornly. "I can tell myself the 
 
ia8 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 truth about myself here which is something. 
 I never allowed myself to consider the truth 
 about my own character until I was frankly 
 and avowedly lost. Then I took an inventory 
 and found I wasn't a bit worse than I had been 
 for years." 
 
 "You aren't alone in the world, you know," 
 I urged. "It isn't too late for you to try 
 again." 
 
 "That sounds all right, but it isn't true," 
 was the response. "I tell you it is no use try- 
 ing to rescue girls who have joined the army 
 most of them don't want to be rescued. 
 They dread the horrors of the climb back and 
 had rather die than try. 
 
 "I was a bad girl, as you call it, when I was 
 fourteen, and they said I was the brightest 
 girl in my grade. I believe I was, too. 
 Study came easily for me, but so did wicked- 
 ness. I was as wicked as I was clever. 
 
 "My father was a traveling lecturer, and 
 
QUEER FISH IN THE DEPTHS 129 
 
 my mother traveled with him. I lived with 
 my aunt, who was prominent in four or five 
 women's clubs. The school I attended was as 
 bad, morally speaking, as this place is, and 
 worse. 
 
 "I'll tell you another thing. For one girl 
 who gets found out and has to hustle out of the 
 way of the hypocrites who don't get found out, 
 there are twenty just as bad as she is who 
 marry and graduate into the ranks of the 're- 
 spectable.' 
 
 "There is eternal shouting and exhorting 
 against the immorality and vice of the levee, 
 but I wonder if it isn't society's hue and cry 
 to divert attention from viciousness in what 
 you call 'the best circles,' a condition that is a 
 hundred times more important." 
 
 By this time the room in which we were 
 conversing held an interested audience of 
 painted, bright-eyed women. They ap- 
 plauded the girl who was speaking. 
 
130 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 "Why are you forever twisting the tail of 
 the dog?" she asked. "It is the other end that 
 bites." 
 
 Everybody laughed. 
 
 "That is false philosophy," I declared. 
 "You are eighteen, with the world before you 
 if you will only give yourself a chance." 
 
 "Wrong again," she laughed. "Most of it 
 is behind me. When a girl knows what I 
 know she is a fool to lie to herself. I'm look- 
 ing the facts in the face. If I Ve got to go to 
 hell I'm going with my eyes open." 
 
 That girl is still a denizen in the depths, 
 and the worst of it is she doesn't want to get 
 out. The surface sunlight hurts her myopic 
 blue eyes. There is hardly a more dangerous 
 character, potentially speaking, in the levee 
 district. 
 
 But what about the family and school neg- 
 lect that have developed such a character? 
 Is it not true, as this girl says, that the remedy 
 
QUEER FISH IN THE DEPTHS 131 
 
 for such evil as this is to be applied in the 
 school room? 
 
 Doesn't the situation call for general teach- 
 ing of sex hygiene as one of the most important 
 elements in the education of the child? 
 
 Is it not true that without determined con- 
 centration on the moral improvement of the 
 rising generation through cooperation of 
 schools and churches we are wrestling ineffec- 
 tively with vice trying to make the tail wag 
 the dog? 
 
 Sometimes when I consider the task I have 
 set myself in telling the conditions I have en- 
 countered in my investigations in and around 
 Chicago my heart almost fails me and my 
 spirit revolts. Will it do any good? I ask 
 myself. 
 
 Will the men and women who are fathers 
 and mothers be helped to realize that the child 
 must be trained to moral standards in the 
 home? 
 
i 3 2 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 Will the churches in some measure be con- 
 vinced that they must organize for a com- 
 bined effort to save children of to-day that 
 souls are more important than sectarianism, 
 and that Sunday is not the only day in the 
 week? 
 
 This story is not a romance it is a tragedy 
 of truth. 
 
 To resume : Let us see how far the law is 
 effective in preventing operations of the Sys- 
 tem's recruiting agents in this search for girls 
 to carry on the traffic that is constantly in 
 progress. 
 
 Some time ago I determined to pose as a 
 vice agent myself, and a very brief experience 
 was sufficient to convince me of the ease with 
 which the ranks are kept filled up. 
 
 I began by visiting an employment agency 
 engaged in furnishing female help. The 
 woman in charge was suspicious and reserved 
 at first. I told her I wanted "half a dozen 
 
QUEER FISH IN THE DEPTHS 133 
 
 girls for out of town," and that they had to 
 be good looking. She grinned at me and 
 asked what sort of work I wanted them for. 
 
 "Oh, kind of general," I said. 
 
 "About how old girls?" she inquired. 
 
 "Well, young enough to be lively," I re- 
 plied, laughing. 
 
 "Now just what is the employment?" she 
 insisted. "You may confide in me, you know." 
 
 "The fact is," I whispered, "I want them 
 for entertainers it's a high class house in a 
 small city, about a hundred miles from here." 
 
 "It is against the law for us to furnish girls 
 that way," the woman objected. "The penal- 
 ties are severe and we have to be careful." 
 
 "I don't see how you'd be running much 
 risk," I put in, "but of course I don't want any 
 kickers." 
 
 "I think I can get what you want," said the 
 wily agent, finally. "When do you want 
 them?" 
 
134 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 The woman named her price, which was 
 heavy. It was arranged that I should call 
 next morning at ten. I never went back. 
 
 Now, just consider that experience. I 
 know nothing of the ways of professionals in 
 securing girls for the white slave trade, but 
 despite my utter ignorance I was able in a 
 comparatively brief time to close a contract 
 for six girls to be sold into the bondage of 
 shame. 
 
 Nor is it any sufficient answer that they were 
 to be women already employed in the traffic. 
 On the contrary, this woman told me the girls 
 would be signed up for hotel work. 
 
 "That's what we send them out as," she said, 
 "and what they do when they get there is none 
 of our business." 
 
 Nor was this my last experience in posing 
 as an agent of the vice trust. What happened 
 when I opened negotiations with another 
 agency I'll tell later on. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 TREFALKA AND STEVE 
 
 I MUST tell the story of Tref alka Gralak, who 
 is dead now. When I first knew her, two 
 years ago, she was a dear, soft-hearted little 
 thing with a pretty face and figure. She 
 loved a man named Steve Bleczak. 
 
 They had been sweethearts, these two, ever 
 since the old days in the school, and they were 
 graduated together from the school house into 
 the factory. 
 
 When big, muscular Steve used to show 
 up in the work room Trefalka's blue eyes 
 shone and her cheeks flushed. Then she used 
 to shake the heavy dark curls down round her 
 face to hide her confusion. Oh, yes, Tref alka 
 was very much in love with Steve. 
 
 135 
 
136 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 One night after her work was over Tref alka 
 ran into my house. 
 
 "What do you think I got?" she gasped out. 
 
 "Tell me," I smiled. 
 
 "Look!" laughed Tref alka. 
 
 The child extended her hand for my in- 
 spection, and upon it was a ring set with the 
 tiniest diamond I ever saw. Trefalka's eyes 
 were sparkling and she breathed rapidly in 
 her excitement. 
 
 "Ain't it class?" babbled the child. "Oh, 
 ain't it a Jim Dandy no, ain't it a Joe Hun?" 
 she went on. "Dear, me an' Steve's going to 
 be married. His pa's goin' to give us a lot, 
 an' he's goin' to get the buildin' loan to lend 
 us the money so that we can build a house. It 
 is all planned." 
 
 I never saw any girl so happy as Trefalka. 
 She cried one minute and laughed the next, 
 and she made me promise that I would be 
 there when she was married, because I had 
 
TREFALKA AND STEVE 137 
 
 always been her best friend. How I wish I 
 could have sustained my title to that office ! 
 
 "Trefalka, dear," I interposed, "what about 
 your wedding dress? It will be something 
 white, of course, and you will carry flowers 
 and have a dance afterward?" 
 
 The girl's face fell. 
 
 "Pa's drunk again," she whispered. "There 
 ain't a cent in the bank. My money from the 
 factory goes for food. Pa always makes me 
 give him all my money." 
 
 "You must tell him you are to be married," 
 I urged, "and perhaps he will let you save for 
 some wedding things." 
 
 "No," she said, sadly, "I have to give it to 
 him, or we all get beat up. Anyway, all the 
 girls does it that stays home. I don't care 
 about giving them the money if I could just 
 get the wedding too. (The dress, you know, 
 will take $15, and the other things $10. I 
 think I could get everything for $30 the 
 
138 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 things to eat and drink, and everything like 
 that." 
 
 I made up my mind that Trefalka should 
 have what she wanted to be married in, poor 
 child, but the date slipped my memory, and I 
 
 shall never cease to regret it 
 
 
 
 "Steve quit his job in the factory," said Tre- 
 falka. "He says it wasn't very genteel. 
 Steve is awful proud." 
 
 "What is he doing now?" I asked. 
 
 "In one of them skating rinks places at 
 South Chicago," she answered. "Say, the 
 girls are swell big willow plumes and such 
 skirts and waists all silk. He likes that, 
 Steve does. And I haven't got nothing. I 
 shame myself with Steve." 
 
 Then the storm broke. Trefalka buried 
 her curly head in my lap and cried her heart 
 out. The little body shook with great heavy 
 sobs. It was long before I could calm her. 
 
TREFALKA AND STEVE 139 
 
 "Don't you worry about Steve," I said. "If 
 he can be won away from you by a sleazy silk 
 skirt, you don't want him anyhow." 
 
 "But I do," she raged. "By G , you 
 women in America ain't got no hearts for 
 men," she stormed. "I want Steve!" 
 
 And who could blame the child for wanting 
 to look her best before the man she loved? 
 Wasn't it human wasn't it the best of the 
 woman in her? 
 
 Poor Trefalka! Her crying ceased. She 
 wiped her eyes, grasped my hand tightly and 
 went away to her home. Poor little girl 
 such a home! 
 
 You can't wonder at anything that happens 
 when a girl with a hungry heart must betake 
 herself to filthy quarters filled with crying 
 babies, a drunken father and a quarrelsome 
 mother. Rather a hard place to turn to in 
 an extremity! 
 
 Two weeks later there was a knock at the 
 
140 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 door. I threw it open, and there, under the 
 flickering porch light, stood Trefalka. 
 
 "Trefalka," I cried. "Oh, Trefalka." 
 
 The little body, swathed in a cheap satin 
 gown, swayed forward. I put my arm around 
 the girl and led her in. She was painted and 
 her eyebrows were grotesquely penciled. 
 
 "I guess you know," she began just about a 
 whisper. 
 
 "Why did you?" I interposed. 
 
 "Well," she shivered, "it's down to what 
 they call Joe Howard's joint. It was Kitty 
 out to the factory who took me down. She 
 keeps company with Dan, the bar fly." 
 
 "But you know better than to go there," I 
 answered sternly. "You knew what sort of 
 place it was." 
 
 "Well, I didn't know it was so crazy as 
 that," the girl went on. "That barkeep is the 
 hoarse guy that swiped Kitty's lockets you 
 know, him that was pinched for bringin' girls 
 
(TREFALKA AND STEVE 141 
 rom Indiana to a fake weddin'. I told Kitty 
 about Steve and says I couldn't get married 
 because I didn't have no weddin' dress, and 
 Kitty says: 'Falka, why don't you come to 
 Howard's with me, because you can make 
 enough in a week to get the dress and things. 
 You can work down there until 12 at night, 
 and then get back to your shack.' 
 
 "So I asked her what I could make steady, 
 and she says it could be $8 a night and $15 
 on Saturdays. She tells me it is grand all 
 lace curtains and a nickel planner and all the 
 things you want to drink. 'If you don't be- 
 lieve me,' says Kitty, 'come and see for your- 
 self.'" 
 
 The girl paused. I asked her to tell me all. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE SCARLET WEDDING DRESS 
 
 "WELL," continued Trefalka, "that night I 
 went home early from work and got supper 
 for the kids. Pa was awful mean to me. I 
 asked him if he could do something for my 
 
 weddin' and he says 'to with weddin's. 
 
 Take the vinegar jug and chase me some 
 booze/ and that's all he says to me. 
 
 "Then Ma says to Pa not to get no more 
 booze, and Pa says to her to shut up, because 
 he's going to do the talking around the place, 
 and Ma says something to him, so he tries to 
 hit Ma with a chair, and Ma ducked and the 
 chair hit the door and come back on Pa's head. 
 Then Ma cried an' was on her knees on the 
 floor. 
 
