Modern Herodians 
 
 OK 
 
 Slaughterers of Innocents 
 
 -by- 
 
 MRS. C. I. HARRIS 
 

 COPYWRIGHT APPLIED FOR 
 
 1909 
 
 Wallace Printing Company 
 
 Portland, Oregon 
 
>ft Library 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 With the money derived from the sale of this book, if the 
 amount is sufficient to even make a beginning, and I feel sure it 
 will be, I intend to build a large home and throw its doors open 
 to motherless or homeless girls, and if they cannot secure em- 
 ployment all the time, or get sick, they will have a home where 
 there is a woman in it that will try to be a mother to every girl 
 that comes under her roof, and will try to influence them to strive 
 for the best and highest to be obtained in a Christian life. I know 
 that God is with me in this work, and all my life so far He has 
 been preparing me for this mission. A great many people placed 
 in the same condition I am would sit down and grieve over their 
 trials and troubles. Not so with me. In all my trials and troubles, 
 and they have been many and grievous, God has given me grace 
 sufficient to see my faults and understand the lesson implied. 
 
 My heart always aches when I see little girls left motherless 
 and the father with slender means, as is so often the case. Usually 
 then the home is broken up, the little girls drift from post to 
 pillar, brought in contact with varied influences, and it is very 
 hard for them to attain very high standards in life. 
 
 If this American nation wishes to maintain its high prestige 
 as being supreme among nations, then it must look well to the 
 moral training of the children, boys just as well as girls. I will 
 not attempt to lay down rules and regulations, but every person 
 trying to live a Christian life, and especially as Jesus would, can 
 assist some child in some way as the opportunity offers, and they 
 are many. 
 
IS LIFE UNINTERESTING? 
 
 "Nobody has any right to find life uninteresting or unreward- 
 ing, who sees within their sphere of his own activity a wrong he 
 can help to remedy or within himself an evil he can hope to over- 
 come/' President Elliott, Harvard University. 
 
 How any free person can ever find life uninteresting is be- 
 yond my comprehension. The marvelous beauty we can find in 
 nature on every hand, coupled with the great achievements of 
 man in all industries as well as in Art, Literature, and Science, has 
 often caused me to feel as though I were shirking in some way 
 if I did not do something that the world would be benefited by 
 my having lived in it. Forty years have now passed over my 
 head, and never till the present time have I ever felt called on to 
 do anything special for the benefit of humanity, but now that so 
 much is being said and so little actually done concerning the 
 unfortunate victims of the White Slave Traffic, and I feel so 
 furious at these devils in human guise, that have carried on such 
 a fiendish business, that I am sure I could not rest comfortable 
 in my grave if I did not take up a good strong cudgel and wield 
 it right lively to help slaughter the evil herd. It seems to me that 
 if any one on God's footstool can find life uninteresting, a young 
 girl lured in some way from home, made a prisoner and com- 
 pelled to live the vilest kind of a life and treated in a most 
 inhuman way, certainly would. 
 
 I think the actual truth concerning some of these unfortunate 
 girls should be more universally known, that it may open the eyes 
 of parents and guardians of girls to the fact that "White Slavery" 
 is an existing condition, a system of girl hunting that is National 
 and International in its scope, that it literally consumes thousands 
 of girls, clean and innocent girls, every year. It is a shame and 
 
disgrace to this boasted "land of the free" and "home of the 
 brave" of ours that thousands of our most beautiful "flowers of 
 innocents" should be plucked every year by these fiends and com- 
 pelled to live a life so revolting that the subject even must be 
 carefully veiled before being introduced to the public. I, for one, 
 cannot sit quietly in my own cosy home, and turn a deaf ear to 
 the cries of those slave girls, supposing my own little daughter 
 should be stolen one day and held a prisoner in one of those in- 
 fernal places. There are no words in my vocabulary that could 
 express my anguish if such should ever happen, and every 
 mother that reads these lines, I ask you to take it home to your- 
 self. Suppose your daughter is to swell those ranks, what then ? 
 You might say, "Not much danger to mine," but under the present 
 conditions no one can be sure about it. So I say it behooves us 
 to be up in arms and work together as one woman to build a 
 bulwark of protection around our girls, and raise money to build 
 more homes for those who already have been wrecked. The 
 editor of "Woman's World" has said: "Evil men will ply their 
 trade and reap continual harvest of precious souls whenever and 
 wherever permitted." Now, why do we permit such traffic? 
 Because the public has been in ignorance to the terrible condition 
 and political and official authority from President to peth-master 
 have generally been so corrupt. There is no reason why we can- 
 not have laws that would prohibit men carrying on such a business 
 unless the people and the lawmakers sanction it. There was a 
 law passed by Congress February 20, 1907. This act declares: 
 "That any person who shall keep, maintain, support or harbor, 
 any alien woman for immoral purpose within three years after her 
 arrival in this country, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall 
 be liable to a fine of $5,000 and imprisonment for five years, at 
 discretion of the court." There is no authority under the present 
 National statutes for the Federal Government to prosecute those 
 concerned in securing White Slaves who are natives of this coun- 
 try. What flagrant injustice! Such a statement ought to arouse 
 the indignation of every decent man or woman who reads them. 
 
If men will not make laws adequate to our needs, then it's a pity 
 women have not the power to adjust them. It's another pity 
 that some women that are so narrow-minded as to think that other 
 women are out of their sphere when they advocate women's rights, 
 were the only ones to furnish daughters to swell the ranks of 
 workers in all the various activities and in many cases to be 
 preyed on by conscienceless men. 
 
 We must have more stringent laws in regard to protecting 
 our girls. For instance, the penalty for a "White Slaver" at 
 present is $5,000 and five years in prison, one or both, at discre- 
 tion of court. Men that made such a law as that have no more 
 regard for dear little girls than for cows and calves and such. 
 Such heinous crimes that these White Slavers commit must be 
 punishable by imprisonment for life on being convicted. 
 
 Until we have such laws it will be impossible to stop entirely 
 such business, but I hope and trust that now so many people are 
 earnestly trying to live good and pure lives, taking Jesus as their 
 model, will remember that faith without works is dead, and if we 
 wish to live Christ-like lives, so to be able to stand before Him 
 on judgment day, we must work as He would if here on earth as 
 He once was. Do you think He would accept money, a small sum 
 at that, for such terrible, terrible crimes that are far worse than 
 murder? No! a thousand times, No! If all Christian people 
 would take up Home Missionary work and do all they can as the 
 opportunity offers and even make an opportunity if necessary and 
 see if they cannot make some marvelous changes in some of the 
 seemingly unimportant places round their homes as well as the 
 laws of their country. 
 
 For the benefit of some people who may read this booklet and 
 possibly have not read much concerning "White Slavery" or have 
 not paid much attention to the subject, I will quote other authority, 
 that you may know it is not the imagination of some woman to 
 create material for a story. 
 
SKETCH I 
 
 Edwin W. Simms, United States District Attorney, Chicago, 
 from his article in the "Woman's World," published by Geo. H. 
 Currier : 
 
 "There are some things so far removed from the lives of 
 normal decent people as to be simply unbelievable by them. The 
 'White Slave' trade of today is one of these increditable things. 
 The calmest, simplest statements of its facts are almost beyond 
 the comprehension or belief of men and women who are mercifully 
 spared from the contact with the dark and hidden secrets of the 
 underworld of the big cities. Who would credit the statement, for 
 example, that things are being done every day in New York, 
 Philadelphia, Chicago and other large cities of this country, in the 
 'White Slave' traffic, which would by contrast make the Congo 
 slave trader of the old days appear like Good Samaritans, yet this 
 figure is almost a literal truth. The man of the stone age who 
 clubbed the woman of his desire into insensibility or submission 
 was little short of a high-minded gentleman when contrasted with 
 the men who fatten on the 'White Slave' traffic. 
 
 "In this day of social settlements, the forward movements of 
 Y. M. C. A. and Christian Endeavor activities, of airships and 
 wireless telegraphy, he says, the evidence obtained from ques- 
 tioning some 250 girls taken in four weeks' time in Chicago 
 houses of ill repute, leads me to believe that not fewer than 15,000 
 girls have been imported into this country in the last year as 
 'White Slaves.' Of course this is only a guess, an approximate 
 figure ; it could be nothing else, but my own personal belief is that 
 it is a conservative guess and well within the facts as to numbers. 
 Then please remember that the girls imported are certainly but a 
 mere fraction of the number recruited for the army of prostitution 
 from home fields, from the cities, the towns, the villages of our 
 country. There is no possible escape from this conclusion, 
 
whether those hundreds of innocents play their awful calling at 
 home or abroad, their methods are much the same, with the ex- 
 ception that the foreign girl is more hopelessly at their mercy. 
 Let me take the case of a little Italian peasant girl, who helped 
 her father till the soil in the vineyards and fields near Naples. 
 Like most of those taken in the raid, she stoutly maintained she 
 had been in this country for more than three years, and that she 
 was in a life of shame from choice and not through the criminal 
 act of any person, when she was brought into what the sensational 
 papers would call the sweat box, was clear that she was in a 
 state of abject terror. Soon, however, the Assistant District At- 
 torney, U. S. Parkin, having charge of the examination, convinced 
 her that he and his associates were her friends and protectors 
 and their object was to punish those who had profited by her ruin, 
 and to send her back to her little Italian home with all her ex- 
 penses paid, that she was under the protection of the United States 
 and was as if the King of Italy were to take her under his royal 
 care and pledge his word that her enemies should not have revenge 
 on her, then she broke down and with pitiful sobs related her 
 awful narrative. That every word of it is true no one could doubt 
 who saw her as she told it. Briefly this is her story : 
 
 "A fine lady who wore beautiful clothes came to where she 
 lived with her parents, made friends with her, told her that she 
 was uncommonly pretty (the truth, by the way), and professed 
 a great interest in her. Such flattering attentions from an Ameri- 
 can lady who wore clothes as fine as those of the Italian nobility 
 could have but one effect upon the mind of this simple little 
 peasant girl and of a still simpler parents. Their heads were com- 
 pletely turned and they regarded the American lady with almost 
 adoration. Very shrewdly the woman did not attempt to bring 
 the little girl back with her, but held out the hope that some day 
 a letter might come with money for her passage to America. Once 
 there she would become the companion of her American friend, 
 and they would have great times together. Of course in due time 
 the money came and the $100 was a most substantial pledge to 
 
10 
 
 the wealth and generosity of the American lady. Unhesitatingly 
 she was prepared for the voyage which was to take her to the 
 land of happiness and good fortune. According to the arrange- 
 ments made by letter the girl was met at New York by two friends 
 of her benefactress, who attended to her entrance papers and took 
 her in charge. These friends were two of the most brutal of all 
 the 'White Slave' drivers who were in the traffic. At the time she 
 was about 16 years old, innocent and rarely attractive for a girl 
 of her class, having large handsome eyes, black hair and rich olive 
 skin of the typical Italian. When these two men took her she 
 did not know, but by the most violent brutal means they quickly 
 accomplished her ruin. For a week she was subject to unspeak- 
 able treatment and made to feel that her degradation was com- 
 plete and final, and here let it be said that the breaking of the 
 spirit, the crushing of all hope of any future save that of shame, 
 is always a part of the initiative of a 'White Slave.' 
 
