In the meanwhile the dive-proprietors were searching for the girls. No one suspected Mrs. Wilson or me. In fact, those dive-keepers had not regarded me as any more than an ordinary visitor that night of my introduction to their dance-halls, and had not noticed the girl speaking to me.
Before they left B——, the following article came out as an editorial in one of the leading daily papers. It appeared on the morning of March 23, 1906.
HOW GIRLS ARE LURED TO DANCE-HALLS.
The general interest in the efforts to better the conditions of the fallen women, make timely a rough outline of the methods by which girls are lured into the haunts of vice, and kept there until they have lost all power or desire to escape and win their way back to decency and respectability. It is not pretended that this line is accurate, or that it fits any particular case, but the information on which it is based is gained from what are believed to be reliable sources, and it is not likely to be misleading: if applied in a general way.
HOW GIRLS ARE LURED.
In the first place, of course, no girl that has not made some misstep or committed some indiscretion, could be enticed to a dance-hall or kept there for a moment if it were possible to get her inside its doors. But in every city or village in the country there are persons in the guise of men [yes, and women also] who are actively interested in helping girls to make the first misstep. These scouts and envoys of infamy are at the public dances; they waylay waitresses and working girls who are struggling to keep themselves on wages that are insufficient for their actual needs of food and clothing.
They get into the confidence of these girls, and sometimes when they are "down on their luck" or when they have committed some act that makes them ashamed to look their family or their employers in the face, these men come in the name of friendship and promise to find the overworked and underpaid girl, or the indiscreet girl, a place where she can earn money fast and earn it easily.
* * * * *
THE DANCE-HALL LIFE.
As a usual thing the girls are taken to some place in another town where they are not acquainted. This suits the girl, because she does not want to meet her acquaintances, and it suits the man, because it gives him greater security in his evil transaction. The girl is nearly always penniless at this stage, and the man advances the money for the railroad ticket and the necessary food. The first act that lures the girl to the dance-hall is disguised as an act of friendship, and the first bond that is placed on her to keep her there is the bond of gratitude and obligation. In addition to that, where would she go if she did not like her first glimpse of the dance-hall, an ignorant, friendless girl in a strange town?