SCARLET WEDDING DRESS 143 
 
 " Talka,' she says, 'your pa has gone and 
 died on us.' 
 
 "I took a look at Pa and he was all bloody, 
 but I didn't care, anyway. 'He won't die for 
 a long time, anyhow,' I told Ma, and then I 
 ran out and met Kitty. I was cryin' and Kitty 
 says, 'what the h is the use of bawling? 
 Come on down to Joe's.' 
 
 "So that's how I come to go." 
 
 I took Trefalka in my room and washed the 
 paint off her face. That process revealed a 
 very pale and drawn-looking child. Kittie 
 had tried to bleach her hair with peroxide, 
 but I was glad that the solution had been too 
 weak. Tref alka's hair was still unspoiled. 
 
 "I got the money for the dress," whispered 
 the girl shivering, "but I'd rather work in the 
 factory for $2 a week. That Howard joint is 
 some fierce place. They got a cash register just 
 like in a wine room, and what you go to do is to 
 get the fellows tanked so they'll spend all the 
 
,144 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 money they got on 'em. They rings it all up 
 on the register and the girls get a percentage 
 on the checks. Some o' the girls thinks it's 
 fun, but it ain't. I know Carrie that works 
 in the factory. She works down there, too. 
 Her husband lets her work at night, and he 
 calls for her at 12. If she ain't got a good deal 
 of money he beats her up, because he thinks 
 she's givin' some of her money to a guy or 
 something like that. 
 
 "Phil, that looks after rooms, he says to us 
 girls in there: 'Get the rolls; don't forget 
 it is pay night.' 
 
 "Say, when a guy's drunk and doped you 
 Hassen't leave a nickel in his pockets. If you 
 Ho, they're down on you." 
 
 "Trefalka," I said. "How can you marry 
 Steve now?" 
 
 "Steve knows," she snapped ; "to with 
 
 him. He wouldn't believe me why I did it. 
 [To-night he found me out." 
 
SCARLET WEDDING DRESS 145 
 
 There was an awful look in the child's face 
 as she told me this. She seemed to have just 
 found out how she had been cheated. I saw 
 that her eyes were swollen and heavy with 
 much weeping. 
 
 "I don't care," she went on, and then the 
 next instant wailed: "Oh, my God! Miss, 
 yes, I do care. I love Steve and I want him. 
 But Steve knows now, and he's quit. I was 
 sittin' in the back room there with four girls 
 an' there was some fellows buying beer. 
 Helen that used to work in the factory was 
 there, an' I noticed her sniffin' flakes. Then 
 two more fellows came in, and they looked in 
 our room. I stood up with my hands and feet 
 froze and shiverin' all over. 
 
 "'Steve!' I says. Wait, Steve. I'll tell 
 you all about it.' 
 
 " 'You,' Steve says, an'd then he laughed. 
 
 'You ' Steve says to me, and I tried 
 
 to get hold of him to make him talk to me, but 
 
146 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 it wasn't no good. He hit me right here, an' 
 I fell down." 
 
 Trefalka pushed down the shoulder of her 
 near-silk waist and showed me a livid bruise 
 on her white flesh. 
 
 "I come to quick, but when I did Steve was 
 gone, and he won't never come back he won't 
 never come back," moaned the little girl. She 
 was rocking backward and forward in an 
 agony of distress. 
 
 "Trefalka," I said, "you must find Steve and 
 let me talk to him. I believe I can make him 
 take care of you. He did love you, didn't 
 he?" 
 
 "Oh," moaned Trefalka, "I know he won't 
 come back. I just begged him. 'Steve,' I 
 said, 'Steve, for God's sake don't throw me 
 down, Steve.' When he took his ring ofFn 
 me I just hung to him and told him I'd work 
 all my life, if Ke'd just let me show him I was 
 white and not to take the ring, but he wouldn't 
 
SCARLET WEDDING DRESS 147 
 
 have no truck with me he just wouldn't have 
 no truck with me. 
 
 "And I just did it to get a weddin' dress so 
 I wouldn't shame him he was so proud." 
 
 If any of the women I know who are stern 
 judges of other people's morals could have 
 sat with me and watched that helpless lost 
 sister, her hands stretched out empty toward 
 me, tears streaming down her face, I am sure 
 they would have wept too. 
 
 "Trefalka, to-morrow we'll go and find 
 Steve," I said. "I'll help you." 
 
 "Please," she assented. "I'll come to- 
 morrow." And she was gone. 
 
 The door closed after her, but I looked out 
 quickly. She was not going in the direction 
 of her home. In an instant I had a cape 
 thrown over my shoulders and was following 
 her. I knew where she was going now. 
 Steve was in South Chicago. She was going 
 there. Trefalka sat in the front part of the 
 
148 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 street car with her head bowed down. She 
 did not see me. At last we reached the skating 
 rink. 
 
 As I reached the corner I waited an instant. 
 The skaters were pouring out of the door. 
 The calliope that had been screeching out a 
 discordant refrain was still. The last couple 
 turned past the corner. I could see Steve's 
 big frame outlined against the flapping shade 
 as he reached to put out the lights one after 
 another. 
 
 I stepped forward to plead with him that 
 he forgive her the sin of which he himself was 
 guilty to tell him that Tref alka didn't under- 
 stand, and that it was really for him. That 
 instant Tref alka darted past me, breathless, her 
 eyes glittering fiercely. She was past the door 
 and by his side just as he reached for the last 
 light. 
 
 "Steve," she cried, tensely "Steve, dear 
 
SCARLET WEDDING DRESS 149 
 
 are you goin' to do what you said? Are you 
 goin' to throw me down?" she cried. 
 
 "Didn't I tell you to git out, you ? 
 
 Do you think any fellow wants to marry your 
 kind?" His face hardened and an ugly scowl 
 lay upon it. 
 
 "Steve, don't you see, it was the weddin' 
 dress, the money? Them girls did it, Kitty 
 and Helen they say it's all right." She fell 
 on her knees before him. Her arms embraced 
 him. 
 
 "Let me alone," he said. "I'm done." He 
 shoved her off roughly. 
 
 Trefalka sprang to her feet. There was a 
 gleam in the air, a cry of pain. Steve's bulky 
 frame sank to the floor. 
 
 Before I could cry out Trefalka had thrown 
 herself full length upon his body. Her mouth 
 found his. Then the knife was in her heart 
 too. 
 
150 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 I cried for help. An officer made his way 
 through the gathering crowd. The lights 
 flared up. There they lay, Steve and Tre- 
 f alka dying. His arm had found her waist 
 and held her close. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 ANNIE'S HUSBAND 
 
 Now, Hear reader, you are liable to exclaim 
 with annoyance that this is not a story, but a 
 series of stories. To this I wish to reply that 
 this is a story my own story of my own ex- 
 periences in the by-ways of the underworld. 
 
 Here is the case of Annie Cracrow. I had 
 been requested to find out at first hand what 
 became of 3,500 fatherless babies born in Chi- 
 cago every year. Annie Cracrow afforded at 
 least one illustration. 
 
 I worked with Annie in a sweatshop, a 
 tailoring plant on the west side. Side by side 
 we sewed on seams and tapes, finishing gar- 
 ment after garment. It was a monotonous and 
 soul-stifling employment always the same 
 
 151 
 
152 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 thing. There was no variety at all, no in- 
 dividuality possible in the work, no avenue for 
 inspiration. It was so much the garment, so 
 much to be done day's beginning to day's 
 end. 
 
 One night a dull rainy night we streamed 
 out of the factory with a thousand or more 
 girls working just as we were. Most of the 
 workers were big, angular, foreign-born girls, 
 who had been mal-adjusted to the confinement 
 and dust of shops. 
 
 The continual bending over garments by 
 clay, the same work at home during most even- 
 ings, had begun to tell on many once strong 
 constitutions. Some had deep hollows under 
 their cheek-bones ; others coughed continually 
 and complained of pains in the chest and back. 
 
 Annie Cracrow's face was flushed as we left 
 the workroom. She had the cough, too. I 
 had taken her to a doctor, who said she ought 
 to be sent to a dry climate. Poor girl she 
 
ANNIE'S HUSBAND 153 
 
 hadn't the money to go anywhere. Besides, 
 there were other considerations. 
 
 We were headed for the Polish settlement 
 after work. Annie had to stop in a doorway 
 because she was overcome with a paroxysm of 
 coughing. Two girls from the factory joined 
 us and we walked on together. 
 
 "The band was out yesterday did you hear 
 it?" asked one of the girls. 
 
 "Sure I did," smiled Annie "yer pa was 
 in it, carrying the statue of Joseph. I seen 
 him too." 
 
 "It was a pretty good parade," went on the 
 other girl, "but my ma says they used to have 
 better ones in the old country and the streets 
 wasn't so dirty." 
 
 "How's your brother Stan, Annie?" in- 
 quired one of the girls. "Is he still doin' time 
 down to the Bridewell prison?" 
 
 "Yes," nodded Annie, "but he's goin' to be 
 home pretty soon, and Butch, too." 
 
154 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 "She's that crazy about Butch," confided 
 another girl to me in a whisper "Why, 
 say, she'd lie down and let him walk over her. 
 Say, I wouldn't let no feller get me goin' that 
 way." 
 
 Annie looked around at me and smiled. 
 
 "Do you love a feller?" she asked. 
 
 I did not reply, so she went on: 
 
 "Sometimes Butch was awful mean to me, 
 but if I just could have him where I could 
 work for him I mean in some little house 
 I'd make him love me. You can't make no 
 man love you right unless you can fix his 
 breakfast," she philosophized. "Butch is 
 great on breakfasts, and where he boards they 
 ain't clean." 
 
 "Annie, when are you going to see your 
 brother in the Bridewell?" I asked. 
 
 "To-morrow," she said. "I wish you would 
 
 come." 
 
 "I'll go," I said, and was rewarded with the 
 
ANNIE'S HUSBAND 155 
 
 story of Stanislaus Cracrow's arrest and con- 
 viction, together with a notorious rascal known 
 to the police as "Butch" Krapadinski. There 
 had been a revolver battle before the men were 
 captured, and Stanislaus had been wounded. 
 The men were about to complete their sen- 
 tences. 
 
 So the next morning Annie and I went to 
 visit them. Annie was dressed in her plain 
 best. Her hair was plastered down straight 
 on her forehead with fastidious fashion. She 
 wore a straw hat with a big, red rose. 
 
 The poor child was beamingly happy. She 
 was going to see "Butch." When the guard 
 let us into the cellroom she was trembling. I 
 have read learned disquisitions which essayed 
 to prove that such human creatures as Annie 
 Cracrow are unable to experience the finer 
 emotions. Some sociological pundits ought 
 to travel with me for a month or two. 
 
 The cell number was 123. I saw a man sit- 
 
156 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 ting in the far corner of the dark little coop. 
 He came forward and stood with his hands 
 clutching the bars. The man was Stanis- 
 laus. 
 
 "Hello, Kid," he cried. "We ain't got no 
 more shop work in here we're coming out to- 
 morrow, me and Butch." 
 
 The big, broad shouldered fellow smiled as 
 he patted his sister's hand. His face lighted 
 up and he seemed more human than when it 
 was in repose. 
 
 "Butch comin' out too, Stan?" asked Annie. 
 "Are you sure they'll let him out?" 
 
 "Sure, he's got his 'stop-work' card. Say, 
 Annie, Butch is still stuck on you he tipped it 
 off to me on the dinner march two or three 
 times." 
 
 Annie's face was glorified. For all her 
 plainness she looked positively happy. She 
 was nervously twisting a bit of ribbon on the 
 front of her gown. 
 
ANNIE'S HUSBAND 157 
 
 "I'm goin' down to see Butch," she said to 
 me. "Want to come?" 
 
 So we made our way to cell 153. There 
 stood "Butch." He was hideous a thin, 
 yellow-skinned misfit of society. The low, 
 slanting brow, heavy jaw and shifting eyes 
 with one drooping lid told me more in a glance 
 than Annie could have told me in a month. 
 
 "So you're Annie's sweetheart?" I ventured. 
 
 "Sure," he leered, staring at me sullenly. 
 
 "Then you're a lucky fellow, and I hope you 
 know that," I told him, stepping aside to let 
 them converse privately. But I couldn't help 
 overhearing. 
 