 "Then the girl was shipped on to Chicago, where she was dis- 
 posed of to a keeper of an Italian dive of the violent type. On 
 her entrance here she was furnished with gaudy dresses, wearing 
 apparel for which the keeper of the place charged her $600, as 
 in the case of all new 'White Slaves.' She was not allowed to 
 have any clothing which she could wear upon the street. Her 
 one object in life was to escape from the den in which she was 
 held a prisoner. To pay out seemed the surest way and at length 
 from her wages of shame she was able to cancel the $600 account. 
 Then she asked for her street clothing and her release only to be 
 told she had incurred other expenses to the amount of $400. Her 
 Italian blood took fire at this and she made a dash for liberty, 
 but she was not quite quick enough and the hand of the oppressor 
 was upon her. In the wild scene that followed she was slashed 
 with a razor, one gash straight through her right eye, one across 
 her cheek and another slitting her ear. Then she was given medi- 
 cal attention and the wounds gradually healed, but her face is 
 horribly multilated. Her right eye is always open and to look 
 upon her is to shudder. When the raids began she was secreted 
 
II 
 
 and arrangements made to ship her to a dive in the mining regions. 
 Fortunately, however, a few hours before she was to start on her 
 journey, a United States Marshal raided the place and captured 
 herself as well as her keeper. To add to the horror of her situa- 
 tion she is soon to become a mother. The awful thought in her 
 mind, however, is to escape assassination at the hands of the mur- 
 derous gang which oppressed her. When once the 'White Slave' 
 is sold and landed in a home or dive she becomes a prisoner. The 
 raids disclosed the fact that in each of these places is a room hav- 
 ing but one door, of which the keeper holds the key. In here 
 are locked all the street clothes, shoes and the ordinary apparel 
 of a woman. The finery which is provided for the girls for home 
 wear is of a nature to make her appearance on the street impossi- 
 ble. Then added to this handicap is the fact that the girl is placed 
 in debt to the keeper for a wardrobe of fancy clothes which are 
 charged to her at preposterous prices. She cannot escape while 
 she is in debt to the keeper and is never allowed to get out of 
 debt, at least until all desire to leave the life is dead within her." 
 
 SKETCH I 
 
 I am thankful that God has raised up men loyal enough to 
 humanity to expose this awful condition. It is astonishing that 
 such work has been allowed to go so long when it is a certainty 
 that many men of authority have known of the condition, but now 
 that it is exposed in all its awfulness, those that read and have 
 one spark of love for humanity and the country in which they 
 live must do their part to cause proper laws to be made. This 
 evil includes another also to be considered. If men did not use 
 so much of that terrible inflamer of passion, liquor, and were com- 
 pelled by strict laws to live somewhere near normal, decent lives, 
 there would be less demand for "White Slaves." Therefore let 
 
12 
 
 us away with saloons. The money men spend in saloons should 
 be spent among the merchants in legitimate business for the bene- 
 fit of their families, and would be if they were compelled to keep 
 sober and provide for them. Therefore let the saloon man turn 
 butcher or baker and provide something for the benefit of the 
 whole family instead of what is a curse to it. Every one who 
 wishes to protect their boys and girls must take a personal interest 
 in the laws of our nation. Let us try to secure honorable men 
 for our law makers. The saloon element has had too much influ- 
 ence here in the past, and even at present has too much power. I 
 will here quote from other authority. This time an assistant 
 United States District Attorney, Harry A. Parkin, also from an 
 article in the Woman's World. 
 
 The cases that are given have come under his immediate 
 observation, and I will follow them up with the form of law he 
 has framed up for us to present to the law makers. He says much 
 about stringent laws and admits much is being said by prominent 
 people in favor of more stringent laws, and then proceeds to frame 
 up a law that is anything but stringent. All he has framed up 
 meets my approval except this one, and that one surely would 
 cause satan to double up with mirth. He says: "One of the 
 strangest results brought about by the recent 'White Slave' pros- 
 ecutions in Chicago, and the publicity which they have received 
 has been the astonishment of thousands of persons as evidenced 
 by letters that the fact that such a wholesale traffic is actually in 
 existence, but what is still more astonishing, not to say discour- 
 aging, is the reluctance of other thousands to believe that many 
 hundreds of men and women are actually engaged in the business 
 of luring girls and women to their destruction, and that this in- 
 famous traffic is being carried on in every state of the Union 
 every day of the year. Perhaps the actuality of this awful advo- 
 cation may be made more clearly apparent to the innocent, unso- 
 phisticated doubters whose awakening and moral support is 
 needed if I cite one or two instances which have come to my per- 
 sonal knowledge within the last few days. 
 
SKETCH 
 
 "In a comfortable farm house in a state bordering upon Illi- 
 nois is an uncommonly attractive young girl who has almost by ac- 
 cident been delivered from the worst fate which can possibly befall 
 a young woman, through the secret service operations of one of 
 the most dangerous procurers of this country was traced to the 
 home in which this beautiful girl had been adopted as a daughter. 
 The White Slave had already ingratiated himself into her confi- 
 dence and that of her foster parents, and arrangements had prac- 
 tically been made by which she was to accompany him to Chicago, 
 where he had a fine position awaiting her. If he had not been 
 located and his character made known to the household at the 
 time this was done she would now be a White Slave in a Chicago 
 den. Another case which has a less fortunate termination is that 
 which involves the fake marriage, a subterfuge common in this 
 wretched traffic. A young man made the acquaintance of a hand- 
 some girl in the north side district of Chicago. He was polished 
 and plausible and the parents of the girl, who were ambitious for 
 their daughter's advancement, were apparently flattered that he 
 should bestow his attentions upon her. When, after a very brief 
 courtship, he proposed marriage they offered no objection and 
 even set aside their own wishes when he suggested he held preju- 
 dice against being married by a clergyman and against having a 
 formal wedding. Consequently they went before a justice of the 
 peace, who pronounced them man and wife. The fake justice, 
 who was merely a confederate of the "White Slaver." They went 
 at once to San Antonio, Texas, he having claimed he held a very 
 profitable position in a large business concern in that city. When 
 they arrived there the poor girl had an awful awakening, for she 
 was promptly sold into the life of shame without hope of escape 
 from its degrading servitude." 
 
SKETCH IV 
 
 This is of a little German girl of Buffalo, who married a man 
 who deserted her about the time her child was born. Her baby 
 is now about eight or nine months old. Almost immediately after 
 her husband ran away she formed the acquaintance of an engag- 
 ing young man, who claimed to take deep interest in her welfare 
 and in that of a certain girl friend of hers. He persuaded them 
 both that if they would accompany him to Chicago he would im- 
 mediately place them in employment which would be far more 
 profitable than anything they could obtain in Buffalo. Suppos- 
 ing that the work awaiting her was propertly legitimate and re- 
 spectable, the little mother took her baby and in company with 
 the young man and her friend came to Chicago. The next task 
 of this human fiend was to persuade this child-widow that it would 
 be necessary for her to place her baby temporarily in a foundlings 
 home, in order that it might not interfere with her employment. 
 This accomplished he took the two young women at once to a 
 notorious house and sold them into "White Slavery." Thence- 
 forth this fellow has lived in luxury upon the shameful earnings 
 of these two victims. The young mother has attempted by every 
 means imaginable to escape from his clutches and at last has im- 
 portuned him into a promise to release his hold upon her on the 
 payment of $300. She is still working out the price of her release. 
 It is scarcely too much to say she looks twice her age. 
 
SKETCH V 
 
 One other example from the current history of the "White 
 Slave" trade as it is pursued today. Only a few nights since a 
 physician was called in professionally at one of the houses of Chi- 
 cago's "red light" district. Two men and a young woman entered 
 the door just before him ; took seats at a table. A glance at her 
 fresh and innocent face was enough to convince him that she was 
 out of her element, and probably quite unaware of the character 
 of her surroundings. Stepping abruptly to the table the physician 
 looked the young woman straight in the eye and asked : "Madame, 
 do you know this is a house of prostitution?" "No!" was the 
 trembling answer. "Are you a woman of the streets?" he per- 
 sisted. She flushed indignantly and finally replied, "No. I am 
 a respectable woman and supposed I was being taken to a lady's 
 cafe." Her companions bolted for the door and made their escape. 
 The physician then called a policeman, who escorted the young 
 woman to her home and found the statements to be true that she 
 was a respectable girl and believed her friends to be taking her 
 to a respectable restaurant. Tragedies of this kind are happen- 
 ing every day and all over the country. It is time for the decent 
 people of the United States to wake up and realize what is going 
 on in the "underworld" and to take strong measures to protect 
 their daughters and their neighbors' daughters from the hands 
 of the most dispicable and inhuman of all criminals, the "White 
 Slave traders." 
 
