"Two of the girls were deeply touched by what I said to them. I spoke of the wrong influence of some kind of home life.
"'You're right, lady. That's so. It was that way with me. I was started wrong, and everybody helped to grease the hill I was sliding down, and I soon reached the bottom.'
"The girls are decoyed by some man friend, who has so compromised the girl that she feels she is being shunned, to the house of a 'kind woman who will protect her.' She is ruined. She begins smoking and drinking and soon unless she takes great care of herself, she is sent from a first-class house to a second class, then a third class, then lower and lower, until she ends in some vile dance-hall, compared to which the orthodox hell is a paradise. Five years altogether Is the average life in this business.
NO-SCREEN LAW.
"One thing I found here that I have found nowhere else, and that is the rigid enforcement of the no-screen law. Everything was open. I shall speak of it in other places. And then the law forbidding the sale of spirituous liquors means so much to the girls, the poor, poor girls, who are so bitter against the whole world, and who are suspicious of every woman.
"A barkeeper asked me, lady, what are you doing in a place like this?'
"'I am here to do some good if I can. I am a mother.'
"'Well,' he replied, 'this is no place for decent people.'
"Just then a rough-looking customer spoke up, 'Don't you leave because he wants you to. Do all the good you can'
"I am afraid some of the girls thought I was there out of mere vulgar curiosity. No, indeed. I have seen the worst places in the State, I have visited the girls, talked with them, eaten with them, and praise God, have helped some of them to do better."