 "Butch, dear," she said, "you're coming 
 home to-morrow. Will you come out to the 
 place with Stan?" 
 
 "Sure," was the reply. "Sure, I'm comin' 
 out there." 
 
 Annie was seized with a fit of coughing and 
 I stepped forward to help her. 
 
158 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 "Listens like the con," remarked the man be- 
 hind the bars with utter indifference. 
 
 "It's just a bad cough," I declared. "What 
 she needs is a rest and a better home." 
 
 Annie recovered and resumed the conversa- 
 tion. What she said gave me the first insight 
 into her truly desperate plight. 
 
 "Butch," she gasped, "Butch, you must 
 come. The priest says he'll make the call. 
 You know it ain't goin' to be long, Butch." 
 
 "Aw, sure," was the response. "Sure, I'm 
 comin', Kid. I said I would, didn't I?" 
 
 The remainder of the conversation carried 
 on by poor Annie with the utmost frankness 
 and with no evident anxiety on the part of the 
 man, left nothing to be imagined as far as I 
 was concerned. After we had once more 
 visited the brother and were again out in the 
 sunshine, I begged Annie to let me help 
 her. 
 
 "Will he marry you?" I asked. 
 
ANNIE'S HUSBAND 159 
 
 "If he don't Father will kill me," she re- 
 plied. 
 
 "What about Butch won't he be shot, too?" 
 
 "Why, no," she said, in surprise, "they 
 always figure it's the girl, not the man. Pa 
 wouldn't do nothin' to him." 
 
 "Do you love this man?" I persisted. 
 
 "Sure," answered Annie, surprisedly. "I'm 
 goin' to be the mother of his child that's why 
 I want him to be sure and come home. I 
 wouldn't tell nobody but you, only you've been 
 so kind to me. I'm afraid if Butch don't come 
 home soon everybody'll know." 
 
 The next day ended my experience in that 
 particular sweat shop. I was engaged in an- 
 other part of the State running down some 
 clews with the hope of getting trace of little 
 Mary Holden, and some time passed before 
 my return. Annie had promised that if 
 Butch did not keep his promise to her she 
 would let me know. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 MARY HOLDEN! 
 
 A FEW days after I returned to Chicago I 
 heard a step on my porch soon after dusk. 
 Someone rang the bell. When I answered, 
 Annie's sister, Victoria, was standing there. 
 She was breathless. 
 
 " Please be so kind to go see Annie," she 
 pleaded. "Pa chased her out and he says he's 
 goin' to kill her, only he ain't got no gun the 
 saloonkeeper's got it." 
 
 I found Annie at an address in Dearborn 
 Street. She was the mother of a boy baby. 
 The poor child-mother was in desperate 
 straits. Her chest was shrunken and the flesh 
 was drawn tightly over her bones. The girl's 
 eyes were still bright. She smiled at me as I 
 
 entered. 
 
 1 60 
 
MARY HOLDEN! 161 
 
 "Why did you not send for me?" I scolded. 
 "You had my address all the time." 
 
 "I said I would," she began, "but Pa threw 
 me out. He would have shot me, only he 
 loaned the saloonkeeper the gun for drinks. 
 My baby came down by the Salvation Home." 
 
 She pulled back the dirty coverlet on her 
 little bed to let me see the baby's face. The 
 child cried and she patted it tenderly with her 
 thin hand. 
 
 "Where is Butch?" I demanded. "Didn't 
 he marry you?" 
 
 "No," she confessed, her eyes filling with 
 tears. "He didn't come back, but he will 
 some time, 'cause the baby looks just like him 
 and somebody's goin' to tell him." 
 
 "Doesn't he send you any money?" I per- 
 sisted. 
 
 "Not yet." 
 
 "Well, he is going to take care of that baby 
 and you too," I declared. 
 
162 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 She was quick to defend her man. 
 
 "Maybe Butch ain't had no work," she said. 
 
 An hour later I visited the Court of Do- 
 mestic Relations. A warrant was issued for 
 Butch. He was found and brought before 
 the court. He tried to lie out of Annie's 
 charges. 
 
 "You marry her and take care of your child, 
 or I'll send you to the penitentiary for a life 
 term," I whispered. 
 
 He stared at me aghast. He rolled his eyes 
 and his jaw dropped. 
 
 "Why?" he gasped. 
 
 "You know," I snapped. "You know, don't 
 you?" 
 
 It was a random shot but it told. Butch 
 knew why he ought to go to the penitentiary 
 for life even if I did not. My threat had 
 stirred a horrible fear in his shriveled soul. 
 The rascal thought I had found out all about 
 him. He was a quaking picture of terror. 
 
MARY HOLDEN! 163 
 
 "Marry her," I demanded, "now." 
 "Quick," he assented. "Get the priest." 
 So I went to poor little Annie's wedding 
 and saw that she had a few bits of finery to 
 wear. The man she married is a scoundrel 
 of the coarser type, but fear is keeping him 
 straight. 
 
 "Butch," I said after he was married, "if 
 ever I see a bruise on Annie if ever I find out 
 that you are not good to her or the baby if 
 you don't get work and keep it and support 
 your little family, do you know what I am 
 going to do? 
 
 "Well," I said quietly, "it will be fifteen 
 years at least and perhaps " 
 
 I made a suggestive motion with my hand 
 toward my throat. The man shuddered. I 
 don't know all he has done in the past, but I 
 do know what he is doing now. He is taking 
 care of Annie and the baby and he is working 
 steadily. 
 
164 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 One evening after I had left Annie I was 
 walking up South State Street when I noticed 
 a familiar figure just a few paces ahead of me. 
 I stepped into a dark areaway and watched. 
 The figure turned, almost facing me. It was 
 Mary Holden. 
 
 I was just about to rush out and speak to 
 her when I saw her nod to a passing man. 
 The man took her arm and the couple disap- 
 peared into a tumble-down frame building. 
 The door closed behind them, and I heard the 
 lock click. I knocked frantically at the door, 
 but received no response. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 I HUNT A JOB ON THE STAGE 
 
 I RAN to the corner where I found a kind- 
 faced policeman. I told him I was searching 
 for a girl. He promised to help me. I 
 pointed to the building where I had seen Mary 
 enter, and together we walked back to the 
 locked door. It took only a few minutes for 
 the strong shoulders of the officer to break 
 down the door. Together we ascended the 
 stairs. In the rooms I heard a scurrying of 
 feet. At the top of the staircase a florid-faced 
 man approached us. 
 
 "What's the matter?" he asked. 
 
 "We are looking for a girl, and we intend 
 to search the place," retorted the policeman. 
 "We know the girl is here. We just saw her 
 
 come in." 
 
 165 
 
166 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 "There must be some mistake," said the 
 man. He shrugged his shoulders as the stal- 
 wart officer of the law led the way into one of 
 the rooms. For fully an hour we searched, 
 but no sign of Mary. Finally the officer 
 turned to me. 
 
 "See that?" he asserted, as he pointed to a 
 narrow passageway. "That leads to the alley, 
 and through it your friend left this house." 
 
 I walked back to the corner with my kind 
 aide. He promised to have the tumbledown 
 shack watched and to help find pretty Mary 
 Holden. 
 
 "That place is filled with theatrical people," 
 said the policeman just as I bade him good 
 night. "Maybe a theatrical bureau can give 
 you some information that might be valuable. 
 A lot of girls hang around them trying to get 
 on the stage." Then he shook my hand and 
 wished me success. 
 
 I don't think I shall ever forget my adven- 
 
I HUNT A JOB 167 
 
 'ture in the role of a stage-struck girl seeking 
 an engagement. 
 
 It seemed for about two weeks, while the 
 trail was fresh, that nearly every prominent 
 manager in the country wanted to engage me 
 as a leading woman at least that was the im- 
 pression I gathered from the anxiety of the 
 agents I visited to secure my services. 
 
 When I started out on this angle of my 
 investigation I wore a natty short-skirted blue 
 serge suit, a pair of satin pumps and a jaunty 
 turban. I let my hair hang down my back in 
 a queue so as to enhance the impression of 
 extreme youth, and in my hand I carried a 
 silver chain reticule. 
 
 In the first theatrical bureau I visited I met 
 a young man who was seated at a desk talking 
 to a girl who had preceded me. When he saw 
 me he hurried the business through and nodded 
 with an ingratiating smile indicating that I 
 might approach. 
 
i68 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 I told the man I was from Montauk, Illi- 
 nois, and that I wished to go on the stage. He 
 glanced me over from head to foot in an ap- 
 praising sort of fashion, and then grinned. 
 
 "What line?" he inquired, tapping the desk 
 with his pencil. 
 
 "Vaudeville or light opera," I replied. 
 "I'd like a part if I can get it; I don't want to 
 go into the chorus." 
 
 "Any experience?" asked the young man in 
 dulcet tones. 
 
 "Some," I answered. "I can dance well, 
 and I know music too." 
 
 "Well," he reflected, "I have several places 
 open in outside vaudeville houses. Of course, 
 a girl's got to be wise to get along in the busi- 
 ness nowadays." 
 
 "You mean well educated?" I asked. 
 
 "Oh, wised up, you know not too high- 
 toned to get along with her friends," he said. 
 
 "Do you think I can make good?" I coaxed. 
 
I HUNT A JOB 169 
 
 "That" and he favored me with another 
 X-ray inventory "that depends on your 
 ankles, etc., my dear." 
 
 I thought this young man was sufficiently 
 friendly and so decided to go away, leaving my 
 'phone number, because he said he would call 
 me up as soon as he found the job I wanted, 
 which, he said, might be any minute. 
 
 As I left the office he called out to me that 
 I must be ready for a tryout at any time of the 
 day or night, because theatrical managers had 
 to provide for emergencies, and people want- 
 ing good engagements had to be prepared to 
 submit to trifling inconveniences. 
 
 Outside in the hallway I paused to get my 
 breath. In all my life I had never encoun- 
 tered anyone so frankly analytical of my per- 
 sonal endowments and attractions as Mr. 
 Blank had proved. 
 
 While I was standing there I heard the door 
 open between Mr. Blank's room and the next 
 
ii7o MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 office, where a man that writes songs holds 
 forth. The conversation was so loud that I 
 couldn't help hearing it. 
 
 "A peach!" cried Mr. Blank. I knew his 
 voice. 
 
 "Some class!" replied the other man. I 
 never saw him. 
 
 Of course they meant me, but since I had 
 purposely caparisoned myself like a gay lily 
 to get that theatrical job, and was ashamed to 
 go on the street because of my short skirt, the 
 opinions of Blank and company did not turn 
 my head. I crept quietly down the stairway 
 instead of waiting for the elevator. 
 
 Somehow I had no taste for further explora- 
 tion that day. I went home. Mother gave 
 me a head massage and I had partially re- 
 gained my poise by dinner time. We had 
 guests for dinner and they stayed rather late. 
 It was nearly twelve when they left. A few 
 
I HUNT A JOB 171 
 
 minutes after the telephone rang. I answered 
 the bell. Mr. Blank was talking. 
 
 "Hello!" he called. "Is this Miss Mon- 
 tigny?" 
 
 "Yes," I answered as softly as possible. 
 "This is Cecile who is speaking, please?" 
 
 "Say," trilled the other end, "this is Blank, 
 d'you get me?" 
 
 "You're the theatrical gentleman," I whis- 
 pered. 
 
 "Right-0, Kid," he laughed. "Say, I've 
 hooked a swell job for you in stock. It's a 
 road playing rep. I've got to come over and 
 talk it with you." 
 
 "But I live away over on the north side," I 
 cooed. "It's past midnight and I couldn't 
 think of asking you to call at this time of 
 night." 
 
 "Oh, that's all right," he rattled on, "it won't 
 take me many minutes. SVhat's the address?" 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE MIDNIGHT CONVERSATION 
 
 THE nerve of Mr. Blank! 
 
 When he demanded to see me I told him 
 politely that I lived in a boarding house, and 
 that if I asked anyone to my room at this time 
 of night someone would be sure to criticise 
 me. 
 
 "What you want to do is to get a job before 
 you get worried about the critics," he 
 chuckled. "I've got the swellest job in the 
 business waiting on the stocks for you, but 
 we've got to close it to-night." 
 