 Mr. Parkins also states that the keepers of houses of ill- 
 fame have discovered that the hideous task of keeping unwilling 
 "white salves" in subjection is much easier if a certain owner- 
 ship of her is vested in some man. In many cases this man 
 is the one who is directly responsible for placing the girl in the 
 house, but this is not invariably the case. When it is the case he 
 receives not only a lump purchase price down on delivery of his 
 
i6 
 
 victim to the house, but he is recognized by the keeper as her 
 owner or master, the one to whom a certain percentage of her 
 income is paid, and with whom all settlements on her account are 
 made. What is more important in the eye of the keeper is that 
 this man is held absolutely responsible for the girl's subjection, 
 and if she attempts to escape he must cajole, threaten or beat her 
 into subjection. In one of the recent raids I chanced to come 
 upon visual demonstration of how this peculiar phase of "White 
 Slavery" operates in actual practice. One of these fellows was 
 disciplining a girl he owned and doing so by the gentle process 
 of forcing her against the wall with his hands at her throat. Some 
 of these fellows own two or three or perhaps more "White 
 Slaves," and on the income of their slavery these brutes live in 
 luxury at expensive hotels, maintain expensive automobiles and 
 lead lives of luxury, idleness and dissipation. Mr. Parkins also 
 states there are at least 5000 men living in Chicago that are sup- 
 ported in whole or in part in this manner. 
 
 Yet in the face of all this Mr. Parkins frames up a law for us 
 to copy that reads like this : "Any person who shall knowingly 
 accept or receive in whole or in part support or maintainence on 
 the proceeds or earnings of any woman engaged in prostitution 
 shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and on conviction thereof shall 
 be confined in the penitentiary not less than one year, or more than 
 three years, and fined not exceeding $1000, or both, at the discre- 
 tion of the court." Such a law would be an insult added to injury. 
 There isn't anything stringent about it. Those fiends would only 
 wink at it. The people may be innocent in some respects, but they 
 are not so unsophisticated since having a Roosevelt administra- 
 tion that they cannot occasionally detect trickery in high places. 
 As Mr. Parkins has framed up several laws in that same article 
 in the "Woman's World" in the April, 1909, number, I advise 
 every one to get it and read it. They are all good, but the one 
 that being the fact, they thought to catwalk this one in. Many 
 such an imposition has been sprung on the public in the same sly 
 way. Mr. Parkins has framed up not only the new laws for us, 
 
17 
 
 but also the form of letter for us to write our representative in 
 the legislature that he advises each and every individual to write 
 personally to them. I advise this also, but frame that one law up 
 so that it will read like this : 
 
 "Any person who shall knowingly accept or receive in whole 
 or in part support or maintainence from the proceeds or earnings 
 of any woman engaged in prostitution shall be deemed guilty of 
 a felony, and on conviction thereof shall be imprisoned for life at 
 hard labor, and the proceeds of his labors go to support homes 
 for fallen women, fatherless babies and other orphans." Now that 
 comes a little nearer being stringent. These imps of satan in the 
 form of man if they do not hesitate to steal every young and pretty 
 girl they can get their talons on and imprison them for the rest 
 of their life, why should we accord them less than a life sentence, 
 to work for the benefit of the innocent. Mr. Parkins also men- 
 tions the fact that it is very difficult to convict those imps, because 
 the state will endeavor to prove they have some other and legiti- 
 mate business, such as a solicitor of some kind if nothing else, in 
 other words these brutes have plenty of money to hire others of 
 their ilk to lie for them, even under oath. 
 
 Mr. Parkins did not state, however, that the main witness 
 against such an imp is debarred by the present statutes from being 
 a witness, i. e., any woman from a house of prostitution is not 
 allowed to go on the stand, though she may have been stolen from 
 a good home, robbed of her innocence, compelled by force to re- 
 main in such a house, and yet the condition of our laws says such 
 a one cannot raise her voice against the author of all this infamy 
 against her. The farce of men's justice to woman is so rotten it 
 stinks to high heaven. It is a blessed thing for the angels that 
 they have not the sense of smell, and yet there are women to 
 be found who will sit down in a rocking chair, fold their hands 
 and declare the laws man has made and the way he has managed 
 afTairs suits her very well, and as far as she is concerned he will 
 not be hindered from having his way for all time. Such a one 
 
18 
 
 represents either ignorance or slothfulness, or are friends to 
 the fiends of the underworld. 
 
 Of course we have a lot of good and noble men as well as 
 women, but they are far from being in the majority among hu- 
 manity, and you know it's the majority that rules, so let the good 
 noble men and women join forces to put up a fight for radical 
 changes in our laws and regulations, and see to it that a " White 
 Slave" can be a witness against her oppressors, as well as doing 
 away with many other evils. 
 
 SKETCH VI 
 
 The next article is one by Mrs. O. Amigh, Superintendent 
 Illinois Training School for Girls, to show how much good she 
 has accomplished by taking a real personal interest in these girls. 
 I wish I might arouse everyone to take such a real personal inter- 
 est in this as well as all other such work that much more good 
 might be accomplished. 
 
 More About the Trade in Shame, by Mrs. Ophelia Amigh, 
 Superintendent of the Illinois Training School for Girls. 
 
 One of the most disheartening things in the work of pro- 
 tecting innocent girls and restoring to useful lives those who 
 have been betrayed from the path of right living is the blind in- 
 credulity of a very large part of the public. There are hundreds 
 of thousands of women in the homes of this country who know 
 as little of what is going on in the world, so far as the safety of 
 their daughters is concerned, as so many children. They are 
 almost marvelously ignorant of the terrible conditions all about 
 them and all about their children, too. 
 
19 
 
 Of course, their blindness to these awful actualities makes 
 them more comfortable, for the time being, than they could pos- 
 sibly be if awake to the perils which beset the feet of their daugh- 
 ters and the daughters of their friends and neighbors. But there 
 is no permanency to this sort of peace and thousands of mothers 
 of this class are annually brought to their senses and recalled to 
 earth by discovering that their own daughters have made the 
 fatal misstep and have passed under the brand of the pariah. 
 The awakening of such parents comes too late, generally, to do 
 much good. Not always, but in a majority of cases. Many, 
 many times after I have related to a casual woman visitor the 
 simple details of a typical "case" brought here to the State Home, 
 the caller has exclaimed: "How terrible! I didn't dream that 
 such things were going on in the world !" 
 
 Now, if you had something of great value which needed to 
 be protected day and night, would you select for such a task a 
 blind watchman? or one who was firmly possessed of the idea 
 that there was really no danger, no occasion for watchfulness? 
 Certainly not! There is nothing in the world of such priceless 
 value to a father or a mother as the honor, the purity, the good 
 character of a daughter. No parent will possibly question this 
 statement. And still there are many thousands of parents en- 
 trusted by Providence with the safe-keeping of this priceless 
 treasure who are themselves in the position of discharging that 
 great responsibility with closed eyes, with dull ears and with a 
 childish belief that there is no real peril threatening the safety 
 of their daughters ! These parents do not live on earth, their 
 heads are in the clouds and their ears are filled with the cry of 
 " 'Peace ! Peace !' when there is no peace." 
 
 As one whose daily duty it is to deal with warward and fallen 
 girls, as one who has had to dig down into the sordid and revolt- 
 ing details of thousands of these sad cases (for I have spent the 
 best part of my life in this line of work) let me say to such moth- 
 ers: 
 
20 
 
 In this day and age of the world no young girl is safe! And 
 all young girls who are not surrounded by the alert, constant and 
 intelligent protection of those who love them unselfishly are in 
 imminent and deadly peril. And the more beautiful and attractive 
 they are the greater is their peril! 
 
 The first and most vital step for the protection of the girls 
 who walk in this path of pitfalls is to arouse the sleeping watch- 
 men who are, by reason of their parenthood, responsible for the 
 safe-keeping of their daughters. This is why the "White Slave" 
 articles by Hon. Edwin W. Sims and others, which have been 
 published in the Woman's World, have done great good. They 
 have stirred to a sense of alarm thousands of parents who were 
 asleep in a false sense of security. If they accomplish nothing 
 beyond this they will fully have justified their publication. 
 
 But it is evident that they will also result in the enactment 
 of much needed legislation, of laws which will make it easier to 
 convict and punish those who live from this foul traffic in the 
 shame of girls whose natural protectors are asleep in this false 
 sense of security. Of course, practically every state has some 
 laws against the traffic but I do not know of any state in which 
 the laws now on the statute books are adequate to deal with the 
 situation as it should be dealt with. 
 
 One of the things which comfortable and trusting parents 
 seem to find especialy hard to believe is the point upon which 
 both U. S. District Attorney Sims and his assistant, Mr. Parkin, 
 have placed so much stress the existence of an active and sys- 
 tematic traffic in girls. There is no safety for the daughter of 
 any parent who is not awake and alive to the actuality of this 
 fact! 
 
 It is one of the satisfactions of my life to reflect that I have 
 been one of the agents in sending a dozen perhaps more per- 
 sons to the penitentiary for participating in this traffic. 
 
 The dragnets of the inhuman men and women who ply this 
 terrible trade are spread day and night and are manipulated with 
 a skill and precision which ought to strike terror to the heart of 
 
21 
 
 every careless or indifferent parent. The wonder is not that so 
 many are caught in the net, but that they escape! I count the 
 week I might almost say the day a happy and fortunate one 
 which does not bring to my attention as an officer of the state a 
 deplorable case of this kind. 
 
 Just to show how tightly and broadly the nets of these fish- 
 ers for girls are spread, let me tell of an instance which occurred 
 to a girl from this institution : 
 
 This girl, whom I will call Nellie, is a very ordinary looking 
 girl, and below the average of intelligence, but as tractable and 
 obedient as she is ingenuous. She is wholly without the charms 
 which would naturally attract the eye of the White Slave trader. 
 
 Because of her quietness, her obedience and her good dispo- 
 sition, she was, in accordance with the rules of the instiution, 
 permitted to go into the family of a substantial farmer out in 
 the West and work as a housemaid, a "hired girl" her wages 
 to be deposited to her credit against the time when she should 
 reach the age of twenty-one and leave the Home. 
 
 She had been in her position for some time and was so quiet 
 and satisfactory that one Sunday when the family were not going 
 to church the mistress said: 
 
 "Jennie, if you wish to go to church alone you may do so. 
 The milk wagon will be along shortly and you can ride on that 
 to the village and here is seventy-five cents. You may want to 
 buy your dinner and perhaps some candy." 
 