 What he said about the critics nonplussed 
 me for an instant. Mr. Blank was a logician. 
 
 "The best I can do is to come down in the 
 morning and talk it over with you," I 
 
 pleaded "will not that do?" 
 
 172 
 
MIDNIGHT CONVERSATION 173 
 
 "Oh, well, all right," he snapped, and I 
 heard him hang up the receiver. 
 
 I was fixing my hair for the night when the 
 telephone rang again. I answered it. 
 
 "Hello!" said a thick voice. "This is 
 Blank." 
 
 "Why, Mr. Blank," I interrupted, indig- 
 nantly, "do you know what time it is? It is 
 nearly one o'clock." 
 
 "Time?" he gurgled. "What's time to do 
 with us? Time was made for slaves." 
 
 "White slaves!" I let slip, inadvertently. 
 
 "What?" growled the man. 
 
 "Oh," I said, "I've got to go to bed." 
 
 "Wait a minute," urged Mr. Blank. "Say, 
 Kid, get on your glad rags and come on out 
 make a sneak for it. I'm waiting down on the 
 
 corner." 
 
 "Why there is no place we can talk this 
 time of night," I remonstrated. "Why can't 
 you wait until morning?" 
 
174 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 "I'll tell you when I see you," he insisted. 
 "Come on down make a quick change." 
 
 "Mr. Blank," I laughed. 
 
 "Yes, sweetheart," drooled Mr. Blank. 
 
 "Good night!" 
 
 " " snarled the thick voice as I cut off 
 
 the connection. 
 
 A few minutes later the 'phone began ring- 
 ing again, so I pulled out the plugs of the re- 
 ceiver and put the useful little instrument out 
 of use for that night. Also I slept the sleep of 
 the just. 
 
 Now that is one side of the screen. Any 
 girl with slight experience and some personal 
 attractiveness is certain to be treated just as I 
 was when she tries to get on the theatrical 
 boards through her own personal unaided en- 
 deavor. 
 
 Let us see some of the other angles of this 
 everlasting girl hunt as it is conducted in the 
 
MIDNIGHT CONVERSATION 175 
 
 modern city of Chicago the city wherein 
 "vice has been abolished." 
 
 I decided to go about the employment 
 agencies. You will recall that I told you of 
 one little experience I had with them in a 
 previous chapter. 
 
 Dressing myself in a flashy suit, topped off 
 with a hat that resembled an ostrich farm, also 
 wearing a wig to conceal my own dark hair, 
 I believe I succeeded in losing whatever ex- 
 ternal evidences of respectability I ever pos- 
 sessed. 
 
 First I called up four or five employment 
 agencies, and in each case something like this 
 conversation followed : 
 
 "Hello! This is Miss Montigny." 
 
 Generally there was a man on the other end 
 of the line. 
 
 "Yes what can we do for you?" 
 
 "I am looking for some girls to work in a 
 
176 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 hotel over a saloon. You know what I mean, 
 dearie ?" 
 
 I found the "dearie" invariably effective 
 when talking to a man. 
 
 "Yes, I know, but it's against the law for us 
 to furnish them, and we don't dare do business 
 over the 'phone." 
 
 "Well, never mind," I admonished. "Look 
 'em up, and I'll come down." 
 
 With another agency on the line I had better 
 luck. The man agreed to get the girls and 
 have them ready for me to look over right 
 away, but he would not make a deal as to price 
 over the telephone. 
 
 "Say!" he shouted, as I was about to hang 
 up, "do you want squabs or broads?" 
 
 "Oh, little ones," I giggled. "Don't want 
 any old ladies, you know I ain't running a 
 home for the aged." 
 
 That callous bit of repartee seemed to make 
 me very popular with the man on the 'phone. 
 

 MIDNIGHT CONVERSATION 177 
 
 He promised that he would send me a "bunch" 
 of new ones. 
 
 I boarded a street car and was soon in the 
 office of this accommodating personage. He 
 was a short, thick-set man with shiny, strong 
 teeth. His eyes were long and narrow. He 
 may have been a foreigner, but he spoke good 
 English. His hair was jet black and he wore 
 diamonds on two fingers. 
 
 "I'm Miss Montigriy," I told him. 
 
 "You called about some furniture?" he in- 
 quired. 
 
 "Yes," I said. "What luck have you had ?" 
 
 "Well," he croaked, "we've got plenty of 
 second hand stuff all the time, but when you 
 want it right out of the factory, it's not so easy 
 all the time. What kind of a place did you 
 say it was?" 
 
 "Hotel and saloon," I smiled. "There'll be 
 a bit in it for you." 
 
 "There are three or four squabs 'down near 
 
,178 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 where I stay now," he put in. "They're look- 
 ing for a chance, I know. Of course, I can't 
 go to 'em direct, but I'll find out about 'em be- 
 fore night. What do I get?" 
 
 I named a sum that I thought would attract 
 him. It did. His eyes became narrower and 
 longer than ever, and his lips moved as if he 
 were eating candy. He was sensing the 
 money. 
 
 Within four hours I was promised eight 
 young girls to come to that visionary saloon 
 and hotel of mine, avowedly for evil purposes. 
 Out of the fifteen agencies I talked to only 
 three appeared to have no system of providing 
 for the emergency they thought I wanted 
 filled. 
 
 And yet there is supposed to be a rigid 
 supervision of such places. What sort of in- 
 spection do you suppose can be in effect when 
 a system such as I describe is permitted to 
 exist? 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 GRAY WOLF AND LOVE PIRATE 
 
 BEWARE of the Gray Wolf. 
 
 Gray Wolf is a wary creature that prowls at 
 night, but is not above locating his prey in 
 ithe daytime. It is the most dangerous denizen 
 of the undergrowth that bewilders little girls 
 adrift. 
 
 Gray Wolf often is a very respectable-look- 
 ing prowler. He looks as though it might be 
 safe to ask him the way home, but to repose 
 much confidence in him often is a fatal error, 
 for the Gray Wolf is a predatory animal, keen 
 of scent, resourceful. 
 
 Sometimes you may have seen gray wolves 
 with only a little gray above their ears the 
 rest of them sleek and shiny, black or brown. 
 But do not be deceived! Always look for the 
 
 179 
 
i8o MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 gray patches above the ears. It is a sign to 
 betray and warn. 
 
 Also beware of the Love Pirate. She is a 
 dangerous character. She often is brilliantly 
 plumaged, furred and feathered. Again, she 
 may be demurely but expensively garmented. 
 She preys upon Gray Wolf and roams through 
 the tangled undergrowths with him when 
 Gray Wolf hasn't any more interesting quarry 
 in sight. 
 
 Also Love Pirate is the worst enemy of the 
 wife and home. "Dolled up," she haunts 
 downtown in the very thick of things, where 
 men live their lives. 
 
 The wife in the home is last seen by her de- 
 parting spouse in a sort of wrapper or morn- 
 ing gown. When he compares her appear- 
 ance as he last saw her with that of the radiant, 
 smartly shirt-waisted girl who wears carefully 
 dressed hair, it is likely to be to the wife's 
 disadvantage. 
 
WOLF AND LOVE PIRATE 181 
 
 Love Pirate knows her advantage an'd uses 
 it. She is on the alert to attract men who can 
 further her own purposes. She is unscrupu- 
 lous. And she gets her training in evil from 
 Gray Wolf. 
 
 Any large city is filled with gray wolves. 
 Some of them are merely blase habitues of the 
 underworld others are foolish family men in 
 search of adventure. 
 
 There are not so many love pirates as gray 
 wolves. That is why the gray wolves are 
 always hunting. The favorite prey of Gray 
 Wolf is the unsophisticated young girl who is 
 just entering an industrial career and is having 
 a hard time to make both ends meet. The 
 cafes are favorite hunting grounds of Gray 
 Wolf after nightfall, but in the daytime he is 
 at home among the tall office buildings of the 
 business district. 
 
 It was to find out the methods of Gray Wolf 
 that I obtained a position as an office girl with 
 
i8z MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 a downtown concern in the brokerage line. 
 My duties were not heavy, but "tact" was re- 
 quired in handling the business. It was often 
 necessary to lie deliberately over the telephone 
 in order to conserve the interests of this con- 
 cern. 
 
 The office girl who cannot or will not lie 
 glibly when she is told to do so is not popular. 
 Generally she accepts the situation, weakens 
 her position by creating a sort of secret bond 
 between herself and her employer, and thus 
 finds herself exposed to other indignities. 
 
 In the office that employed me were two 
 other girls. One, Mercedes, was an attractive 
 blonde who wore handsome clothes. The 
 other does not figure in this story. I happen 
 to know that Mercedes had her clothes made 
 by a modiste whose lowest price is $80 for a 
 suit. Also, Mercedes lives in a flat out South 
 that costs $70 a month and is elaborately fur- 
 nished. Mercedes' salary is $15 a week. She 
 
WOLF AND LOVE PIRATE 183 
 
 never earned that much by any office activities 
 that I was able to observe. 
 
 Mercedes' hats are creations. They are the 
 sweetly simple confections that cost out of all 
 proportion for the materials in them. 
 
 Mercedes' shoes are the $12 a pair sort. 
 Mercedes is popular with the head of the firm. 
 He has gray patches over his ears and is him- 
 self an exquisite in matters sartorial. 
 
 After I had been in the place a week Mer- 
 cedes whispered to me that the second partner 
 of the firm, Mr. Hunter, had "fallen for my 
 kid getup." 
 
 "Believe me," said Mercedes, "there's noth- 
 ing gets these old goats like the baby face stuff 
 and the hair in a braid. Hunter asked me to 
 frame it for a luncheon 'prelim.' " 
 
 "Why, what would he want me to go to 
 luncheon for?" I objected. "He doesn't 
 know me at all." 
 
 "That's just the idea, you little rube," said 
 
1 84 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 Mercedes, patting her blonde curls as she 
 glanced in the mirror. "He wants to know 
 you." 
 
 "Well, I'm not going to luncheon with a 
 man I don't know at all, except that I am 
 working for him," I persisted. 
 
 "Say!" interposed Mercedes, lowering her 
 voice a little, "you won't go far in the working 
 game downtown unless you know how to 
 amuse the big ones that give out good jobs. 
 Hunter's married up to the ears and he don't 
 get along with his wife. Of course, they got 
 a swell place and all that, but he stays down 
 at the club a great deal. When he wants to 
 take you to lunch, you're in luck, believe me, 
 Kid." 
 
 Just then Mr. Hunter came through from 
 an inner office with some papers in his hand. 
 
 "Miss Mercedes," he said, "will you please 
 type these reports and turn them over to Mr. 
 Carson?" 
 
WOLF AND LOVE PIRATE 185 
 
 I am afraid my face was suffused with 
 blushes as I realized this was the man who 
 wanted to take me to luncheon when I had 
 never exchanged a word with him. Mr. 
 Hunter paused by my desk and remarked that 
 it was a "glorious day." I realized that he 
 had an attractive voice. 
 
 I had no further opportunity to speak to 
 Mercedes until that afternoon, when she told 
 me that the date for the luncheon had been all 
 fixed up and followed the announcement with 
 some sage advice. 
 
 "Take my tip," said Mercedes ; "Hunter'll 
 treat you white. You've got the makeup to 
 be a real swell kid if you have the right 
 clothes, and if you're friends with men like 
 Hunter they expect to see that you've always 
 got plenty of glad rags. The chances of peo- 
 ple getting wise aren't very strong because 
 men like this push have to be careful. They 
 can't afford to get any bum publicity, see?" 
 
[i 86 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 "Do you mean that he will buy clothes for 
 me?" I asked. 
 
 "Buy clothes?" repeated Mercedes, mock- 
 ing my accent. "Why, you're singing it right. 
 He will buy clothes and maybe a ring or two 
 and a lot more. And another thing, you're 
 pretty safe with such men, because they aren't 
 the kind that want to go tearing round the 
 boulevards joy riding or any stunts like that. 
 What they want is a quiet time with a girl that 
 knows when she is well off and don't tell all 
 she knows." 
 
 "What does this man expect of me in return 
 for such generous treatment?" I demanded. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 IN MERCEDES' APARTMENT 
 
 MERCEDES laughed. 
 
 "God's sake!" she said. "You're a comic 
 little fish. Why, what d'you suppose a man 
 wants for his generous treatment? He wants 
 you to be nice to him and call him 'Mister' in 
 the ofEce and 'Charlie' when you're outside, 
 and to look swell and have a good time." 
 