 When Nellie reached town and was on her way past the rail- 
 road station to the church the train for Chicago came in, and the 
 impulse seized her to get aboard, go to the city and look up her 
 father, whom she had not seen for several months. She went 
 to the city and had hardly stepped from the train into the big 
 station when he heard a man's voice saying: "Why, hello, Mary." 
 
 Instantly foolishly, of course she answered him and re- 
 plied : 
 
 "My name's not Mary; it's Nellie." 
 
 "You look the very picture," he replied, "of a girl I know 
 
22 
 
 well whose name is Mary and she's a fine girl, too ! Are any of 
 your folks here to meet you?" 
 
 "No," she answered. "My father's here in the city, some- 
 where, but he doesn't know I'm coming. I've been working out 
 in the country for a long time and I didn't write him about com- 
 ing back." 
 
 Her answers were so ingenuous and revealing that the man 
 saw that he had an easy and simple victim to deal with. There- 
 fore his tactics were very direct. 
 
 "It's about time to eat," he suggested, "and I guess we're 
 both hungry. You go to a restaurant and eat with me and per- 
 haps I can help you to find your father quicker than you could do 
 it alone." 
 
 She accepted, and in the course of the meal he asked her if 
 she would not like to find a place at which to work. "I know of 
 a fine place in Blank City," he added. "The woman is looking for 
 a good girl just like you." 
 
 "Yes, I'd be pleased to get the place, but I haven't any money 
 to pay the fare with," was her answer. 
 
 "Oh, that's all right," he quickly replied. "I'll buy your 
 ticket and give you a little money besides for a cab and other ex- 
 penses. The woman told me to do that if I could find her a girl. 
 She'll send me back a check for it all." 
 
 After he had bought the ticket and put her aboard the train 
 going to Blank City he wrote the name of the woman to whom 
 he was sending her, gave her about $2.00 extra and then deliv- 
 ered this fatherly advice to her: 
 
 "You're just a young girl, and it's best for you not to talk 
 to anybody on the train or after you get off. Don't show this 
 paper to anybody or tell anybody where you're going. It isn't 
 any of their business, anyway. And as soon as you get off the 
 train you'll find plenty of cabs there. Hand our paper to the 
 
 first cab driver in the line, get in and ride to Mrs. A 's home. 
 
 Pay the driver and then walk in." 
 
 Believing that she was being furnished a position by a re- 
 
23 
 
 markably kind man, the poor girl followed his directions implic- 
 itly and landed the next day in one of the most notorious houses 
 of shame in the state of Illinois outside of Chicago. How she 
 was found and rescued is a story apart from the purposes which 
 has led me to tell of this incident that of indicating how tightly 
 the slave traders have their nets spread for even the most ordi- 
 nary and unattractive prey. They let no girl escape whom they 
 dare to approach ! 
 
 It may be well and to the point to add, however, that two 
 other girls who had been in the care of the State Home were 
 found to be in the same house to which this girl had been lured, 
 and they were also recovered. 
 
 Almost at the beginning of my experience I received a pen- 
 ciled note which I have kept on my desk as a stimulus to my ener- 
 gies and my watchfulness along the line of checkmating the work 
 of the White Slavers. It is very brief and terse but what a 
 story it tells ! Here is a copy of it with the substitution of a 
 fictitious name : 
 
 "Ellen Holmes has been sold for $50.00 to Madam Blank's 
 house at Armour avenue." 
 
 The statement was true and the man who sold her and the 
 woman who bought her were both sent to the state penitentiary 
 as a penalty for the transaction. 
 
 Another fact which the public finds hard to believe espe- 
 cially the public of mothers is that girls who are lured into the 
 life of shame find it impossible to make their escape, and that 
 they are prisoners and slaves in every sense of the word. I recall 
 one instance of a girl from a good home who had fallen into the 
 hands of a White Slave trader and been sold to a house in the 
 red-light district. Her people were frantic over her disappear- 
 ance and made every possible effort to locate her, but without 
 success. Several months after the excitement and publicity 
 aroused by her disappearance died away, a newsboy who had 
 delivered papers at her home which was in a very good resi- 
 dence district of the city happened to be passing along a cross 
 
24 
 
 street of the red-light section just on the fringes of it, in fact. 
 Suddenly he heard a tap on the window, looked up and saw the 
 anxious face of the lost girl. Then she disappeared. 
 
 Knowing the story of her strange disappearance, he hurried 
 straight to her home and told of his experience. Instantly the 
 father secured officers and the little newsboy led the posse back 
 to the house, in the window of which he had caught a glimpse 
 of her face. They raided the place and rescued the girl. The 
 story of the terrible treatment which she had received cannot be 
 told here. It is enough to say that she had been held as a cap- 
 tive, imprisoned as much as any inmate of a penitentiary is im- 
 prisoned, and that if the friendly newsboy had not happened to 
 pass, as he did, the window from which she was looking out, she 
 would undoubtedly be there today or in some other similar prison 
 of shame through the process of exchange. 
 
 One other matter in this connection needs to come in for 
 clear and decisive emphasis : the fact that the runaway marriage 
 is the favorite device of the White Slaver for landing victims 
 who could not otherwise be entrapped. Those alleged summer 
 resorts and excursion centers which are well advertised as Gretna 
 Greens, and as places where the usual legal and official formali- 
 ties preliminary to respectable marriage are reduced to a mini- 
 mum, are star recruiting stations for the White Slave traffic. 
 I have never seen this point brought out with any degree of clear- 
 ness in any article, and I earnestly urge all mothers to give this 
 statement the most serious consideration, and never to allow a 
 daughter to go to one of these places on an excursion, or under 
 any pretext whatever, unless accompanied by some older mem- 
 ber of the family. And even then there is something unwhole- 
 some and contaminating in the very atmosphere of such a place. 
 
 Do you think that I overstate the perils of places of this 
 kind? Of these gay excursion centers, these American Gretna 
 Greens? I hesitate to say how many girls I have had under my 
 care who were enticed into a "runaway marriage" at these places 
 and then promptly sold into white slavery by the men whom they 
 
25 
 
 had married, the men who married them for no other purpose 
 than to sell them to the houses of the red-light district and live 
 in luxury from the proceeds of their shame. 
 
 Let every mother teach her daughter that the man who pro- 
 poses an elopement, a runaway marriage, is not to be trusted for 
 an instant, and puts himself under suspicion of being that most 
 loathsome of all things in human form a White Slave trader ! 
 
 SKETCH VII 
 
 Next on the list comes a sketch by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 
 dealing with quite another type of wronged girlhood, but just as 
 pitiable. 
 
 Advice for the Erring, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 
 
 A young woman from Boston (which town I heard called 
 recently the wickedest city in America) writes me a very sad 
 letter and asks for advice, which will be easier to give than to 
 follow. 
 
 Briefly, this is her life : Orphaned and penniless at the age 
 of sixteen, she obtained a position as companion for an invalid 
 lady. The husband of the invalid seemed to the young girl at 
 first like the father she had never known. He was so tender and 
 kind to her. 
 
 But before she knew what it meant to go wrong she had been 
 led into the maze from which exit is so difficult by the "kind and 
 tender" foster-father. Finally he importuned her to elope with 
 him, but she realized the enormity of such a sin against the man's 
 wife, and fled from the house. She had no friends, no door was 
 
26 
 
 open to her ; there were hands held out to drag her down, none 
 to lead her up. 
 
 The intellectual tendency of Boston does not prevent the ani- 
 mal in man from asserting itself there as elsewhere. She fell still 
 lower. 
 
 At twenty-one the girl suddenly found her heart occupied by 
 a new emotion. She loved a man for the first time loved him 
 deeply, purely, unselfishly, as any innocent girl might love. 
 
 For this man she has abandoned all her evil ways and com- 
 panions, living only for his approval, his smile, his affection. 
 
 "He is so good to me," she says, "but he never speaks of 
 marriage. I would make him such a true wife! I long to 
 be the mother of his children there is nothing I would not sac- 
 rifice or do for his happiness. Do you think he will ever make 
 me his wife ? What can I do to win him for my own forever ? I 
 shall die if he ever leaves me I could not live without him." 
 
 This is all terribly sad. I would like to encourage the girl 
 to believe that her lover will make her his wife, but I cannot. 
 
 She is every whit as good as he is were she not he would 
 never have met her. He was not walking the straight and intel- 
 lectual paths of Boston's purest social heights when he encoun- 
 tered her. Her past is probably no more checkered than his own. 
 It is doubtful if his nature is capable of so much sincere and 
 worthy affection as hers seems to be. 
 
 She would make him a more devoted wife than half the friv- 
 olous society girls men meet and do not hesitate to marry. 
 
 Yet he will hesitate to make this woman his wife. Most 
 men would. It is her only hope of reformation, but few men are 
 so ready to guide fallen women to a better life through the gates 
 of matrimony. Occasionally we hear of one who has the courage 
 to take such a step, but it is rare indeed when a woman who has 
 led a promiscuously immoral life proves worthy of a man's faith 
 in her. When she does she is usually more devoted and unselfish 
 and faithful than the great mass of moral wives. 
 
 This woman seems to have the character and feeling which 
 
27 
 
 would place her in this exceptional list. But the man judges her 
 by the majority. There is one thing for her to comfort herself 
 with, and that is that the only experience which makes life worth 
 living is a great love such as she feels. There are moral, spotless 
 women who go through existence without even knowing what it 
 is to love absolutely and completely, with full self-surrender. 
 Their ideas of love are petty, narrow, mercenary and selfish. 
 
 This woman need not envy them. She has reached a higher 
 spiritual plane than they, even though she has climbed through 
 mire and flame to reach it. 
 
 Let her try to live worthy of this feeling which dominates 
 her. No matter what occurs, let her resolve never to debase the 
 love which has brought forth the true womanhood within her 
 nature. That would be the unpardonable sin. Worse women 
 have become wives of better men. If she loves patiently and per- 
 sistently enough the desire of her heart may be realized. But 
 if it is not, at least she can be thankful that out of the ruin of her 
 youth she has found what true womanhood means. Some women 
 never find this out. 
 
 It is unwise for any woman to say in this age that she cannot 
 live unless some one hope of her heart is granted. Women are 
 learning that they can live and be useful and contented, even 
 when happiness is gone. Never in the world were there such 
 opportunities for women as today never such hope for erring 
 women to reform and become useful members of society. 
 
 The days of the "Scarlet Letter" are past. A woman who 
 has fallen may rise again if she has the character and self-control 
 to do so, and she may accomplish much good in the world, just 
 as fallen men rise and become useful citizens. The world is be- 
 ginning to realize that there is no sex in sin. 
 
 There are other cities besides Boston where this woman 
 could begin a new life, were her hope of happiness taken from 
 her heart forever. 
 
 Let her not despair. 
 
SKETCH VIII 
 
 This experience is of a girl's life whom we will call Minnie. 
 It differs greatly from those previously given in this respect, she 
 never was a "White Slave," neither is she a sporting woman, and 
 a very brief sketch is given to show how many people that are 
 posing as very good and sometimes even religious do not hesitate 
 to ruin the character of a girl or woman in the eyes of the world 
 if not actually if they can gain financially by it. Some girls meet 
 with so much unjust and undeserving ill-treatment at the hands 
 of influential people and often by those that should help instead 
 of hinder that they often get discouraged, make a mistep, lose 
 their grip and go down. Some rise again, but many more never 
 do. Some people that imagine they are the best people on earth 
 will find a very black record of slanders, insinuations, lies, trick- 
 ery and many other acts of meanness that cannot be enumerated 
 here, against them in heaven, or I should say that will debar them 
 from heaven. Just what is meant by these remarks can be better 
 understood as you read the sketch through. 
 
 Minnie was raised in the East on a farm, where she lived 
 until nearly 15, a very busy life, helping her parents indoors and 
 out, as she was the eldest of the children. The mother, a delicate 
 little woman, and her father had been a soldier in the Civil War, 
 came out crippled in his right arm, which was stiff at the elbow 
 and was not much account. He had other disabilities from the 
 effects of the war and for this reason Minnie exerted her most to 
 help them, and at 15 started out to work her own way through to 
 secure an education. She worked very hard and faithfully for 
 two years and then was compelled to give up her quest for a 
 higher education. She was too frail for such a strenuous life. 
 Long hard lessons to be learned at night, lots of hard work all day 
 when not away at the school room, and no rest during vacation, 
 as money must be earned to buy clothes for next winter. It is 
 not to be wondered at that her strength failed her. She went home 
 
2 9 
 
 and tried to persuade her father to let her have some money to 
 help her along, but he did not encourage her in words, even much 
 less money, as she knew he could have managed to do so if he had 
 cared to do so. She felt greatly hurt at his indifference to her 
 future, as she knew she had worked hard enough from the time 
 she was big enough to work to be deserving of some help to secure 
 an education. She stayed at home for awhile and helped her 
 mother, but when she needed any money she had to go out and 
 earn it, and in a fit of discouragement accepted one of several pro- 
 posals of marriage and was married on her seventeenth birthday 
 to a man nine years her senior. He was considered a very good 
 man, had a good trade, made lots of money. All went well and 
 she was very happy and contented in her cozy home until her 
 mother took ill and finally died, when she had been married a 
 little over a year. The following spring her husband decided he 
 could do better in the West, and left for Washington, but Minnie 
 could not think of leaving her motherless brothers and sisters so 
 soon after the mother died, so persuaded him to go on without 
 her and look around, find a location and get settled, then she would 
 come to him. In the meantime she could be drilling the little girls 
 for their new duties. She stayed with them several months, or 
 until the next November after her husband left in the spring, a 
 very unwise thing for her to do, as she found later to her sorrow. 
 While she was doing a sister's duty and keeping her promise to 
 the dying mother to do all she could for her brothers and sisters 
 the husband was changing in some respects. He began writing 
 her about the prospects for business. It turned out to be the 
 saloon business, and as soon as he let her know she told him in 
 very plain English he must chose between her and the saloon, as 
 she would not live with a man that would run one. He was angry, 
 but said no more about it. When she arrived in her new home 
 she saw he was greatly changed in many ways. 
 
 Her trip had been quite interesting to her, as she had never 
 been very far from home, especially to travel by herself. She 
 visited relatives in several places in Southern Michigan and an 
 
30 
 
 aunt in Wabash, Indiana, Mrs. Flinn, and finally bought a ticket 
 for Albany, Oregon. She expected to make the trip in five and a 
 half days, but instead was eight and a half days, and no fault of 
 hers, either. Going from Wabash to Chicago she changed cars 
 once, was due in Chicago at 10 p. m., but the New York train 
 had been wrecked and caused a delay; she did not arrive until 
 midnight and the train she should have taken out for Oregon had 
 gone long ago. There was no train leaving for that place until 
 5 o'clock next evening, but she improved the time in company with 
 an elderly lady and looked around Chicago a little. In Kansas 
 City the train was five minutes late, so missed her train again, 
 but did not care much, as she had an opportunity of looking over 
 the city of Kansas. She got acquainted with a big family party 
 going to California and altogether they traveled over the city of 
 Kansas and had a jolly time, and at 8 that evening took the train 
 to resume their journey. 
 
 The next day was a very tiresome one, as it was over endless 
 prairie as far as the eye could reach, and when the train pulled 
 into Colorado Springs that evening many of the passengers were 
 glad to get off the train and make some kind of change. Minnie 
 could have remained on the same train or she could stay all night 
 in that place and take a train early next morning, or just wait one 
 hour and take the train that made a short cut on the the narrow 
 gauge road to Salina, arriving there about 4 o'clock in the morn- 
 ing. She would then have until 5 o'clock until next evening to 
 rest in. She would have stayed in Colorado Springs, but as she 
 was asking questions in regard to the different trains a drummer 
 for a tobacco firm, as she afterwards found out, stepped up and 
 listened to her questions. As he had come in on the same train 
 and pretended to need some information too, but in reality only 
 edging around for a chance to talk to her. She sat down with 
 the intention of considering whether she had better stay all night 
 there or go on to Salina. But she had no time to think before the 
 drummer was by her side asking all manner of questions. "Where 
 had she started from," "Where was she going," "how long had 
 
3i 
 
 she been on the road," and when she told him he decided for her 
 that the best thing for her was for her to stay over in that place, 
 and go on in the morning. As he was well acquainted in the city 
 and knew where he could get her a fine room, and was traveling 
 in the same direction as herself, and would be delighted to have 
 her for a traveling companion. He knew he could make it very 
 pleasant for her, as he always traveled first class. After asking 
 a few questions at first he talked so fast she had no chance to 
 consent or object. Then he jumped up and rushed away up town 
 to engage the lovely room he talked so much about, bring a cab 
 for her, as it was too far for her to walk, and all conveyances had 
 left the depot before they had all got through asking the ticket 
 agent questions. Minnie realized the drummer talked fast for a 
 purpose. He took her to be a timid little "greenie," and his plan 
 was to carry her ofT bodily without giving her a chance to protest, 
 but as fast as he went he had not got out of the door before her 
 mind was made up not to go up town with him, no matter how 
 much he might bluster when he came back. The ticket agent was 
 a young man of very noble appearance and had remained at the 
 ticket window while the drummer had been talking to Minnie, 
 and took notice of what he said and how he acted and as soon as 
 he was gone the agent came out and sat down by her, as he had 
 nothing to do at that time, and they were alone in the depot. He 
 asked her a few questions concerning her journey and then pro- 
 ceeded to advise her to go to Salina and added he didn't think it 
 best for her to accept that drummer's assistance. She laughed 
 and said she had made up her mind before he had gone out of the 
 door not to go with him, but as he had taken everything for 
 granted and had left at such a rate of speed she thought it might 
 cause him an accident if she tried to stop him. The agent laughed 
 and said it served him right and for her to be sure and not go 
 with him, and he could be on the watch for him and protect her 
 if she needed it, and when the train came in he would escort her 
 personally to it, and for her to wait for him, as he would not have 
 much to do. She had not long to wait, as the train was on time, 
 
32 
 
 and so was the agent, but he had barely got out of the car after 
 finding her a seat before in came the drummer all in a flurry as 
 much or more so than when he left to go up town. Minnie was 
 occupying two seats with her valise and lunch basket setting in 
 the vacant one. She sat facing him as he rushed in at the door, 
 saying as he came : "Oh, why didn't you wait. I've got such a 
 fine room. Cab out here," and so forth. He made a grab at her 
 valise and basket. She rose up and laid hold of her belongings 
 and calmly told him to take his hands off her belongings. She 
 had not asked him to secure rooms for her, and had given her no 
 chance to object to his proceedings. Therefore if he had such a 
 nice room engaged he could go and occupy it. He went out of 
 that car like a bean out of a popgun and his coattails flying. Peo- 
 ple sitting near looked up in wild-eyed surprise at the flurry, but 
 in a second had taken in the situation and the look of surprise 
 soon changed to one of amazement, especially four gentlemen in 
 front of her, who sat facing each other and apparently having a 
 very sociable time. By the time the drummer was out of the door 
 their shoulders were shaking with suppressed laughter and one 
 remarked in a stage whisper, "Very young, but not so green evi- 
 dently." Minnie was nearly 19, but looked younger. 
 