 "Is he getting a divorce from his wife?" I 
 inquired. 
 
 "Divorce!" cried Mercedes, "I should say 
 he ain't. Why, don't you know the Hunters? 
 Say, he's got one of the swellest homes in High- 
 bridge. He and his wife are a most devoted 
 couple got four children and seven or eight 
 servants." 
 
 187 
 
1 88 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 "Well," I remarked reflectively, "I don't 
 see how he could be seen in restaurants and 
 places like that with a single girl and not get 
 into trouble." 
 
 "You leave that to him. These old guys 
 are wise, believe me," pursued my friend, the 
 Love Pirate. "Now, I've been going with 
 old Goldfish for pretty nearly four years and 
 there hasn't ever been a whisper. We had 
 one old she crab in the office that got kind of 
 wise. That was over a year ago. She never 
 said a thing, but one day she sniffed when I 
 had on a new gown from Paris, and I told 
 Goldfish about it. She didn't last long enough 
 to whisper farewell." 
 
 By degrees Mercedes informed me of the 
 conditions that exist in some downtown offices, 
 of the relations between the girl and the em- 
 ployer that cause so many divorce suits in the 
 course of a year in Chicago. 
 
 "Say!" she advised, "one of the first things 
 
IN MERCEDES' APARTMENT 189 
 
 you want to do is to get a 'steady' that will take 
 you 'round in public theaters and places like 
 that, don't you see? You've got to have a fel- 
 low like that for a stall. Get one that's on the 
 marry. It's safest to have somebody for steady 
 company all the time. You can never tell 
 what might happen. If there's any blowup 
 all you've got to do is to show that you've been 
 keeping steady company right along, and the 
 other stuff is just malicious gossip, see?" 
 
 Then came my personal experience with 
 Hunter. He was exceedingly courteous to me 
 in the office quite in the employerly way. 
 All it amounted to was a display of considera- 
 tion for my inexperience of the business and a 
 kindly courtesy that would have excited my 
 gratitude and admiration if it had not been 
 for Mercedes' confidences. 
 
 It wasn't a luncheon I attended, but an 
 elaborate dinner. I pretended I had no even- 
 ing clothes of my own and Mercedes fixed me 
 
I 9 o MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 in a pale blue gown that I flatter myself suited 
 me very well. It was a little too wide in the 
 shoulders, but otherwise I might have owned 
 the gown. 
 
 The meal was served in Mercedes' apart- 
 ment. A middle-aged woman was introduced 
 to me as Mercedes' "Aunt Pet." This woman 
 looked the part and acted it very well. Mer- 
 cedes admitted to me that she was no relation 
 at all, but was hired at $50 a month to sustain 
 the reputation of the house. 
 
 "Aunt Pet" did not attend the dinner. She 
 superintended all the service, but did not sit 
 at the table. That was laid for four in elabo- 
 rate fashion with rare flowers and some of the 
 prettiest favors I ever saw. There were cock- 
 tails as a preliminary to the dinner of five 
 courses, and wine was served with each course, 
 champagne being the last on the list and the 
 most persistent. I refused to drink the wines 
 at all, and this seemed to hurt my enter- 
 
IN MERCEDES' APARTMENT 191 
 
 tainers keenly. Mercedes was especially cha- 
 grined. 
 
 At last I drank a small glass of champagne, 
 but I saw it poured from a newly opened bottle 
 and steadfastly declined to repeat the dose. 
 
 Mercedes drank a good deal of wine; she 
 became very loquacious. She put her arms 
 around Goldfish's neck at the table and he re- 
 proved her for it. 
 
 "There's a time and place for everything," 
 said Goldfish sagely. He appeared to be 
 really annoyed. 
 
 Throughout the meal Mr. Hunter displayed 
 toward me a deferential courtesy that really 
 was fascinating. He is skillect in the polite 
 arts and subtilely ingratiating. 
 
 Perhaps my poor showing as a conversa- 
 tionalist at the dinner table caused this gentle- 
 man to believe that I wished him to lead up to 
 the subject of our future relation as Mercedes 
 Had sketched it. At all events he did so. 
 
J92 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 Mercedes and Goldfish were tete-a-tete in 
 the front part of the flat. He was somewhat 
 exhilarated by the wine. He talked loudly. 
 Mr. Hunter had taken me into the "den" to 
 show me a lot of portraits Mercedes had had 
 taken in bathing costume at a summer resort. 
 Some of them were very daring. 
 
 While we were alone in the room Mr. 
 Hunter made no ungentlemanly advances. 
 Once he partly put his arm round me as he 
 escorted me through the portieres, but it was 
 such a venture as any well bred man may make 
 without offense. 
 
 I began to believe that Mercedes had lied. 
 Of course it was very irregular my being 
 there as the guest of a married man but after 
 all, if he were unhappy with his wife he might 
 seek mere harmless entertainment without 
 being altogether a villain. 
 
 Actually I had begun to make excuses. for 
 Gray Wolf. I became convinced that Mer- 
 
IN MERCEDES' APARTMENT 193 
 
 cedes had misunderstood this man. Once we 
 were looking at the pictures his face was very 
 close to mine. I wondered if he would seize 
 the opportunity to kiss me, but he did not. 
 
 I heard Mercedes dancing in the other room 
 and Goldfish was clapping his hands. One of 
 those automatic music things was playing the 
 Tango. 
 
 "Mercy's lots of fun, isn't she?" suggested 
 Mr. Hunter. 
 
 "Very lively," I agreed. 
 
 "Do you like her?" pursued my companion. 
 
 "Quite well," I lied. 
 
 There was a pause. 
 
 "Clare," began Mr. Hunter. 
 
 I started. It was the first time he had ven- 
 tured upon my supposed first name. 
 
 "How would you like to live here with 
 Mercedes and be my little friend?" went on 
 the Gray Wolf. "You would be very com- 
 fortable, I think." 
 
i 9 4 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 "I can't live in a place like this on six dol- 
 lars a week," I said. "It is all I can do to 
 pay my board where I am." 
 
 "Well, there'll never be any quarrels be- 
 tween us about what money you need, if you 
 want to come," he pursued. 
 
 Hunter was sitting on the edge of a low 
 divan. His elbows were on his knees and his 
 chin in his hands. His eyes were fixed on 
 mine and I shuddered. The man was posi- 
 tively purring like a cat. I never experienced 
 so strange a sensation as that caused by his 
 steady gaze. 
 
 With an effort I got up and staggered to- 
 ward the door. It was a real stagger. I was 
 ill from excitement and fear of discovery. 
 
 "Mr. Hunter," I pleaded, "please give me 
 time to think this over. I must go home now 
 -I must. I'm ill." 
 
 "Good Lord!" gasped Gray Wolf, "what a; 
 brute I am! Mercedes. Come, Mercedes!" 
 
IN MERCEDES' APARTMENT 195 
 
 Mercedes came running and I told her I 
 must go home that I was subject to fits and 
 that I felt one coming on. It was a false move, 
 because the men insisted on having Mercedes 
 go with me in the taxi, but by the time we 
 reached the Congress Hotel I was able to per- 
 suade her that I could reach my place better 
 on the street car. I told her I "was afraid to 
 talk." 
 
 Mercedes went home in the taxi. I went 
 home in the street car to Mother. Glad, in- 
 deed, I was to get there, but after all I would 
 not have missed that experience. It told me 
 many volumes in a chapter. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 CARMEN OF THE TORPEDO CAFE 
 
 THE Torpedo Cafe is a gay place. I was told 
 about Carmen of the Torpedo Cafe. She was 
 described as one of the most beautiful girls 
 ever seen in a cafe big, black Spanish eyes, 
 masses of raven hair and a slight sinuous form 
 that lent itself naturally to the queer fandangos 
 and so-called Spanish dances with which 
 Carmen, in her liveliest moods, is wont to re- 
 gale the guests of the Torpedo. 
 
 So I sought out Carmen and made her be- 
 lieve I had Spanish blood in my veins. That 
 was easy enough, since Carmen cannot speak 
 a word of her supposed native tongue and is 
 really at home "back of the stock yards." 
 
 Carmen is frankly a thief. She "dopes" 
 
 the drinks of her victims trapped in the Tor- 
 
 196 
 
CARMEN OF THE CAFfi 197 
 
 pedo and then robs them. Her profits from 
 this nefarious trade average, when business is 
 good, about $25 a night. She is protected in 
 her work by a score of thugs and pluguglies 
 disguised as waiters, whose business it is to 
 "play up" to the women who infest the place. 
 
 I had been trying to induce Carmen to take 
 an interest in some other occupation than this 
 when she turned the tables and insisted that 
 the Torpedo was no place for me. She said 
 if I went into the place I surely would en- 
 counter trouble. After her warning it was 
 with real trepidation that I entered the cafe, 
 even though professionally chaperoned. 
 
 The roof of the place is decorated with 
 many lights and there are paintings in the nude 
 on most of the available wall space. A crowd 
 of white-coated waiters flit among a score or 
 more tables at which were seated a great many 
 women whose status in life was not to be 
 doubted. 
 
198 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 At a piano near our table sat an effeminate 
 young man who tossed off a glass of some 
 liquid and then struck up a wriggly ragtime 
 tune that set the customers jingling their 
 glasses and tapping with their feet, the pianist 
 meantime humping his shoulders and twisting 
 and contorting his body a la Paderewski. 
 
 "Say, Kid," whispered Carmen, "think of 
 me working for eight a week in some depart- 
 ment store when I can cop twenty or thirty a 
 night at this game." 
 
 "Nobody seems to be making anything now 
 except a noise," I suggested. 
 
 "They're layin' pipe," smiled Carmen. 
 "Watch 'em get busy after a while." 
 
 A pale sleepy-looking young man came and 
 sat down at our table. He nodded to Car- 
 men, but did not appear to be regarded by her 
 with particular interest. Carmen presented 
 him to me as "Izzy the Coke." She explained 
 that girls had to have escorts, and that Izzy 
 
CARMEN OF THE CAFfi 199 
 
 was one of an army of "professional escorts," 
 that worked in the place. She said they were 
 hired by the management to sit with girls until 
 "live ones" showed up. 
 
 Men were beginning to come into the place 
 alone. How they found their way was a mys- 
 tery to me until Carmen told me they had been 
 "steered." As soon as a customer entered he 
 was invited to sit at one or another of the 
 tables, and the preliminaries of the game be- 
 gan. The waiters gave the "buyers" no rest. 
 It was round after round of drinks and the 
 "live ones" paid for everything. 
 
 Every few minutes one of the women would 
 go out with a man, and after an hour or so I 
 saw the same woman drifting back alone. 
 Some of the girls were very young. 
 
 Two young men came and sat down at our 
 table. Carmen told me I must "play up." 
 
 "Just keep one of them interested while I fix 
 the other one," ordered Delilah. "It's the 
 
200 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 fellow with the long hair that' s got the roll," 
 
 The young fellow I was talking to told me it 
 was his first visit to Chicago. He had heard 
 a good deal about it being a "gay town," but 
 he thought the Torpedo was the best place he 
 had struck. I made up my mind to get that 
 boy out of the den if I could. 
 
 "You may take me home," I said to the 
 young man. 
 
 "Thanks," he grinned. Then to his friend: 
 "I'll meet you down at the hotel, Hi. I'm 
 going to take this young lady home." 
 
 "Ain't so slow yourself," laughed Carmen, 
 meaningly. 
 
 That young fellow led me to my own door. 
 I invited him in and my mother talked to him 
 until nearly two o'clock in the morning. I 
 wonder if he will ever go to the Torpedo 
 again. He really was a very decent boy. 
 
 At two-fifteen the telephone rang. It was 
 Carmen on the line. 
 
CARMEN OF THE CAFfi 20 ii 
 
 "Say!" she giggled, "I rolled that boob for 
 forty." 
 
 Now, if I were straining for dramatic 
 effects, that would be the end of this chapter, 
 but it isn't. The next day my young friend of 
 the Torpedo Cafe called me up and said that 
 his fellow townsman lay critically ill in a hos- 
 pital, apparently suffering from some drug. 
 