 She soon settled down for a nap and about midnight the 
 brakeman roused her to see the grand canyon by moonlight, as 
 the narrow gauge runs through the grand canyon, and that par- 
 ticular night happened to be one of those clear moonlight nights 
 like they usually are in mid-winter. The sight was truly grand 
 and she was very thankful to the brakeman for not letting her 
 miss it. A young girl sitting in the seat just behind her went into 
 raptures over it and in that way they got acquainted. Minnie 
 found she was returning home from boarding school, that her 
 parents lived near Salina, so that was her stopping place also. 
 The girl was well acquainted in town, even knew the porter 
 slightly that met the midnight trains. They both went to his hotel 
 which was only a few steps from where the train stopped, and 
 proved to be a very good one, cozily furnished and heated by fur- 
 
33 
 
 nace. The young lady did not wish to take a room, as her folks 
 would be in early for her, so Minnie decided to keep her company. 
 They inspected the bath room and found it very good and pro- 
 ceeded each to take one, and then cuddled up on the big easy 
 lounges in the parlor, where they rested well until 8 o'clock, and 
 then took a walk around town and had breakfast. Then the young 
 girl's people called for her and Minnie was left to pass the rest 
 of the day alone. She went back to the hotel, had another nap, 
 but a disturbed one, as the head chamber maid came in quite 
 often and took out linen from a closet behind the parlor door, also 
 to dust and tidy up the parlor. She was a very wicked looking 
 unintelligent woman, nevertheleess Minnie was so lonesome she 
 would have been glad even if she had talked a little to her, but 
 she paid no more attention to Minnie's presence than as if she 
 had been a piece of the furniture. The only discrimination she 
 showed was she didn't offer to dust Minnie along with the furni- 
 ture. Her indifference was more noticeable by Minnie, for where- 
 ver she went people paid her so much attention. When the gong 
 sounded for lunch she decided to eat at the hotel and proceeded 
 at once to the dining room. As she was descending the stairway 
 she noticed that two immense arches on either side made the din- 
 ing room, hall and office appear nearly like one immense room. 
 In the office part were three men, one evidently clerk, as he was 
 behind the counter, the others were tilted back in chairs smoking. 
 One sat facing the stairway, quite a nice looking man, 25 or 30 
 years old with a well bred air, and as soon as he noticed her com- 
 ing down the stairway he quickly brought his chair and feet on 
 a level with the floor, tipped the ash from his cigar and stared 
 quite rudely at her, but she thought it was only because she was 
 a stranger and likely he was the landlord, and not knowing she 
 was in the house, as she had not registered. It was more notice- 
 able as there were not many people around, it being a small quiet 
 place. After she ate her lunch she started to walk up to where 
 the clerk was to pay for her dinner, and the young man in the 
 chair jumped up and announced that he was the landlord and at 
 
34 
 
 her service, if there was anything she wanted. She said she only 
 wanted to pay for her dinner, and as she reached the top of the 
 stairway the jolly crowd was coming in for lunch. She glanced 
 down at them and saw that the landlord was standing just where 
 she had left him only looking up at her, and she said to herself : 
 "Well, you have very bad manners if you do look like a gentle- 
 man." She proceeded to the parlor, seated herself comfortably 
 in a big leather rocker by the bay window where she had a good 
 view of the landscape and what was going on outside. She soon 
 tired of that and decided to take another nap, as her train was not 
 due until 5 p. m., but just as she had come to that conclusion in 
 came Mr. Landlord, different and smiling, and proceeded to make 
 himself agreeable by pleasant conversation, finally veering around 
 to questions as to where she had started from, where she was 
 going, and a host of others, then proceeded to try and persuade 
 her to stay over Sunday in this little town, as this was Saturday. 
 He thought the rest would do her much good and he would be 
 delighted to show her what beautiful drives they had and other 
 show places of interest to travelers, but she wasn't to be persuaded 
 to doing anything of the kind, although he said all a stranger 
 could to make her stay, and repeated the question so many times 
 and finally looked and acted as though he might drop on his knees 
 and make love to her. She grew angry at that, said she was not 
 traveling for her health or pleasure on a ticket that allowed her 
 stopovers anywhere she saw fit, and as it was she was liable to 
 miss a wedding and Christmas festivities at her uncle's home 
 where she was going. Then as he saw that it was of no avail he 
 desisted in pleading for her to stay and said : "Well, if I cannot 
 persuade you to spend Sunday with us let me give you a fine din- 
 ner before you leave. We will order it early enough so that we 
 will have plenty of time to enjoy it before your train arrives. She 
 declined with thanks and said as she had eaten heartily at lunch 
 it would be too early to eat again before train time. "Oh, that 
 reminds me," he said, "that train will be at least an hour late. 
 There has been an accident up the road, but if you are determined 
 
35 
 
 to go I will send a porter to carry your valise, so don't go until he 
 comes after you." He had not been gone fifteen minutes from 
 the room until in came the chambermaid with the wicked face. 
 Now she was as "chipper" and talkative as she had been glum in 
 the morning. Fussed all round the room doing nothing and asked 
 Minnie all manner of questions and wound up by saying there 
 had been an accident up the road, and her train would be quite 
 late, so she better have a good dinner before starting out. Minnie 
 was feeling quite a suspicion of some kind of conspiracy by this 
 time, so as soon as the woman left the room she put on her wraps 
 and went down town, which was not far away, and bought some 
 fruit. Went into the depot and asked the ticket agent if there 
 had been a wreck and if the 5 o'clock train was delayed by it. He 
 was a heavy set, middle-aged man. He looked at her for several 
 seconds before answering and then said : "No, miss, not that I 
 know of, and I would know if anyone would. Why do you ask ?" 
 "I was informed at the hotel that there had been, and the 5 o'clock 
 train would be at least an hour late." His face grew angry red 
 and his eyes flashed as though he was thinking of some one he 
 would like to have by the neck long enough to give him a good 
 choking. Then he said to her very kindly : "There has been no 
 accident and your train will be here on time at 5 o'clock sharp, 
 and you be sure to be here to take it." As she stepped out of the 
 depot to go over to the hotel the landlord was pacing up and down 
 in front of it, but as soon as Minnie emerged from the depot he 
 turned and walked to the farthest end of the platform, so as not 
 to face her. The train was on time and so was the porter to carry 
 her valise. As she started to get on the train who should she 
 see standing on the platform of the sleeping car but the drummer 
 she had left "in the lovely room at Colorado Springs." So she 
 got into a day coach, as she didn't wish to be in the same car with 
 him. She was quite sure he was out there on purpose to see if 
 she was there to take the train. She made herself as comfortable 
 in the day coach as possible, and all went well until midnight, 
 when the train stopped at a junction in the mountains. Quite a 
 
36 
 
 crowd of people boarded the train here and many that had been 
 occupying two seats had to give them up. Minnie was among 
 the number. She removed her belongings from the seat in front 
 of her, touched a man on the elbow that was standing in the aisle 
 near her and told him if he would like the seat over he could have 
 it. The next morning this same man commenced talking to her 
 and continued to keep the conversation up all day, and sometimes 
 his companion joined in. He finally grew tired of sitting side- 
 ways and talking, so after walking around a while the train 
 stopped at a station, he came in and asked permission to sit in her 
 seat. Thinking he would only sit there a little while she gave her 
 permission, as she did not want to appear rude, although she did 
 not especially care for his company, as she didn't like his looks, 
 although he claimed to be a teacher ; also his friend that was with 
 him, and they looked like men of some such profession, but the 
 one doing the talking did not impress Minnie in either looks or 
 conversation as being a very good man, and it annoyed her ex- 
 ceedingly when he persisted in retaining a seat with her the rest 
 of the day, and finally trying to persuade her to stop over at Salt 
 Lake City, as she might never be passing that way again, and he 
 and his friend would be glad to show her the city. She told him 
 that she had heard and read such terrible stories about the Mor- 
 mon fathers that she had no desire whatever to set foot in their 
 city, much less to go on a tour of sight-seeing with utter strangers, 
 who for ought she knew might be an agent of theirs. This made 
 the man's face blaze and he protested strongly and repeated that 
 he and his friend were teachers, traveling a little during their 
 vacation for recreation and had decided to put most of the time 
 in at Salt Lake City, and then return to work again. They were 
 then only a few stops from the city. At one place they both went 
 out and the one that had not said much soon came back in and 
 remarked that he thought she would be very tired sitting still so 
 long and asked permission to hand her a drink of water and then 
 take her out for a short promenade before the train would start 
 again. A feeling of distrust flashed over Minnie and she declined 
 
37 
 
 his offer very shortly. They did not come back in the car then, 
 until Salt Lake City was reached, and then only to get their lug- 
 gage and bid her a polite farewell. 
 
 There had been a young man sitting just back of Minnie. He 
 had talked with her awhile soon after she had got on the train 
 the evening before. He was a blacksmith by trade, but had been 
 very sick with some fever and was going to California for awhile. 
 He wasn't so refined in manner and speech as the other men, but 
 he evidently was a more honorable one in character. He didn't 
 like the looks of these other men that monopolized Minnie's atten- 
 tion all day, so paid attention to their conversation as much as 
 possible and never left the car himself, and when these men were 
 leaving the car at Salt Lake City he gave a rather boisterous 
 laugh. She turned to see what he was laughing at. He leaned 
 towards her and said : 
 
 "If those guys had tried to get you off the car in any way 
 they would have found themselves in the liveliest mix-up they 
 ever heard of. I don't think they are teachers, either, but make 
 a business of traveling around the country enticing young girls 
 to go to Salt Lake City or other places. They would turn out to 
 be anything but good. That fellow put something in that cup of 
 water before offering it to you. I was watching him and would 
 have knocked him, cup and all clear out of the car door had you 
 offered to take the cup, but as you was equal to the occasion there 
 was no need for me to interfere. I would hate to have a girl like 
 you give me a look like you gave that fellow as you refused that 
 cup of water. I bet he thought you saw him put that dope in the 
 cup, but I know you didn't, as you were not looking at him the 
 moment he did. I guess you'll get along all right. Your head 
 is level and too full of good common sense to listen to flattery. 
 A common trap such men use to trap girls with. That fellow 
 aimed to get you to drink that doped water, then go out to walk 
 around with him. You would have fainted, or that is what they 
 would have called it, and claimed you as his wife or sister while 
 you were unconscious. They would not have taken you back in 
 
38 
 
 the train, but instead would have placed you where you would 
 have been at their mercy." 
 
 That evening when the train was only a short dis- 
 tance from Salt Lake City their train ran into an open 
 switch and was wrecked. Fortunately no one was hurt but 
 the engineer, and he not seriously, as he jumped at the last 
 moment. The engine was a complete wreck and rolled over in a 
 big ditch beside the track. The baggage car was off the track 
 and badly smashed up. The mail car was off the track, but not 
 otherwise damaged. All the passenger coaches were left on the 
 track, consequently no one hurt, but Minnie was just in the act 
 of yawning and the sudden jerking caused her to bite her tongue. 
 After waiting an hour or more the railroad company sent out some 
 freight car cabooses and took the passengers on to Ogden. There 
 were so many and only two or three cabooses they had to pack 
 the people in as tight as sardines in a box. The most of them had 
 to stand up. The caboose Minnie was in they had a red-hot stove 
 in the middle of the car, and of course every one crowded back 
 as far as possible from the stove. Not only was it uncomfortably 
 warm, but there was danger of being thrown on the stove if the 
 car should lurch enough to throw one off their feet. Minnie was 
 among others next to the door, in fact crowded back in a corner 
 till she could hardly breathe, and behind her was someone else 
 jammed so tight in the corner he could not get out, and as the 
 people kept crowding against her it pushed her unblushingly close 
 to the man behind her in the corner. She looked around to see 
 who he might be and lo and behold it was the drummer. She won- 
 dered if he wasn't thinking of the lovely rooms in Colorado 
 Springs. He looked so dreamy the climax was too much for her 
 sense of humor and a tantalizing laugh escaped her. That caused 
 the drummer to look as though he wished the bottom of the car 
 would drop out, his corner of it anyway. And that was the last 
 time she ever got a glimpse of him. The supposition is he took 
 a different route out from Ogden to make sure of not meeting 
 the little girl again; drummers are a jolly set generally, but I 
 
39 
 
 don't fancy any of them would care to be laughed at by a little 
 green looking country girl. 
 
 Fortunately it did not take long to run down to Ogden, then 
 she was soon settled in a comfortable bed and next morning felt 
 greatly refreshed, and was on her way again by 9 o'clock. She 
 soon found herself surrounded by more congenial traveling com- 
 panions, a party of legislators accompanied by their wives and 
 daughters. There were also several young men in the party, 
 two or three older men that were not legislators. One Minnie 
 ascertained was general passenger agent for the road they were 
 traveling over. They were a jolly party and time flew pleasantly 
 by with such good company. The ladies especially were very 
 kind to Minnie because she was traveling alone and was a little 
 young. 
 
 As this was the day before Christmas and she had expected 
 to be at her journey's end before that time, but as yet was a long 
 ways from her destination. Christmas eve they all had to change 
 cars at Pueblo, but there was no train out till after 1 o'clock, and 
 when there was one the heating apparatus of the day coaches 
 was out of order, so was cold, so the married people retired to the 
 sleeping car, but all the young people remained up and had a gay 
 time, and the conductor joined the party whenever he had time, 
 and next morning after the legislative party reached their desti- 
 nation in Idaho he took Minnie in the sleeping car, as it was too 
 cold in the day coach, and he proceeded to devote every spare 
 moment he had off duty. He was a little insignificant looking 
 man and proved as insignificant as he looked. She soon tired of 
 his conversation and would pretend to be asleep when she knew 
 he was coming through the car. Her possum trick afforded con- 
 siderable amusement for a young man across the aisle from her. 
 She got tired of feigning sleep, and the conductor popping in 
 sudden like found her eyes open, stopped to say a few words, but 
 could not sit down then, but said he would soon have time to rest 
 again, as much as to say he hoped she wouldn't go to sleep again. 
 The young man across the aisle heard what he said and saw how 
 
40 
 
 bored she looked, so he asked permission to sit by her and talk. 
 He proved a delightful change compared to the little insipid con- 
 ductor. He was a business man from Portland, a jewelryman, I 
 believe, a fine looking young man and acted like a perfect gentle- 
 man. When the conductor came through the car next time and 
 found him sitting by Minnie how he did scowl. It seemed to 
 greatly amuse the young man, so he retained the seat till the con- 
 ductor's time for a rest was up and he was again busy. Then 
 the young man left to talk to others in the car, but about the time 
 Mr. Conductor was due for another rest he came back and talked 
 awhile, and in that way relieved her of the conductor's presence 
 the rest of the day. Early in the day the conductor had ascertained 
 the number of people that would like to have a good Christmas 
 dinner, as this day was Christmas, then telegraphed ahead to some 
 woman that kept a nice little restaurant in a small town where 
 the train stopped long enough to allow passengers to get a meal. 
 As everyone else in the car was going Minnie finally decided to 
 accept the conductor's invitation, but expected to go with the 
 crowd and pay for her own meal, but when they reached the place 
 the conductor was on hand to escort her and head the procession 
 up town. The young man was not to be outdone, as he walked 
 at her right, so she had two escorts, but the dining room was a 
 small one and some one had to wait, so they compelled the con- 
 ductor to be the unlucky one. So Minnie and the young man ate 
 Christmas dinner together, minus Mr. Conductor, and the rest of 
 the day and evening he was too busy to have any more rests, but 
 after everyone in the car had retired he came to Minnie's berth, 
 it being an end one, opened the curtain and chided her for going 
 to bed so early because he wanted to talk to her. Even asked her 
 to get up and come into the part he used as an office. She ordered 
 him out and to be quick about it. Then he wanted to kiss her 
 and offered to do so. She slapped him in the face and told him 
 to be gone that instant or she would scream. At that there was 
 a movement in the berth next to hers, so Mr. Conductor made an 
 exit very quickly and returned no more, and next morning who 
 
4i 
 
 should turn out of the berth next her own but the young man 
 before mentioned. He evidently expected she would need protec- 
 tion during the night, so had taken a berth near her. While the 
 majority of men both of high and low degree are scoundrels, thank 
 God we yet have a goodly number that are good and noble. 
 
 The next morning they arrived in Portland and at noon 
 Minnie reached her destination, where she found two uncles anx- 
 iously awaiting her arrival. p , . 
 
 The brief sketch of Minnie's life so far and the few incidents 
 are given to show she was a good sensible woman and wholly 
 undeserving of the evil treatment she received in the following 
 years. She had learned to almost reverence the aunt to whose 
 home she was going to in Albany, Oregon. She had not seen 
 the aunt since she was quite young, but the aunt had been so good 
 and kind to her mother in many ways, taking the place of a 
 mother to her whenever she had an opportunity, as their mother 
 died when they were quite young, and later in life after the aunt 
 had married a well to do man in Oregon, she sent many nice and 
 useful gifts to Minnie's mamma and the children that were greatly 
 needed and appreciated. In fact she sent them so much it endeared 
 her in the minds of the children, and Minnie especially felt she 
 could never do enough to repay her kindness, consequently when 
 she arrived at her aunt's home and found her husband was not 
 prepared to furnish her a home and she would have to board at 
 the hotel with him, she yielded to her aunt's persuasion to stay 
 with him till he got a home ready. As her aunt was complaining 
 a great deal and Minnie felt that now was the time to do some- 
 thing in return for the aunt's kindness, as there were many days 
 the aunt was bedfast, so Minnie took charge of the house on such 
 times and at all times done most of the real work and took an 
 interest in the management of the household as though it was for 
 her mother, or even her own, with the result her aunt was so well 
 pleased she could hardly talk of anything else, and in writing to 
 a younger sister, Mrs. Anna Flint, of Wabash, Ind., her letters 
 were full of praise of Minnie. This younger sister had three girls 
 
42 
 
 of her own, and one son, and she was very ambitious that they 
 should make a great and shining mark in the world, but they were 
 not wealthy but much better situated financially than Minnie's 
 mother and a stronger and healthier woman, but the very oppo- 
 site in disposition, being sour, cranky, selfish and very jealous 
 in more ways than of her husband, but he, good-natured old soul, 
 came in for a goodly share of that, but he didn't seem to pay much 
 attention to it. Consequently when she received letters from her 
 sister Mary in Oregon so full of praise for Minnie the green- 
 eyed monster got the best of her, as her sister was by that time 
 wealthy and no children of her own, Mrs. Flinn preferred to have 
 her own daughters stand highest in her Sister Mary's estimation 
 for the sake of what she could give them while she lived, and also 
 make them her heirs. While Minnie arrived in Albany in Decem- 
 ber this Mrs. Flinn with two of her daughters arrived the follow- 
 ing first of June and remained till the latter part of September, 
 and Minnie soon saw that Mrs. Flinn's coming boded evil for 
 her, and it proved many times worse than she could even imag- 
 ine. The aunt Mary was sick much of the time all summer and 
 that gave them a chance to do much mischief. For instance, they 
 would hover over the aunt Mary and do a little waiting on her, 
 but would not do a hand's turn to assist Minnie with the drudgery 
 and yet she found out later they claimed to Mary they were doing 
 all the work in the kitchen, and in reality all they did was to watch 
 Minnie and study up something to find fault about her, and even 
 resorted to lies. Minnie soon saw such a change in her aunt 
 Mary she decided to keep her eyes and ears open and try to find 
 out the cause. She had a good idea, but she was determined to 
 make sure. So she overheard their conversation many times, but 
 her aunt Mary being sick so much and as she was at a critical age, 
 Minnie determined not to desert her too much, for the special 
 reason that the aunt Mary's mind was not as clear at all times as 
 it had been, a common occurrence with many women at her age. 
 She could notice it herself, and many, many times said to Minnie 
 she feared she would loose her mind so completely she might have 
 
43 
 
 to be sent to Salem. For that reason Minnie endured much and 
 tried to keep the machinery of that household so well oiled every- 
 thing would run smoothly and be no clashing to disturb the aunt 
 Mary, with the hope that she would come out of her sickness with 
 her mind as clear and bright as ever. But Mrs. Flinn and her 
 daughter were as determined to cause trouble as Minnie was to 
 avoid it and of course there soon came a time when patience ceased 
 to be a virtue, and Minnie went to her uncle and told him how 
 they had been deceiving Aunt Mary and maligning her. He had 
 noticed a good deal himself, so was not much surprised, but very 
 angry. Minnie packed up her belongings and wrote her husband 
 to get a house to go to housekeeping again, supposing after nine 
 months he would have enough laid up to start on anyway. But 
 he had not. Pool playing, cards and women had got it, for he 
 drew a good salary. Well, in her dilemma Minnie asked her uncle 
 Perry to loan her a hundred dollars for ninety days to buy a few 
 necessary things to commence housekeeping with. 
 