 I at once sought out Carmen. It was in the 
 early afternoon when I found her. When 
 taxed with having 'drugged the man, she 
 denied it, and insisted that he had left her 
 company for that of two men known to the 
 underworld as capable of any crime. Carmen 
 told me she had taken the money from her vic- 
 tim while he was in an alcoholic sleep, but 
 that soon afterwards he awoke, demanding 
 more drink, and went in search of it without 
 discovering his loss. 
 
 "He'd have been frisked before he got a 
 block, anyhow," she insisted. c Why shouldn't , 
 
202 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 I have the money as well as some jackroller?" 
 At all events, the man died two days after- 
 ward of "pneumonia," according to the death 
 certificate. Perhaps that is what he died of, 
 but I don't believe it. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 IKE BLOSSOM 
 
 I HAD heard a great deal about Ike Blossom, 
 captain of a pirate ship in the "district" known 
 as "Freiheit's." This had always been de- 
 clared one of the most notorious resorts in Chi- 
 cago, and only recently has been closed up. 
 fThe final locking of the doors came after a 
 shooting affray in which one man was killed. 
 However, my visit there was some time before 
 this. 
 
 One night with a detective friend of mine I 
 paid a visit to Freiheit's dance hall and cafe. 
 The detective was of my own sex. She was 
 attired like a lily of the -field. I flatter myself 
 that the plum-colored broadcloth with fake 
 ermine facings that I wore on this expedition 
 did much to secure the entree. 
 
 203 
 
204 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 The detective believed that at Freiheit's we 
 might get a clew which would lead to the dis- 
 covery of Mary Holden. 
 
 We secured the services of two men friends 
 to escort us. When we entered the hall with 
 its gleaming lights and artistic decorations I 
 was surprised that so attractive a place could 
 have achieved so evil a reputation. 
 
 The tables for the serving of refreshment 
 formed a circle 'rou^d the room. There was 
 nothing about this place to suggest evil. Per- 
 haps well meaning people had exaggerated the 
 menace of Freiheit's. As far as I was able to 
 determine the men and women in the place 
 seemed respectable. This was a first impres- 
 sion. 
 
 I have attended some of the swaggerest 
 dancing affairs ever held in Chicago, and I 
 must confess that in all my life I have never 
 seen more really beautiful girls and women on 
 
IKE BLOSSOM 205 
 
 a ballroom floor than were congregated at 
 Freiheit's that night. 
 
 It was true, also, that while some of them 
 were extravagantly gowned, the majority were 
 dressed elegantly and in good taste. Many of 
 the men were in evening dress. The spectacle 
 was one worth going to see simply for its 
 beauty. 
 
 The woman detective pinched my arm and 
 pointed to a big man in a gray suit and soft 
 hat, who stood at one end of the hall, survey- 
 ing the spectacle. 
 
 "That's Ike," she said, "looking over his 
 flock." 
 
 The man seemed to be appraising every- 
 thing the size of the crowd, the activity of 
 the waiters, the proportion of women to men 
 the chances of trade. He had an embracing 
 eye. 
 
 We chose a table on the opposite side of the 
 
2o6 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 hall from that at which we had entered, being 
 thus enabled to observe others who arrived 
 and to visualize the constantly augmented 
 throng. 
 
 We were barely seated before a waiter stood 
 at our table ready to serve us drinks. The 
 detective told me we must order something or 
 they would be wanting us to move on. She 
 ordered beer for two. 
 
 Just then the pianist struck up a catchy 
 syncopated air and a pretty girl, one of the en- 
 tertainers, danced out from between a row 
 of palms, singing a popular song. She danced 
 one of those pseudo-oriental things that call 
 for all sorts of wriggling and contortion of the 
 body. It was graceful in a certain way, but 
 undeniably sensuous. The words of the song 
 were as suggestive as the dance. 
 
 Later, an orchestra in the balcony above 
 struck up a lively twostep and fifty or more 
 couples got up from the tables and began 
 
IKE BLOSSOM 207 
 
 dancing. There was hardly an unskilled 
 dancer among them. Nearly all the steps 
 executed were intricate and most of them 
 graceful, but it was scarcely a ballroom ex- 
 hibition. 
 
 There was something stagey about the danc- 
 ing at this period of the evening's entertain- 
 ment, and later on I found out why. Most 
 of the men and women in these preliminary 
 numbers were paid professionals. 
 
 Soon the place filled with real patrons 
 those who pay to dance and pay for the drinks 
 they get, and really support places like Frei- 
 heit's. 
 
 There were old men with young girls, and 
 old girls with young men. There were 
 women lacquered like Japanese pottery, their 
 real features completely hidden by paint and 
 powder. 
 
 There were girls not over fifteen years old 
 with men old enough to be their grandfathers. 
 
208 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 In most instances the girls were said to be 
 habitues of the place. 
 
 At least twenty of the young girls on the 
 floor were, physically speaking, perfect speci- 
 mens of American girlhood. I pointed them 
 out to the woman detective. 
 
 "They are the aristocracy of the profession," 
 she said. 
 
 These young women are in the heyday of 
 their careers in the levee. They will look 
 fresh and beautiful as they do now for perhaps 
 six or eight months. After the first winter 
 one can begin to pick out the lines round their 
 faces and little perpendicular marks at the 
 corners of their mouths. That is the begin- 
 ning. About the second or third year they 
 become coarsened to an astounding degree- 
 physically as well as mentally. Loose living 
 and mental degradation show in their faces 
 first. The lines of the face change. The 
 features become exaggerated. 
 
IKE BLOSSOM 209 
 
 "A young woman," said my friend, "who is 
 inclined to heaviness will become gross and 
 gelatinous within a few years. In five years 
 she is hideous." 
 
 The strange part of it all, I discovered, even 
 the oldest of the faded women one encounters 
 in places like Freiheit's still believes that she 
 retains some degree of her original attractive- 
 ness her ability to beguile men. 
 
 A survey of Freiheit's soon convinced me 
 why they called Ike Blossom the "King of the 
 Levee." In the parlance of the underworld 
 he had "Queens" galore swarming about his 
 palace of iniquity. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 MAZELLE 
 
 ONE of the most attractive girls in Ike Blos- 
 som's dance hall was referred to as Mazelle. 
 If there is a more strikingly beautiful girl in 
 Chicago I cannot imagine where she can be. 
 This brilliant brunette has all the delicate 
 shadings of coloring and expression that go to 
 make real beauty. Her lithe young figure is 
 the epitome of grace and her every gesture is 
 indicative of gentle breeding. 
 
 Now how in the world did Mazelle become 
 a denizen of the half-world? I determined to 
 ask her. This was more easily planned than 
 accomplished, because of Mazelle's tremen- 
 dous popularity. Men watched every move, 
 anxious to engage her attention if oppor- 
 tunity presented. 
 
 210 
 
MAZELLE 211 
 
 At last I managed to be presented. My 
 woman detective friend did it. She knew 
 Mazelle and had tried to get her out of the 
 district. 
 
 "Breaking into the fold?" inquired the dark- 
 eyed Delilah, after I had been introduced. 
 
 "Just looking on," I said. 
 
 "It's a dangerous diversion," she retorted. 
 "All of us are onlookers at first. I was too." 
 She lighted a cigarette. 
 
 "Tell me about it," I begged. 
 
 "What magazine?" she laughed. 
 
 "None," I assured her "I am just an every- 
 day person who is looking for a missing 
 girl." 
 
 "Good gracious !" she said. "Don't tell me 
 you're Lucy Page Gaston?" She puffed 
 slowly at the cigarette. 
 
 The exclamation was accompanied with a 
 comical gesture of apprehension that made me 
 laugh in spite of myself. Miss Gaston, you 
 
212 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 know, is the woman who is warring on ciga- 
 rettes. Mazelle is an artiste. 
 
 "My idea is that a girl as brilliant as you 
 are ought to find field for her talents superior 
 to this," I ventured. 
 
 "Dear me," she laughed, "that's rather hard 
 on my philanthropic friend Blossom, isn't it?" 
 
 "Is he a philanthropist any of the time?" I 
 queried. 
 
 "Ikey?" she shrugged. "Why, poor, dear 
 Ike is the most maligned man in this sinful 
 town. He's positively reeking with the spirit 
 of philanthropy." 
 
 Just at that moment gray-clad Blossom 
 passed down the room. Mazelle caught his 
 eye and he bowed. She signaled him, laugh- 
 ing merrily at the joke of it all. 
 
 "Ikey, dear," she babbled, "tell me honestly 
 and truly, now aren't you a philanthropist?" 
 
 "Got your kiddin' clothes on again, Maze?" 
 grinned the man in gray. "Why, I'd be as 
 
MAZELLE 213 
 
 big a hit in a council of philanthropists as 
 you'd be in a mothers' meeting. It's an even 
 break." 
 
 The large Mr. Blossom passed down the 
 hall. His shoulders were shaking with 
 laughter. 
 
 An instant later Mazelle was sailing down 
 the polished floor with a man who claimed her 
 for a dance. They told me the man was crazy 
 to marry her, and she wouldn't have him be- 
 cause he made his money in whiskey. 
 
 Do you recall what I wrote about the con- 
 tradictions of character to be found in the 
 underworld? Well, consider Mazelle. She 
 was ruined by her first drink of whiskey. She 
 has never taken a drink of alcoholic liquor 
 since she awoke to realization of her shame. 
 She is a rara avis among the demimonde. 
 
 "For my sins," said Mazelle, the last time I 
 saw her, "I shall probably live a long time. 
 At all events there is one man I want to kill, 
 
2i4 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 and some day I expect to meet him. That day 
 I want to be very sober." 
 
 And talking about contradictions of char- 
 acter, Mazelle is the bond slave of a heavy- 
 fisted rascal of a waiter named Monohan. If 
 she doesn't gather much money he beats her. 
 
 Couples were constantly leaving the place 
 by a certain exit. I asked where they were 
 going. 
 
 "They go to the hotels hereabouts," said my 
 friend "that is part of the play. If these 
 young girls could be kept in the hall until 
 closing time and then sent home it wouldn't 
 be so bad, but the dives called 'hotels' are just 
 traps for them. It is the stronghold of the 
 system." 
 
 Young girls were staggering about with 
 flushed faces and bright eyes. They laughed 
 unnaturally and danced with disgraceful 
 abandon. 
 
 My guide remarked that if I wanted to get 
 
MAZELLE 215 
 
 a real light on the sort of talk carried on among 
 young girls I would better step into the wash- 
 room for a moment. I did. 
 
 Never had I imagined that girls under what- 
 ever provocation could frame such awful 
 phrases as fell casually from the lips of these 
 children. 
 
 As I was wiping my hands on a towel 
 handed me with ceremony by a colored woman 
 attendant a very young girl lurched toward me 
 and poked a little sack of tobacco with a pack- 
 age of cigarette papers into my hand. 
 
 "Roll me one," she hiccoughed; "I'm all to 
 the blowsy." 
 
 I can't roll a cigarette, but I thought I could. 
 After I had tried twice, intent on evading the 
 exposure of my amateur standing in the place, 
 little fifteen-year-old Tosca snatched the 
 "makin's" away. 
 
 "You're a of a rounder," she sneered. 
 
 "Why, I can roll better'n that with my toes." 
 
2i6 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 And I guess she could. At any rate I didn't 
 dispute her. 
 
 Five minutes later we were out of the place. 
 I had seen enough. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 "THE CAVE" 
 
 I UNDERTOOK to look into certain saloons with 
 hotel attachments. The first place I entered 
 was one of those that make a pretense of in- 
 sisting that escorts must accompany the girls 
 who enter and they supply the escorts. I 
 was joined by a man who asked me how busi- 
 ness was. My reply was that it w r as "pretty 
 tough sledding." 
 
 "Well," he said, "if you are broke, Tom will 
 stake you. Of course we want you to stick 
 around and get the kale when it's here, but 
 Tom won't see you want for nothing." 
 
 Just then a little girl about sixteen entered 
 the rear door. She ought to have been in 
 short skirts as far as her age was concerned, 
 but she proved to be a habitue of the place. 
 
 217 
 
2i8 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 "Come over here and meet Mabel," said my 
 supposed escort to the new girl. Mabel was 
 the name I had given him. I forget what my 
 last name is supposed to have been. 
 
 Tora came over and ordered the inevitable 
 drinks. 
 
 "Of course," she said, "this ain't no angel 
 food bakery, but there's worse." 
 
 "Do they really give you money?" I asked. 
 
 "Oh, they'll hand you a few bones if you're 
 down to your stocking feet," she laughed, 
 "but they hold onto you when it comes to set- 
 tling. I never have a cent I can call my own. 
 They get it all away, one way or another." 
 
 "How old are you?" I asked. 
 
 "Fifteen past," she giggled. "Say, I'm 
 some mover for my age. Tom says there ain't 
 a wiser girl on the street than what I am." 
 
 "Is Tom the proprietor of the place?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "Naw; he's working for another guy that's 
 
"THE CAVE" 219 
 
 workin' for somebody else that's leasing from 
 somebody else. I guess the brewery furnishes 
 the money." 
 
 Just then a group of young men entered the 
 place, and one of them signaled to my com- 
 panion. She rose and joined the party at the 
 other table. There was some little conversa- 
 tion, and then Tora, as they called her, came 
 back to urge me to join the party. 
 
 I refused on the plea that I was feeling 
 "bad," and couldn't drink. On that plea I 
 got out of the place and entered another of 
 similar stripe farther down the street. 
 
 In this place there is a dark rear room. In 
 one corner of it I saw a girl sitting alone. She 
 was leaning over a table, her head in her arms. 
 There were no waiters present, so I walked up 
 to her and touched her hand. 
 
 When she looked up I was shocked. It was 
 Alice, the pretty little girl who had come down 
 to show me her gay clothes that Christmas 
 
220 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 Eve in the department store just before closing 
 time. She recognized me and burst into 
 tears. 
 
 "You down on the row too?" she wept. 
 "Ain't this a h of a life?" 
 
 Her shoulders heaved and she sobbed piti- 
 fully. 
 
 "How'd you know I was here?" she de- 
 manded. 
 
 "I didn't know. God guided me," I told 
 her. 
 
 "Then I wish He'd got busy sooner," she 
 gasped between sobs; "it's too late to get me 
 out now." 
 
 I explained to her that I knew a place where 
 she would be given a home and taken care of 
 until I could find her work, and she seemed to 
 be thinking it over. 
 
 "Say, do you want to do me a favor?" she 
 asked, suddenly. And when I assured her I 
 did, she blurted out: "Then for God's sake 
 
"THE CAVE" 221 
 
 get me a good sure-shot dose of poison that's 
 what I want. And, first of all, get me a big 
 slug of whiskey. I'm dyin' on my feet." 
 
 The hardest job I have had in a good many 
 months was to get Alice to go with me. She 
 told me that nearly every rascal of the under- 
 world knew her by sight and would get her 
 thrown out of any position she might enter. 
 
 "Well, let them try it," I answered. "I 
 don't believe they will dare." 
 
 "Another thing, I owe some of these guys 
 as much as $20 and $25 apiece in money bor- 
 rowed," she went on. "They'll always slip 
 you money when you're drinking, so you 
 always owe 'em something. I don't remember 
 getting any of the money, but they say I owe 
 it." 
 
 Well, Alice is working in the kitchen of a 
 private sanitarium. She has been there sev- 
 eral months and is apparently quite content. 
 I visited her just a short while ago, and her 
 
222 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 one desire is to keep safely beyond the ken of 
 "Watchful Johnny." 
 
 A few nights ago I paid a visit to The Cave. 
 That is the last resort of the unfortunate 
 woman. In the vernacular they refer to the 
 place as "Coffee and Rolls." That is all any 
 woman gets who works there. 
 
 Madeline was sitting at one of the tables. 
 We have tried to induce her to reform, but she 
 is beyond saving, I fear. Morphine, cocaine 
 and whiskey have destroyed her will. 
 
 A very old man who looked as though he 
 might have seen better days staggered across 
 the floor. The Cave is surrounded with boxes, 
 in which couples may sit. This is against the 
 law, I think. 
 
 "There's an old down and outer," said 
 Madeline. "He used to be down at the old 
 California, in Custom House Place, years ago. 
 Too* much whiskey. He still hangs on because 
 somebody's always ready to buy him a drink." 
 
"THE CAVE" 223 
 
 The old man raised his head. "I Would 
 Not Live Always," he sang. His voice shook. 
 I turned away. I could not bear the sight. 
 
 "It's the old story," Madeline continued, 
 "but the strange part is when you've got health 
 and strength you never figure that what gets 
 all others is going to get you too. You 
 couldn't warn anybody off by telling them to 
 look at Old Whiskers there," she soliloquized. 
 
 The old man finished his song. I was too 
 much moved to applaud. A duet was started 
 by two girls. Their hoarse voices jangled dis- 
 cordantly. I bade Madeline good night. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THE ESCAPE 
 
 THERE are hundreds of girls in Chicago, now 
 respectably employed, who have been dragged 
 out of the jaws of living death by women 
 whose work is done quietly and effectively. 
 Many of these women are not known as philan- 
 thropists or crusaders. They try to keep out 
 of the limelight so that they may be more effec- 
 tive in their work. It is to the indefatigable 
 patience of these good women that so many 
 girls are snatched from the bondage of Watch- 
 ful Johnny of the System. 
 
 On my way downtown a few days after my 
 experience at The Cave I read with interest a 
 story in the newspaper about a girl who had 
 
 been arrested in a raid on a bawdy house. 
 
 224 
 
THE ESCAPE 225 
 
 The account told how the girl had endeavored 
 to escape from the clutches of the slavers, and 
 how her alleged husband, "Bull" Tevis, a no- 
 torious underworld creature, had beaten her. 
 I lost no time in going to the police station 
 where the newspaper stated the girl was being 
 detained. 
 
 I asked the matron at the station to see the 
 girl, and she led me upstairs into a large room 
 enclosed by iron bars. Over in a corner of 
 this large cell, for indeed it was a cell, I saw 
 a girl sobbing heavily. I walked over to her. 
 She turned her face from me. 
 
 "You can't hide from me," I said. "I 
 would know you anywhere." 
 
 The girl was Mary Holden, pretty Mary 
 Holden, for whom I had been searching. 
 
 "Why do you come here?" she asked, not 
 looking up. 
 
 "Because," I replied, "I want to take you 
 back to your mother." 
 
226 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 The girl arose and rushed into my arms, 
 holding me tight in her embrace. The light 
 had begun to flicker again in her life, 
 
 "I want to be good," she cried. "I want to 
 be good." 
 
 The matron's eyes filled with tears. 
 
 "Come," said the pleasant-faced matron, 
 "there are some big, comfortable chairs over 
 here, where you can visit," and she pointed 
 toward the center of the room. 
 
 She then went out through the big iron door. 
 
 "You can speak freely," I said to Mary. 
 "That is, if you trust me?" 
 
 "Yes," she began, "I do trust you ever so 
 much." 
 
 There was a brief silence. 
 
 "Do you think you could get me out of 
 here?" she inquired. 
 
 "I can try," I returned. 
 
 "If you only could," with entreaty. "I'd 
 do anything." 
 
THE ESCAPE 227 
 
 "Would you return to your mother?" I in- 
 terrupted. 
 
 "My mother!" she cried. "Will she take 
 me back?" 
 
 "Your mother wants you to come home." 
 
 A look of shame swept over her young face 
 as she cried, "I can't go back home. What 
 will they think of me?" 
 
 "But your mother loves you enough to move 
 away from Limaville, to take you to a new 
 town where you can begin your life again." 
 
 "If we only could," she faltered, her face 
 lighting up with hope. Suddenly tears 
 gushed from her eyes, and in broken phrases 
 she told me her story, told me all that had 
 happened to her since that day she left her 
 home to seek work in Chicago. 
 
 Pathetically she related the difficulty she 
 had had in getting a position which would pay 
 her enough to live comfortably. How, after 
 heartbreaking disappointments, she had man- 
 
228 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 aged to get work in the department store, the 
 same one in which I had worked the day be- 
 fore Christmas. 
 
 There she met Bill Bill King, the flashily 
 dressed youth "who was related to one of the 
 bosses upstairs." King invited her to go to 
 lunch. Her slim purse had prompted her to 
 accept the invitation. When their friendship 
 ripened, King bought her presents, fine clothes, 
 and treated her "right." Then he introduced 
 her to Tevis "Bull" Teris. 
 
 Tevis made love to her; he promised her a 
 little home of her own, to take her out of 
 drudgery. She accepted. Then a marriage 
 ceremony was performed. Later she learned 
 it was only a mock marriage ceremony. The 
 same day she found out the kind of man "Bull" 
 Tevis really was. 
 
 'It was not until the girl had been placed in 
 a questionable hotel that Tevis' real purpose 
 was made known to her. One night a man 
 
THE ESCAPE 229 
 
 broke into her room while Tevis was away. 
 Mary fought him like a young tigress. 
 
 While she was still hysterical from the abuse 
 to which she had been subjected, Tevis re- 
 turned. His rage was magnificent. He be- 
 gan berating little Mary with the vilest abuse 
 conceivable, declaring in a loud voice that she 
 had deceived him. 
 
 In vain, Mary said, she protested. She was 
 beaten into silence. Tevis' "honor" had been 
 outraged and he took good care that the fact 
 should be advertised. That was the first essen- 
 tial. 
 
 Mary said she labored and prayed in an 
 effort to convince her "husband" that she had 
 fought desperately against the attack of the 
 man who entered her room. She begged 
 him to believe that she had never seen the man 
 before in her life, that she did not know him, 
 that she resisted with all her strength. 
 
 "For two days he left me alone," continued 
 
230 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 Mary, "but carefully watched me, you may be 
 sure. Then he reappeared. He had a propo- 
 sition to make. He said he did not feel like 
 living with me after what had happened, but 
 he said he felt I ought to be willing to make 
 amends to him for the wrong I had done. He 
 threatened to write my mother his own version 
 of the story, and again I ple&ded. 
 
 "And this was his proposition! I was to 
 enter a vile place, and my earnings were to be 
 turned over to him for a certain period, after 
 which, as he suggested, I should be permitted 
 to make money for myself. 
 
 "Then I began to sense the scheme. I ac- 
 cused Tevis of having plotted with the man 
 who attacked me for the purpose of com- 
 pelling me to enter a sinful life. He denied 
 it, but the denial was not convincing. 
 
 "Then I was taken to that house where you 
 found me. You know how I got away, but 
 
THE ESCAPE 231 
 
 the following day one of the 'gang' picked me 
 up and I was returned like a lost article to my 
 'husband.' " 
 
 The girl paused to check the tears rolling 
 unheeded down her cheeks. Indeed, she had 
 been through a terrible ordeal. I begged her 
 to continue. 
 
 "Then I was taken to that hotel in South 
 State Street where you saw me standing out- 
 side the entrance and nearly spoke to me," she 
 said. "I want to explain the reason I evaded 
 you and went into the building. 
 
 "Tevis was just a few feet behind you stand- 
 ing in a doorway. He told me he knew you 
 were after me, and that he intended to kill 
 you the first chance he got. His idea was to 
 do the shooting away from the levee, because 
 he said newspaper notoriety would hurt the 
 'district.' 
 
 "I didn't want you to get into any trouble 
 
232 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 over me, so I hurried into the hotel with a 
 man I knew, a friend of Tevis. I guess Tevis 
 never saw you at all. 
 
 "Then when the knock came at the door I 
 predicted trouble; so did the hotel keeper. 
 The noise frightened him and he told all the 
 roomers to leave through the passageway 
 which led to the alley. The policeman, I was 
 told afterward, frightened the hotel keeper. 
 
 "Later Tevis took me to a dive, and when 
 the place was raided we were both taken along 
 with a number of girls and men." 
 
 She paused. 
 
 "I don't believe I am good enough to go 
 home," she sobbed. 
 
 We talked for hours. Finally Mary con- 
 sented to try again. She wanted to see her 
 mother. I saw a Municipal Judge, and the 
 girl was set free. I took her to my home, and 
 then telegraphed to her mother. 
 
THE ESCAPE 233 
 
 The following morning her mother came. 
 The maid brought her to the room where 
 Mary and I were sitting. She was a frail 
 little woman, with Mary's large soft eyes, 
 somewhat dimmed, and her face lined and 
 seamed by life's hard-fought battles. 
 
 "Mary!" she cried. 
 
 "Mother!" 
 