 When they found out she borrowed money of the uncle they 
 threw up their hands in horror and proceeded to poison the wife's 
 mind against the husband solely to injure Minnie in her estima- 
 tion for all time, and they succeeded, but that was not the worst 
 effect from their evil work. They poisoned that sick woman's 
 mind with those evil suggestions and from thinking evil of others 
 sank to evil doing herself in time. Had Mrs. Flinn been a good 
 Christian woman, like she posed as being then, she would have 
 given that sister beautiful thoughts that would have soared heav- 
 enward, and in the light and power of God's love that brain might 
 have cleared. I pity Mrs. Flinn when she stands before the judg- 
 ment seat of God. She wrecked a beautiful home and brought 
 heart-breaking sorrow to an aged man that was deserving of good 
 treatment. She done all that lay in her power to wreck the char- 
 acter of her dead sister's child in the estimation of all the child 
 held most dear, but Minnie's faith in God's love and mercy never 
 weakened and she said if there is a just God in heaven he will 
 punish that woman and some day she will be brought forth and 
 
44 
 
 shown up in her true colors. Many years have passed since she 
 did that foul thing, and her punishment on earth has already been 
 great. Immediately on returning home she was afflicted with ter- 
 rible sickness in her head, nearly went crazy herself and about 
 the same time her husband was taken sick, was compelled to have 
 an operation on his skull. A big expense and no income of the 
 precious metal she would barter her soul for. She had one daugh- 
 ter that wasn't considered as bright as the oldest daughter, Emma 
 Jane. After they were so afflicted with sickness they kept her 
 home to do the work. The father was unable to work for such 
 a long time Emma Jane, her pride, and the one she was so ambi- 
 tious to have so highly educated and wanted her to be the Aunt 
 Mary's heiress, and so forth, had to quit school and go to dress- 
 making to earn money to help support the family. Very soon the 
 one at home, the drudge, took some fever and died after a long 
 illness that caused a big bill. Then Emma Jane had to leave the 
 sewing room to go home to work in the kitchen, got discouraged, 
 married a farmer, had two children, then died and left them for 
 her mother to care for. The one boy of the family that was as 
 the apple of his mother's eye, and she had hoped great things for 
 him, ran away with a circus, was gone a year. She never heard 
 from him till he came back to die, and did so in a few months of 
 consumption. The last account Minnie had of Mrs. Flinn's trou- 
 bles she was at loggerheads with her sister, Mary, so that put an 
 end to her hopes of gain there, for either herself or surviving 
 child, but Mrs. Flinn was not alone in her evil work of ruining 
 her sister's home. Her brother, Harmon, had a hand in the game 
 against Minnie, but for his own benefit and while he and his fam- 
 ily have profited well financially in the pasing years that's all they 
 will get, judging from the information a detective secured long 
 before Mary applied for a divorce. She was greatly enamoured 
 with a little weizened-up libertine. Not only was the detective in 
 possession of horrible facts, but a great many times the facts of 
 the condition of affairs was made evident to neighbors. One 
 neighbor went to Mary's house after lunch to deliver a beautiful 
 
45 
 
 rose a friend had asked her to kindly deliver for her, and she 
 could get no response to her repeated knocking- at the door. She 
 stepped back in her own house and sat down in her bay window 
 to sew, and was in full view of Mary's house. In a very few 
 moments after she had settled down to her sewing along comes 
 this little libertine and apparently did not stop to rap, but walked 
 right in. Perhaps some one was watching and had the door wide 
 open for him to enter. The neighbor said now is my chance. She 
 is in now. I'll take the rose right over before it wilts any. It's 
 such a beauty. Well, she rapped and waited ; no response ; rapped 
 again very loud ; no response. She knew Mary was in the house, 
 so also was the man, so she repeated the rapping and also shook 
 the door. She jammed the rose down in the ground by the door 
 and left it and never set foot in her doorway again. Such results 
 their wicked work has wrought certainly will be anything but 
 pleasant thoughts for Mrs. Flinn and Harmon to dwell on in their 
 old days. Harmon's idea was to get the management of Mary's 
 money after she secured a divorce. 
 
 Well, so wags the world, but those that take delight in dig- 
 ging such pits for some one else to fall in should remember that 
 eventually they will trip and go down in the pit themselves, and 
 the ones they have tried so hard to ruin often will be elevated by 
 the dirt they have thrown up in digging the pit. 
 
 The way events veered round in Minnie's life proves the 
 statement. We will go back over her life to the point where she 
 left her aunt's home to go to housekeeping, for two or three 
 years of her life was made miserable by this selfish and jealous 
 dispositioned man. Add to that his chagrin because she ob- 
 jected to him running a saloon. Finally they moved to a larger 
 city. He took a man with him, intending to go into the business 
 anyway; but she soon got an inkling of what they were up to 
 and read them both such a lecture it scared the little man that 
 had the money so bad that he disappeared at once. So that put 
 a stop to the business for a while; but her husband was deter- 
 mined to have a saloon. He secured a good job, got big wages, 
 
46 
 
 and went to saving up for the business, and in the meantime 
 treated her scandalous in many ways, and at last, when she saw 
 he would eventually go into the business in spite of her, she left 
 him, but not till she had prayed long and fervently over the 
 matter, and from then on would work from early till late, and 
 made short work of getting ready to leave. And never a doubt 
 or regret came in her heart then or after, and at that time she 
 belonged to no church either. She went back to her father's 
 home and stayed for several years with heart and health broken. 
 But when she first left he circulated the report that she had left 
 him for another man that had wealth, as though wealth was the 
 all important part considered, which was an untruth, as he found 
 to his sorrow later. When he fully realized he had lost her for- 
 ever, and that he loved her better than he knew till it was too late 
 to recall her, it took all thought of saloon business out of him, 
 and his thoughts and ambitions settled on an idea that had come 
 to him while at work for a certain invention that later he pat- 
 ented and made a fortune with it, and in less than three years 
 from the time she left he was offered $50,000 for the use of his 
 patent just in Alaska. He would not have realized that much 
 from the profits of a dozen saloons in that short time in the place 
 where he intended to commence. 
 
 After a few years Minnie married again, this time in a family 
 that were enthusiastic prohibition workers from the oldest to the 
 youngest, and all teachers or preachers, and sometimes both ; but 
 they were not rich. The difference in the two elements was very 
 great, and she enjoyed the latter much more than all the wealth 
 the first could ever have accumulated. She lived among them four 
 years ; then she was compelled to return to Oregon for her health, 
 and again she was made to suffer agonies indescribable by the 
 meanness of a few jealous and extremely selfish people, and at 
 last, when the last straw that breaks the camel's back was added, 
 her uncle came to her, and told her how things were going in his 
 home, and that things had come to such a pass, and no fault of 
 his, either, he would have to make arrangements for someone to 
 
47 
 
 take care of him in his old days, as his wife cared for naught 
 but to get all the money she could and get away. He had but 
 one daughter and no sons living, and this daughter had several 
 noisy and mischievous youngsters, so he could not think of going 
 to their home, and it was the same with the only grandchildren 
 that were married, and those that were not married were too 
 rattle-brained to be depended on to take proper care of them- 
 selves even. So he arranged with Minnie to help her financially 
 while he lived, and make sure she would receive her reward for 
 her work, and to place her under obligations to him so he could 
 feel sure of some one to take care of him in his last days. So 
 at last Minnie received unasked and very much unexpected just 
 what her enemies had tried to keep from her, as they had plotted 
 to ruin him completely and get every dollar the old gentleman 
 had; and as it was they would not have got what they did if it 
 had not been for Minnie. She finally advised him to give his wife 
 a plenty to make her comfortable if she would use it carefully, 
 and let her go, as she was just as worthy as some of his other 
 heirs by his first wife. Then, perhaps, they would let him be 
 in peace. If some men had been in his shoes they would have 
 put the wife in the insane asylum and some others in state's 
 prison, and none of them would have got hold of a dollar of his 
 money. 
 
 In reviewing her life Minnie often wondered why she had 
 been afflicted with so much trouble in so many different ways 
 when she tried so hard to be kind and helpful to all around her ; 
 and some she had helped the most treated her worst in her time 
 of need. This was the severest trial of all. But there had been 
 a time after her second marriage when she came into this family 
 of very active Christians, the Lord placed her near a field of His 
 that she could have labored in, and perhaps accomplished a great 
 deal of good to His glory. The field meant was a little neighbor- 
 hood with a church different from her denomination. That fact 
 added to the immoral condition among several families that at- 
 tended this church, and especially a bunch of giddy girls that 
 
4 8 
 
 went to church only for pastime and amusement. Minnie had no 
 patience with them, or knew she would not, so did not attempt 
 to help or hinder them. She had kept herself good and pure 
 through some rough places ; had seen much trouble, but had come 
 out with a cool head, and had remained pure and good and knew 
 it, and had no patience with silly, rattle-brained girls, conse- 
 quently never pulled a weed out of that rough field so close at 
 hand. Then gradually her health slipped away, and the Lord 
 gave her some harder lessons to learn in the schoolroom we call 
 the world. And a few years later, when she was again review- 
 ing her life that had past, the Lord made it plain to her that she 
 had needed just such trials and troubles to fit her for the work 
 He wanted her to do. And now that she has been brought to a 
 realization of the actual conditions and great need of Christ-like 
 Christian work, right at our very doors, she intends to pull weeds 
 or plow for Jesus' sake the rest of her life, and can sing with 
 the Psalmist of old. 
 
 Psalm XXIII. David's Confidence in God's Grace. A 
 Psalm of David. 
 
 The Lord is my shepherd ; I shall not want. 
 
 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures ; he leadeth me 
 beside the still waters. 
 
 He restoreth my soul ; he leadeth me in the paths of right- 
 eousness for his name's sake. 
 
 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of 
 death, I will fear no evil : for thou art with me ; thy rod and thy 
 staff they comfort me. 
 
 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine 
 enemies ; thou anointest my head with oil ; my cup runneth over. 
 
 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my 
 life : and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. 
 

Dinuer 
 Gaylord Bros. Inc. 
 
 Makers 
 Stockton, Calif.