 The two were clasped in each other's arms. 
 I withdrew unnoticed from the room. When 
 I returned I found them sitting close, MaryJs 
 head resting on her mother's breast. And the 
 mother peace had come to her at last. 
 
 "You're going back home together?" I 
 asked "back to Limaville?" 
 
 "No," smiled Mrs. Holden, "we're going on 
 out west out to the big open country. We'll 
 both begin our lives anew." 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 MY object in writing these chapters has been 
 to impress my readers with the magnitude of 
 the work to be done if there is to be any effec- 
 tive reform and to rouse them from a view- 
 point too generally accepted that the social 
 evil has existed and always will exist. 
 
 Unfortunately I have been deterred through 
 the inevitable difficulties that beset the user of 
 plain language in public print from stating 
 facts as plainly as they should be stated to 
 penetrate the inner consciousness of the com- 
 placent American public. 
 
 Certain conditions that have been made 
 plain in my narrative of underworld adven- 
 ture must needs shriek in the ears of all good 
 men and women for immediate reform. It is 
 
 234 
 
CONCLUSION 235 
 
 not to be believed that the people will be con- 
 tent to submit very much longer to the pres- 
 ence of a band of prowling wolves, tolerated 
 by courts and protected by rascally lawyers, 
 whose acknowledged trade is the destruction 
 of feminine virtue and whose whole activity 
 is directed to the exploitation of little girls 
 adrift. 
 
 It is unbelievable that mothers and fathers 
 will continue to tolerate a police system which 
 admits its futility and corruptness when it 
 cannot lodge in jail such widely known scoun- 
 drels as "Ike the Kike," and hundreds of 
 lesser satellites who operate year in and year 
 out against every principle of human decency 
 and virtue. 
 
 It is a hard thing to say, but there are few 
 mothers in Chicago who really know their 
 daughters and even fewer fathers who know 
 their sons. We all like to theorize and emo- 
 
 .4 
 
 tionalize over the beautiful sentiment of the 
 
236 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 idea that American mothers are their daugh- 
 ters' confidantes that the American son is the 
 chum of his father. The facts are contrari- 
 wise. 
 
 How many mothers in Chicago know who 
 the young men are with whom their daughters 
 spend the evenings away from home? How 
 many fathers ever concern themselves at all as 
 to the associations formed by their sons? 
 
 If there ever was a time when the girl in 
 the family needed for her protection every re- 
 source of motherhood that time is the present. 
 There never was a time in the world's history 
 when vice was so highly specialized. The 
 System, with its octopus-like arms, is in need 
 of thousands of girls annually. It recruits 
 them from all classes of society. 
 
 And speaking of fathers there are not 
 many, I think, among the million in this city 
 who make any effort to direct the pleasures or 
 associations of their sons. In thousands of in- 
 
CONCLUSION 237 
 
 stances the sons of families that have every 
 resource of wealth and culture are mere 
 hounds of the pave their principal recrea- 
 tion the pursuit of young girls. 
 
 No man's business is so important that he 
 can afford to let his daughter drift into evil 
 associations or his son become a criminal drug 
 fiend, because, forsooth, the ticker keeps up 
 so perpetual a ticking. Better tear out the 
 ticker entirely and farm garden truck on a 
 ten-acre patch outside of town with a happy, 
 well-protected family than reap a ticker for- 
 tune that cannot buy back the purity of one 
 lost sister nor restore the moral fiber of a dis- 
 eased and drunken son. 
 
 Many Americans realize too late that in 
 their scramble for wealth they have overlooked 
 the real happiness and contentment of life 
 which has all the time been accessible. A 
 million dollars will not repair the wreckage 
 of a neglected family. 
 
238 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 In this hurry-up age we are too prone to 
 neglect the substance for the shadow to grasp 
 at a mirage while paying too little attention 
 to the ground that is under foot. 
 
 For the running down and eradication of 
 commercialized vice must be, as it is now in 
 fact becoming, a governmental duty. The 
 federal government's activities in that direc- 
 tion have already been more effective than all 
 the dubious works of municipalities for fifty 
 years, and the government has only awakened 
 to a sense of its responsibilities within the last 
 few years. There would be more joy in 
 heaven over the capture and lifelong incar- 
 ceration of "Ike the Kike," than over any 
 other thing that could happen in a backward 
 community. 
 
 A chorus of angels would sing with joy over 
 the destruction of such charnel houses as the 
 Cafe Sinister, The Torpedo Cafe and The 
 
CONCLUSION 239 
 
 Cave, and the police protected saloon back 
 rooms with their overhead hells. 
 
 We have many excellent women's clubs en- 
 gaged in many excellent works, but there is 
 one great woman's job to be done which will 
 demand all the resources of all the women's 
 clubs, all the church organizations, all the 
 priests and ministers, all the sociologists and 
 lay preachers of this talkative decade. 
 
 That big job is the eradication of the social 
 evil in its commercial aspect at least. As long 
 as the clubs and other organizations act sepa- 
 rately and discuss separately and resolve 
 separately there will be no effective reform. 
 What is needed is a tremendous wave of fem- 
 inine public opinion that shall sweep this 
 country from end to end and force the hands 
 of the government officials to protect Ameri- 
 can womanhood before any less important 
 matters are taken up. Before we rage over 
 
240 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 minor grievances of the sex let us redress this 
 great grievance. We can do it by a nation- 
 wide campaign of woman's organizations com- 
 bined into one tremendous force. 
 
 This is the one country in the world where 
 such a great, unified movement is at present 
 practicable. The campaign for woman's suf- 
 frage and its marvelous successes by ordinary 
 peaceful methods in the United States are 
 sufficient indication of the results that could 
 be achieved with all women throughout the 
 country united upon an object that could find 
 no single opponent among the good women of 
 the land. 
 
 A legitimate good time is what young peo- 
 ple want. Because they can't get it they get 
 into all kinds of trouble and misfortune. 
 Wholesome recreation is the most important 
 feature to provide in reclamation work. It is 
 so important that a city should undertake to 
 supply it. 
 
CONCLUSION 241 
 
 There are not enough recreation centers to 
 keep children out of alleys. The city should 
 provide parks that will accommodate chil- 
 dren. Recreation centers should be supplied 
 by the municipality, not left to commercial- 
 ized interests. 
 
 In the vice districts we find victims of the 
 maladjustment of society. Society is respon- 
 sible for these victims. When a family of 
 seven is herded into two rooms it is not to be 
 wondered at that the girl living in these con- 
 ditions becomes depraved. 
 
 Is it to be wondered at that the mother who 
 is obliged to cook in a windowless kitchen be- 
 comes so nervous and irritable that she con- 
 tinually scolds? Is it any wonder that the 
 children leave home? Is not society, with its 
 inadequate housing laws, mostly to blame? 
 
 The system of fining offenders makes it 
 necessary for these women to continue living 
 immoral lives in order to pay fines. The law 
 
242 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 defeats its own purpose. Every offender 
 should be sentenced to a state vocational farm 
 and given industrial training after examina- 
 tion as to mental condition has determined the 
 possibilities of reform. 
 
 This would keep decreasing the number of 
 women who make their living by evil methods. 
 If the sixty per cent, of such women said by 
 the statistics to be mentally deficient were 
 taken out of the ranks, sent into farm institu- 
 tions and treated scientifically, there would fol- 
 low a rapid improvement in the situation that 
 now appalls society. 
 
 In suggesting a remedy for the evils to 
 which I have tried to direct attention in the 
 preceding chapters of this story I feel that it is 
 incumbent upon me to admit the difficulties 
 that confront workers for sociological reform, 
 both as to the formation of a plan which shall 
 meet the approval of all religious denomina- 
 tions and as to the methods by which such a 
 
CONCLUSION 243 
 
 plan may be put into practical and effective 
 operation. 
 
 It strikes me that the most important essen- 
 tial to a better state of public morals is con- 
 structive rather than reconstructive action 
 that is to say, we must prevent the turning out 
 of untaught children from the public schools 
 instead of waiting until these children have 
 become versed in evil and then attempting to 
 apply remedial measures. 
 
 In brief, we are placing the cart before the 
 horse. Instead of teaching boys and girls the 
 essential truths about those physiological proc- 
 esses of nature which most parents religiously 
 lie about and conceal, we leave them to find out 
 in the bitter school of experience what should 
 have been impressed upon them plainly but 
 tactfully as an integral part of their school 
 training. 
 
 I consider the teaching of sex hygiene in 
 every public school in the United States the 
 
244 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 first essential to a wide and general improve- 
 ment in public morals. There is no disguis- 
 ing the fact that the mystery thrown about sex 
 in our present system of child-teaching makes 
 for pruriency and promotes evil. 
 
 Education, then, is the basis of the remedy. 
 Given sound instruction in early youth, the 
 child of either sex is forearmed as well as fore- 
 warned. 
 
 A girl so grounded in the essentials of sex 
 knowledge is far less likely to fall a victim to 
 sex-emotion than a girl whose ideas of sex are 
 fogged in mystery which native curiosity may 
 solve to her own destruction and to the bitter 
 sorrow of her posterity. 
 
 The boy who has been taught respect for and 
 comprehension of the sex relation is certain to 
 acquire a broader and manlier view than that 
 which is born of "gang" discussions. 
 
 At all events, the best authorities of this 
 period in the world's advancement are agreed 
 
CONCLUSION 245 
 
 that a marked improvement is observable in 
 the moral tone of both boys and girls who have 
 received such instruction. 
 
 I am quite aware that there are many ob- 
 jectors to the theory of general sex instruction 
 on the score that parents are the most com- 
 petent instructors of their own children in such 
 matters. And this is very true as far as it 
 goes, but the trouble is that it does not go far 
 enough. It is the lamentable fact that there 
 are far more incompetent than competent 
 parents, and the net result is that children in 
 the mass are left to find out for themselves 
 through all sorts of doubtful channels the 
 fundamental facts of life. 
 
 While we are upon this phase of the situa- 
 tion I will take occasion to declare that the 
 conditions in many of our public schools, as 
 far as the morals of the boys and girls attend- 
 ing them are concerned, may well be con- 
 sidered appalling. 
 
246 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 We find in many instances after girls from 
 thirteen to fifteen years are taken to the Ju- 
 venile Court on charges of immorality that 
 they became depraved while little more than 
 babies, through associations in the public 
 schools. If there exists in the mind of the 
 person who has read this book a doubt con- 
 cerning the accuracy of this statement, I refer 
 such doubters to Judge Mary Bartelme of the 
 Child's Court, who will bear me out in it and 
 supply detail sufficient to convince any skep- 
 tic. 
 
 The Christian church must bestir itself. 
 The modern spirit among churches is directed 
 toward promotion of good citizenship, purer 
 city government, the elevation of political 
 standards. In pulpits all over Chicago minis- 
 ters are preaching the gospel of civics. They 
 are urging the election to office of worthy men. 
 They are inspiring a new type of Christian 
 leadership among young men and women who 
 
CONCLUSION 247 
 
 are regular attendants of the churches, but 
 they are not beginning at the beginning. 
 
 The big problem is to reach that great body 
 of boys and girls that scorns the doors of the 
 church because of the stiff-collared religion 
 that is dispensed behind them. To reach these 
 young people the policy of the Christian 
 church will have to be radically changed. I 
 mean that part of its policy which concerns 
 the care and government of its youth. To 
 appeal to these young people the human side 
 of the church must be emphasized. The ab- 
 stract does not appeal. The need for reality 
 in religion is what is felt by the thousands of 
 boys and girls now adrift in Chicago, subject 
 to no church influence whatever. The church 
 that is beginning to incorporate ideas of social 
 service is that church which brings God to the 
 people. 
 
 Our problem is a deep one and no human 
 being can dictate a sovereign remedy for the 
 
248 MY BATTLES WITH VICE 
 
 ills of society. Everybody knows that we 
 should abolish the grafting policeman, the 
 grafting politician, the disreputable hotel and 
 the low dance hall, but these are all part and 
 parcel of The System. 
 
 To abolish The System we shall have to 
 work systematically through the cooperation 
 of the churches and religious and social or- 
 ganizations. And the basis for reform must 
 be educational, beginning with the children 
 in the schools. 
 
 If we do the work that plainly awaits us we 
 shall have taken a long step toward saving 
 those thousands of girls who are every year 
 recruited into the army of little lost sisters. 
 
 THE END 
 
Rl 
 T< 
 
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